Putting the work in

I know that it has been a long time since I wrote. Of course, as always, I have a good reason. I have been putting in really long hours at work. This is not unusual for me. I put in a lot of long hours. Even when I am not putting in the hours, I am thinking about work or answering the on-call phone. Well, guess what it! It paid off. I got noticed. Not that this was my intent. My intent has always been to be the best at what I do. My intent is always been to be able to give my all. To learn and to grow. To challenge myself.
My job now is a Team Leader at Tobosa. That job is to supervise clients and staff. To make decisions daily about what to do. I have to schedule the staff and deal with all of their human resource issues. This includes checking their payroll and making sure their clock ins and outs are done. Putting in for their vacation and logging it into the payroll section. It means attending meetings for the clients and working with the whole team to get things done. It means training the staff. I am also responsible for running the household (meaning, paying bills, doing the budget, dealing with the landlord, buying the groceries, and personal items). Being a Team Lead has many more responsibilities. Basically anything to do with the clients and the staff is my responsibility. I have 2 houses, 4 Individuals, and 9 staff that I am responsible for. Along with the responsibilities there are MANY challenges. One of the main challenges is being on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Well, guess what - I no longer will be on-call anymore as of May 1, 2014. I should back up. On Feb 28 (I think) we had an All Staff meeting. In preparation for this meeting I was asked to make a Power Point presentation regarding THERAP. THERAP is the computer program we use. THERAP is huge! It can basically replace all of our existing paperwork. We are only using about 20% of it and between now and July we are incorporating about another 40%. So, I did a presentation to get the staff (who are struggling with embracing it) amped up and to buy into this program. The presentation talked about how far they have already come in learning the system and then to introduce some of the upcoming stages of the program. I also got volunteered to create a trivia game based on out policies and procedures to kinda get the staff involved in the meeting so they were not just sitting there listening the whole time. Well, I did the trivia game on PowerPoint as well. It just seemed to be the easiest way. Well, both were GREAT successes. (I meant to blog about this sooner but just didn't really take the time. Now I wish I had because this post my have to be put into 2 sections.)

I am going to try to put the PowerPoint in here so you can see it but I don't know how that really works. Ok, never mind. I tried but was not successful. So, anyway, everyone loved the presentations. Even the Head Honcho, Joe Madrid, came to me and congratulated me on how great it was. A lot of other administrators did the same thing. Even a month later, Joe still talked about it at several meetings and even over drinks one night. This made me happy. I felt accomplished. I felt like I did something worth noticing. It was like I do all of this hard work and no one ever really sees - but then they did. They saw that I am smart and talented.

There have been other things as well, that have come up in this fashion. I have had several other ideas that the whole company has implemented. My work has been used as examples for others to follow. This came with a price of course. There has been some tension between my co-workers and myself. I am pretty much the new kid on the block - but I am not afraid to ask questions, find different solutions and think outside of the box. Some of my co-workers have been there for like 15 years. They do not like change; they do not like things shaken up; and they certainly do not like the new kid to be the one to put all of this into place. I love being on their team. We work well together.

The other week, the company made a new position. It is titled, "THERAP ADMINISTRATOR". Some members of Management talked to me about taking this position. It is right up my alley and THERAP is something that I am passionate about. The downfall would be that it would put me in an office on the computer all day. That would be my job. Being a computer programmer. I would train new staff on how to use the system but 90% of my job would be a computer programmer. It was not an official offer but they were talking was an unofficial offer. Anyway, I started thinking about it.

So, on Good Friday, the Program Director (the 2nd in charge) asked me to take on a different position. It is the Incident Management Coordinator Position. She wants me to take it on top of my Team Lead Position. That is a lot of work. A LOT! Let me tell you a little bit about this position.

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT COORDINATION: Any time there is a suspicion of Abuse, Neglect, or Exploitation a report must be made to the state. Actually, to 3 different agencies. Even things as simple as staff not making sure the clients get enough to drink; staff letting the clients get too sunburned; medication errors for mor than 48 hours; all the way to abuse, neglect, and exploitation. Anyway, this position gets the reports made by the staff, and sends them to the 3 state agencies within 24 hours. The position then stays in touch with the state agencies and sends them all the documentation that they request and set up interviews for them with all parties involved. This position is also responsible for conducting the internal investigation that the agency is required to do. It is a position with a lot of responsibility.

So, again, they asked me to take this position on top of the one I already have. That is a lot. I talked with them about giving up one house and just keeping one house and then doing the position. I was told to come talk to them in the office on Monday after Easter.

Can you find what is missing?

That's right! There is nothing missing!  I FINALLY got my teeth! They look super natural.  A lot of people don't even notice when they are talking to me. 

At first I was kinda upset because no one noticed my new teeth. But then I took a step back and realized that IT WAS GOOD that no one noticed. This meant that they looked good (and natural).  So, this post is short because I am doing it from my phone and it takes a while to type a lot on this on screen keyboard. 

But I will leave you with this picture I took today. I left the house without my teeth. Totally just spaced them out. I went to work on my only day off this week. Ugh! Anyway, here is what no teeth looks like:

Big difference. Anyway, hope everyone has a great week!