Keep It To Yourself

Yesterday, work went from zero to sixty in about two seconds . . . and NOT in a good way. I work in health care and we are audited every three years by an organization called The Joint Commission. We usually have a pretty good idea about when their surveyors will be coming to visit us and the time leading up to that is always nerve-wracking and fraught.

Monday came and went without a surveyor in sight, so we all went home relaxed and thinking we had another week to prepare and get our ducks in a row – as it were.

Oh boy, were we wrong!

Bright and early, Tuesday morning . . . who should show up at the door, but a Joint Commission surveyor? And not just any one . . . one who believes his mission is to find things wrong. And if he doesn’t find anything wrong, then he isn’t doing his job.

Yikes!

The woman who works in the office next to mine came back from one of the first meetings with him and she had a list of thirteen of his “findings” for her department to address. I walked into her office, right after her meeting, to ask her a question about a project I was working on.

Let’s just say, after she shared her experience with the surveyor, I decided my little project could wait. Actually, it can probably wait a good month or so . . . long enough for everyone to recover from this trauma.

On the home front, I had dinner with a friend last night, which was such a treat! The high temperature around here was only in the 70s, so it was nice and cool sitting on her screened-in porch, and we had time to enjoy a restful, leisurely chat. She’s raising her eleven-year-old grandson and is suffering through the pangs of remote learning. It was fun to hear about someone else’s problems, for a change.

When I got home, younger son (YS) had gone out to dinner and was going to spend the night at older son’s house. I could tell M had something on his mind, but he wouldn’t come out and say what was bothering him, so I went on with getting ready for bed.

Finally, he said, “YS said we’re going to move from this house.” Now, YS MAY have mentioned moving, but I really doubt it. We’ve talked about it and how much it upsets his dad.

I told M: “Well, you know, we’ve talked about it. But I don’t think it’s a good idea, right now. Maybe we should just concentrate on fixing the house up and catching up on some of the maintenance we’ve let slide and not worry about moving.”

Suddenly, it was as if I had lifted a 100 pound weight from his back. You could immediately tell he felt much better and was happier about everything. He looked around and gave me some ideas of projects he wanted to work on and was a completely different person.

The idea of moving was upsetting him THAT much!

If I had any doubt about it before, I know for sure now. We won’t mention it again.