Work - not all bad :)

Okay - pardon a bit of self back-patting, if you don't mind. Hope not too many people other than my kids read this! ;)

Tomorrow we are having a party. a HUGE Party, with a capital "P". It is the centennial birthday celebration of our center - or main - building, which had its start as Washington Elementary School. We have people living at Washington Oakes who went to school there, taught there, and had one who was instrumental in turning it into what it is today. So there's a Party. The CEO of all of Leisure Care (according to the internet, 29 properties - and counting) will be there, as will the mayor of Everett. It's a REALLY big deal. They sent out a thousand hand-made invitations. Everybody who gets a paycheck from Washington Oakes has something to do with the preparation for this Party. Tuesday night, it occurred to me that we might need extra brochures. So I made up 12, plus those that were already done, so we had 20. Today the Marketing Dept. decided we needed 50. I started putting them together. Then the Front Desk (FD) Supv. asked Marketing where the info is for the Father's Day Gala. They are supposed to go out tomorrow (Friday), and we had yet to see one piece of paper for that. The gal who used to put those together has gone on to greener pastures after 7+ years there. The 2 marketing reps are up to their eyeballs with The Party, so they wanted their co-worker to make up the flyer. Only she's not too comfy on the computer. Pretty soon they brought it down for me to do, and she was going to do the brochures. Only she ended up doing something else. So . . . I put together all the brochures (they are fairly elaborate with 17 separate sheets of paper, plus the closure and 2 business cards tucked into little slits that don't open easily, all without popping the glued edge open), plus making up a flyer for the first time. Got approval from the chef, the GM, the marketing dept., ran 550 copies. Showed 80-yr. old Japanese co-worker how to fold them so we could put the mailing label on as a seal, no envelope. Hopefully they won't end up upside down, crooked, etc. like he did last time. Nurse called FD to see if we smelled something burning. (No.) No more than 10 seconds later, the emergency cord was pulled, setting off a cacophony of bells and whistles, claiming a fire in apt. 236, north building, east wing. ALL staff runs when an emergency cord is pulled. Except FD, who stays put to be Command Central. Called Fire Dept. Chaos reigned. Residents call to find out what's going on. Are we evacuating? (Not at this time.) One problematic staff member who won't SHUT UP tried to involve the FD supv. in a discourse about what was happening, why, where, when, etc. Thing is, at a time like this, it's basic info, do as told, get off the phone. Anyway, I digress. Turned out there were no flames. They think a resident put something in the microwave, and possibly mis-set it for too long (like 30 minutes instead of 30 seconds), and fell asleep. Woke up by the smoke alarm going off, and smoke so thick she could hardly breathe. Anyway, remember The Party? Can you imagine what all has been going on for 3 weeks to get ready for this? New paint. Cleaned carpets, 5 yards of bark distributed in the flower beds. Power washing the outside. Tile cleaners to clean grout. Scrubbing tile floors with a scrub brush. Replacing tile in bathrooms. On and on it goes. It's just a good thing the fire was in the north building and not the central, main building. Oh - did I mention that yesterday the south building had one of their 2 hot water tanks blow? Leaks from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor. Today, water turned off all day to replace both HUGE tanks. Good grief. Can anything more go wrong???

Anyway, I did the brochures and invitations on top of all the other things I normally do, plus a bunch of stuff I didn't mention. I worked over about 20 minutes is all. It was a good day - felt really good about all that I got accomplished. On top of that, I got some kudos from the kitchen staff last week for handling the life enhancement class in a way they appreciated - and wished the regular teacher would handle them.

It feels good to know I'm where I'm supposed to be! PTL And thanks for listening :)