Time to get down to business

Expanding the same energy into my workday as I did at the recent biking events I’ve been involved with would create a wonderful wave of much needed inertia.

I am passionate about few things in my life, but when that passion takes hold it is all encompassing. About 8 months ago I bought a road bike that linked me to the urban cycling life in LA.  Two years ago, I began my career changing cycle. I am now two years into working for AltaMed Health Services with the Senior Care Management division. My job titles is Social Worker Care Manager. I manage to help senior men and women stay in their homes with the support of a state funded program. That program has a long, tongue-twisting title with two many syllables, but it’s essence is providing a social worker to guide elder and family caregivers to resources to support their well-being and long term care in their home.

Highlighting the cross generational gap, as the saying goes, “Youth is wasted on the young.”

The reason I am passionate about biking is that it gives me a thrill and a rush and a sense of being part of a collective of people wanting to do a greater good. The reason I’m a now a social worker, is because I get that same feeling of pride when my problem-solving skills make a senior citizen’s life more comfortable.

This is a sample of the work I’ve done last week:

Re-evaluated a client with painful Parkinson’s Disease and continued services so he can remain in his own apartment

Set-up delivery of a refrigerator from Sear’s for an elderly woman that lives in the back house of her family’s home

Arranged transportation for a client and her caregiver to see her doctor

Requested a grab bar approval through medicare

Sent  handyman to put in two handrails so seniors can walk safely upstairs.

Each day is a new scenario, but once you’ve learned the fundamentals of the program, how to order items, how to access the right vendors and the department approval process, it becomes second nature. However, it is not without it’s pitfalls,
there is conflict in the workplace, negativity, isolation, and professional jealousies. You’d think that social workers would be in this field and not have egos the size of Donald Trump’s towers. However, it wouldn’t be a full job with out those petty workplace issues and disturbances. Who took that hole puncher? Who left the food in the fridge that is now rotting? Why doesn’t so-and-so do a better job? If all we did was go in and solve all the problems of our clients without getting into  messy details of our personal biases, then we would just be automated robots.  So I take my job with the good, the bad and the ugly. I started as an AmeriCorps HealthCorps member and our motto was,  “To serve our community by Getting Things Done.” Now that I’m there full time, at the end of the day I feel that being of service, creating as positive a workplace as possible, and meeting my client’s needs is what it means to be, “Getting Things Done.”