Leaves down my shirt
When I was in kindergarten a group of bullies took some dead leaves, crushed them up, and threw them down the back of my shirt. Although I tried my best to shake them out, small pieces clung to the inside of my shirt for the rest of the day. The itchy fragments left me with a constant reminder of the bullying I had been forced to endure. Although I put on a brave face not wanting to let the bullies know how they had affected me, by the time I arrived home I was on the brink of tears. All it took was my mom asking how my day went, and I finally lost my composure. Sobbing I stammered, "They...threw...leaves...down...my...shirt." She hugged me and helped me pick out a new shirt so that I could finally move on from the discomfort and sadness of both the actual bullying and its aftermath.
There are times in our life when people figuratively throw leaves down our shirts. Their hurtful actions or words stick to us and scrape at our backs. Try as we might, it seems like we will never get rid of all the fragments of our hurt or disappointment. This week I had one of those experiences.
Friday started off rather well. The remodel going on at my retirement home progressed nicely in the day that I had been away at corporate meetings. The new walls were up and primed, the brand new heating and cooling units were installed and working correctly, and the plaster on the new ceiling was finally completed. Content at the progress we were making, I went to my office and found an email from the president of my company congratulating me on our recent financial statements. We didn't lose nearly as much money as we have in months past, and with the changes we implemented this month we anticipate that for the first time in 2 years we will finally break even in about 2-3 months. I felt good knowing that despite making many cutbacks we were also making improvements. In addition to the remodeling going on in the commons areas we also added a new salad bar and buffet which gave the residents much more variety and choice during meal times.
It was during this moment of self-congratulation that an employee asked me if I had seen the note that Ed had left on the bulletin board. Knowing Ed, and knowing this couldn't be good I rushed over to find a 2 page unsigned letter. Most paragraphs started with bold capital letters "TWO THUMBS DOWN" and somewhere in the middle my name (spelled incorrectly, SHAWN) would also appear in capitals talking about how unresponsive I was as a manager. The letter included comparisons to both Scrooge and Nazi Germany. I quickly found that it wasn't on just one bulletin board, but on all the bulletin boards, and stacks had been left at the front desk for dispersal to all the residents.
My major offenses included not consulting the residents with respect to the layoffs in the dining room, removing 2 faux fireplaces and replacing them with 2 two-ton heating and cooling units, moving the television to a smaller room, and not providing enough heat to the building. Lost on this resident were the facts that the layoffs were there to save his home from financial destruction, that for the first time we had both heating AND cooling in these common areas, and that it was probably our more liberal use of the heat than had previously been the custom there that had led to the boiler breaking down that one day. It was promptly fixed the next day. He also didn't mention that the restructuring of the dining services actually added a Sunday evening dinner which had been absent from the schedule for decades. No more will they have to eat the same sack meals of ham and cheese sandwiches every week. Why couldn't he see the good I was doing? If he did have complaints, why didn't he bring them up in the twice monthly town hall style meetings that I hold?
Friday night after hanging out with friends, I couldn't sleep. Instead, I went back into work at 11pm. As I walked the quiet halls of the community, I tried to push my own pride aside. I thought of the residents and their perspective. Since officially becoming the administrator in December, I have completely disrupted their lives. They didn't ask for the remodel. This was their home and I ripped it apart. I changed their routines, took away their favorite places to sit, changed how their meals are prepared, and even got rid of their friends in the way of employee layoffs. Since I arrived I have done nothing but throw leaves down their shirts. Why should I be surprised that somebody threw some back?
I know the changes were necessary. If I ran it the way they wanted, everything would stay the same and we would not stay in business for long. It didn't take away my hurt or change my mind about what needs to be done, but it did help take away some of the leaf fragments from my shirt. I won't lie. Some are still there. The thought of going to work tomorrow feels like putting on the itchy shirt again, but it's probably good that I remember that my residents' backs are itchy too. I need to do all I can to help minimize their discomfort too. Somehow we'll get through this together. Besides, this is all probably because I didn't give Ed that jukebox he asked for.
2 comments:
Oh, Shaun! I've had times like that, too. The worst was when a student wrote a review of me that was full of half-truths and made me look like a bumbling fool. She claimed I had come to class without powerpoints (the computer had broken that day and I'd spent the first five minutes of class frantically figuring out a replacement) and that I'd canceled class because I got engaged, something a real professor would never do (no, I canceled class because my grandmother turned 90 so I went home to surprise her-- and ironically all of my professors had canceled class that same day, too!)... I was so upset when I read everything she'd written I cried.
I did talk to my mentor about it all, and I loved what he said-- "Alanna, if you're not pissing off at least one of your students, you're probably not doing your job." But I still feel angry and hurt when I remember it all.
Being a parent is better and worse. Your kids are rarely so sneaky about being angry at you (at least, the four and under crowd isn't-- they probably get worse as they get older) and I'm usually fairly confident that whatever mean thing I'm doing is for a good purpose. But that doesn't mean that I always enjoy a small person screaming at me in fury because I told him he could not wear his Batman pajamas to church...
Good luck at work! I think it sounds like you're doing a great job!
This is such a great post. It's hard to put yourself in somebody else's place when you're being attacked. It's a lot easier to just feel like the victim.
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