Spent 5 hours today at work listening to various webinars on our hospice data entry system. Most of the material was just a refresher for me since I’ve been working in Hospice for 8 years now….but I did learn a few new things. Mostly I sat and doodled sunflowers on a piece of paper and practiced writing my new last name Swanson so that the S looked like a Swan. LOL At one point I counted how many times the instructor said the word tasks (86 times in an hour seminar) and cracked jokes occasionally to keep my co-workers awake. The main theme of the seminars though was all about improving efficiency in our documentation and processes so that we would have more time for patient care and so nothing would “fall through the cracks”. Other than the word tasks, I think that every other sentence seemed to be about not letting anything fall through the cracks.
I remember when I was a little girl in Mesquite Texas we had a house with a cement porch. The steps had pulled away from the porch a little bit and that crack was a source of many frustrations. As you sat on the top step the crack was right at your feet and I lost many a thing down that darn crack. I often wished I could somehow pry the step away from the porch and retrieve several jacks and balls, a multitude of coins and more than a couple of flip flops. It was just wide enough for things to easily fall into the crack, but not wide enough to get your hand down in it to retrieve it. Once I got a flashlight and peered down into the crack and saw all the change that had made its way down there and tried unsuccessfully to retrieve enough quarters to buy an Archie Comic book and a cupcake and a dr pepper by putting a wad of bubble gum on a stick and poking it into the hole. Lots of things fell into the crack, but not through the cracks.
I remember being quite impressed as an adult one day when my former father in law whipped out a long handled thing a ma jig with a claw on the end and used it to retrieve things that fell into the cracks of the deck by his pool. Lots of swim goggles and sunscreen bottles and sunglasses found their way into those cracks. Once he even used the claw thingee to pull a garden snake out of the crack much to the delight of the grandkids. If only I had had one of those things when I was a kid.
I delighted my co-workers with crack stories in between moments of actual listening. The favorite was the story I told of a friend who had gone to a party at a friends house, drank way too much, gone inside to use the restroom, ended up laying down on the bed in the master bedroom to just “rest his eyes” for a minute and woke up in the middle of the night in the crack between the bed and wall and was unable to get out of it without freaking out the homeowner couple who were in the bed and having a “frisky moment”. True story! He just went back to sleep and when he was sure they were fast asleep scooted to the end of the crack and made an escape.
I always check motel rooms when the bed is against a wall because that’s usually where you find things when you do that one more check of the room thing. Like the pillow you brought from home, or your phone charger still plugged into the outlet in the crack because they never have enough outlets where you can access them easily.
And then there are the cracks in the car. You know the ones where you finally clean out your car and start pulling candy wrappers and Kleenex and ink pens out of the space between your seat and the console. My moms old car had a crack (a space actually) between the cd player and the radio where the cd player didn’t quite fit the hole. The crack was the exact same size as a disc and I remember my kids losing more than one cd in mema’s cd hole when they put it in the crack instead of the slot for the cd. Someone probably salvaged that car out at some point and found the cd of Animaniacs and the Hanson Brothers nestled inside the dashboard.
Once when I was working for the Marketing company I had someone that I had hired to do a reset in Lowes on the sinks bail out on me at the last minute. So I drove to the store with my tool bag to do the reset myself. All was going well until I realized that I would have to get between the shelves to put the sinks in the display since they were displayed flat on a wall and not like you would actually use them. So I wedged myself in to the “crack” and began to fasten the sinks in one by one until I had them all in place. Then I realized that I had not left myself a way out of the crack. I should have worked from the far end back so that I would be on the outer end of the crack between the shelves when I put the last sink in place on the wall. Instead I had done just the opposite and between me and the opening I had gone through to do the job were 4 or 5 sink basins. Unfortunately, the opposite end of the space was blocked by and end cap and so I was trapped, exhausted, claustrophobic and a little freaked out knowing that the store would be closing soon and not knowing if anyone knew I was still there. I stood and waitied for what seemed like an eternity for a clerk to walk by so I could tell them of my predicament and see if they could figure out a way to get me out without having to undo several hours of my work. But no one came. And so I unscrewed the biggest sink, pushed it thru the hole and let it fall loudly onto the aisle and climbed out the hole just as a customer with a small child rounded the corner. Luckily no one was hurt though the manager was a little aggravated because it was closing time and there was a big hole where a sink should have been in his sink display. I promised to come back the next day and start over again but he took pity on me and told me he’d have one of his guys fix it during the night time restocking. I learned a lesson that day. Now everytime we go to Lowes I walk by the sink aisle and peer between it and the next aisle to see if anyone is trapped behind. LOL
But back to letting things fall through the crack...sometimes you have to make lists to keep from letting things fall through the cracks…usually on my list are things that wouldn’t be earth shattering…take the movie back to Redbox, set the hamburger meat out to thaw, get quarters for the Laundromat. If they fall through the crack in the course of a busy day its not that big of a deal. The things that I try hard to not let fall through the crack are things like sending birthday cards, or getting a mammogram every year or telling Joe how much I love and appreciate him on a regular basis. Sometimes there are things that didn’t really fall by the wayside but are simply being put on the back burner. Guess the back burner isn’t as important as the front burner…but that’s a whole other blog to think about writing…..for me that includes find a Church, writing more often, and seeking out some comedy opportunities. Mostly those are on the “back burner” because there is so much new stuff on my burners to keep up with. And as in any new place, it takes a little time to settle in and figure out what you want to do with your extra time and where you want to spend it.
I don’t worry so much about things falling through the cracks because I have found a balance in my life that seems to work for me. The really important things don’t even come close to the edge of the crack.. The other things, well, I suppose if I start to miss something and realize I let it fall through the cracks in my busyness , I can always retrieve it somehow. Might take a little more effort than a claw on a stick. And some things, and some relationships that have fallen through the cracks may just need to remain there. Sometimes its ok to let something fall through the cracks to make room for something new in its place.
Tomorrow is another full day of work seminars and I can hardly wait to see what the next presenter focuses on and what word or phrase intrigues me enough to keep me awake counting the number of times they say it or daydreaming about life in general. Come to think of it, I think the lady that said “drill down” a million times today in her presentation is on again for tomorrow.
Have I told you the story about the time I drilled a hole in a tree to help out a woodpecker who was taking way too long for my type A personality? …………………..lol
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