My First Day In The Home Care Industry!

I went back to the hotel, combed my hair and tried to calm my nerves before heading to the office.  As I walked down the street I was taken by how tall I was compared to my Hispanic counterparts.  It didn't take long to find the office as it was on the ground floor on the corner of a tall office building.  It must have originally been a retail space since all of the exterior walls were floor to ceiling glass.  I entered and saw my mentor Ann sitting at a desk in the corner of this small space.  Directly behind her was a small narrow room with a desk, four drawer filing cabinet and a young lady working on payroll.  Ann greeted me and then introduced me to Maria, the bookkeeper, and two other ladies who sat on the other side of this 400 square foot space at a round table with that lazysusan type thing in the center of the desk.  Lou and Jackie were the staffing coordinators who worked days, later I would meet Lupe who handled the phones in the evening. They all seemed quite friendly and obviously loved Ann.

Ann and I went down to the basement of the building where there were bathrooms and a small conference room.  We sat down at the table and she explained what my orientation and training would be like.  The goal was for her, her son-in-law, Larry and his wife Sharon to feel confident that I could handle the business at the end of this two week period.  They would rotate in and out based on what part of the business I was being trained.  Her job was to train me on the coordinators desk and who the scheduling system worked.  Larry would train me on the financial tasks and Sharon would train me on marketing.

With that explained we headed back upstairs and I sat down at the coordinators table was handed a tall book from that thing in the middle of the desk and learned that it was called a wheel.  The books were full of nurses with a card on top outlining what they were capable of doing, a picture and their personal information.  The bottom card was a box like calendar with markings in the boxes.  The markings indicated whether the employee was available and for what shift.  If a line was drawn through the box it meant they were not available on that day.  The coordinators would call the employees weekly to obtain their availability and to offer them shifts that were open.  My first job was to listen to Lou and Jackie as they made calls and then they  told me to start calling!  Of course I had to explain I was the new Administrator, which sometimes seemed to surprise whoever I was calling, I guess my predecessor didn't talk much to the field staff.