MTLNOVEL Chapter 29: Small changes
I thought about it, "I mean, I… want to have a family. Have a stable job, I want to be more confident, more outgoing… like Dillon was." I said as we sat down to eat the ham fried rice. I did have to admit, the soy sauce did make a difference in taste.
Pride pointed his fork at me. "Don't use another person as your benchmark Max." I glanced up to see Mai's tail covering Pride's mouth.
"Ugh, hold your horses Pride. It's not bad to be inspired by other people, but, if you idolize someone, as soon as they step out of your perfect idea, it can backfire. Sometimes really hard." Lily explained as she pecked at her spoonful of rice.
"So, let's focus on you. You want to be more confident, outgoing. Changing your personality doesn't happen overnight. Confidence comes with practice, knowing yourself, knowing your audience, as you learn work scripts those will come more naturally, even if someone throws curve balls at you." Pride added pushing the pink fox tail out of his face.
"Do you know if there's a career you want to pursue?" Lily asked glaring at the peas left on her plate. So, even sin beasts are picky eaters, good to know.
I shrugged, "Just… something that pays well I guess," I wasn't exactly in a place to be picky.
Lily ruffled her feathers as she slowly started eating her peas. If I didn't see them, I'd think she were eating worms… or maybe that would be preferable since she was a bird?
"Let's give career aspirations some time, call centers are pretty good gateway jobs. Maybe we'll revisit after a year or so. Get experience, see what you like, don't like, then start looking for jobs you'd prefer." Lily added with a sigh, then swallowed down a pea whole.
"That…" I was super proud when I caught myself, "Sounds like a good plan." I grinned eating the last few bites of my own food.
"Outgoing we can work on immediately. How about tomorrow, you talk to three people in a different phone room?" Mai offered licking her paw now that she'd finished eating.
I hesitated, "I mean, it's been crazy busy…"
"Change takes time Max. Why not use your morning break to ask three different people tips. Anything you're struggling with, insurance, scripts, check ins, other facilities." Mai said as she started gathering up their plates.
I took a deep breath. "Uh, dang it!" Little steps, had to take little steps. "Okay, morning break to ask questions!"
I stood in the door way of the triage nurse call center. Today there were four LPNs, I glanced at my cheat sheet, Licensed Practical Nurse, who were triaging calls for the ER, primary care, and walk in clinics. Yeash… they looked… really… really busy.
I stiffly walked in, standing behind the only male nurse awkwardly waiting for his call to end. He was tall, I couldn't tell how tall because he was sitting on a high stool, but he was up there.
Two other nurses had raised their desks so they could stand, one even had a shoe off. Using her foot, she was rolling the spiked ball on the mat… is that what that's for? I mean, it made sense if we were stuck at desks for ten hours.
"Hey buddy, what's up?" The male nurse asked turning to face me. I glanced at his name tag, Derrick.
"So, I was, I was told to ask for a list of triage symptoms? Mine is…" I held my breath, "I have an outdated one." I explained as I breathed out.
"No problem, give me a moment and I'll send it to you over teams. I'm Derrick Beets, what's your teams?" Derrick asked half swiveling his stool to look at his computer.
"Max Wood, thank you so much!" I was a little too excited, cough, calm. I need to stay calm! "Does the, list change often? Or, is there somewhere I should check for updates?" I asked trying to not be too awkward, but still have a full conversation before I escaped. My hands were getting a little sweaty.
"I mean, its more that over calls or voice mails we aren't getting enough information, so someone might hear wheezing during a call, don't think much of it, then we call back and find out patient is out of asthma medication. So the list is to, remind everyone to ask those probing questions." Derrick explained as he shared the document over a direct teams rather than in one of the many groups.
"Oh, makes sense. Is there a list of questions?" I asked uncertainly.
One nursing rolling her foot over the spike ball spoke up, "We wish, technically only nurses are supposed to ask those probing questions. When in doubt, just teams the nurse chat."
"Oh, okay." I agreed with a nod.
"It's all good kid, you'll get familiar with some of our regular callers, and you'll learn to look for certain information in their charts. Don't sweat it, and seriously, just pop questions into chat." She added as she finished off a phone note before sending it off.
"Right, makes sense, uh, which… which nurse chat? The triage?" I was totally counting this conversation as my second of three. I did also need the clarification, I was already in four nurse chats.
"Triage, primary, or walk in chats. ER moves fast so we might not see it, walk in does get a bit busy, but we know to back check." Derrick offered.
"Thanks, and, nice meeting you all." I added as I lowered my voice, all four waved as I escaped. Phew, okay! That was two, now… needed one more. Just not at this moment, I did need to print the triage list off.
I knocked on Erika's door, she glanced up but was on the phone.
"Yes?" She mouthed.
"Color printer?" I mouthed back showing my all black triage list. The list spanned two pages, colors representing the priority, black for phone note, yellow for nurse, red for triage. I just found out… the printer in our phone room only did black and white. Not awkward at all.
"Teams me." Erika mouthed. I rushed back to my desk to forward the document to her. A few minutes later she dropped it off.
"Hey, you did really good on voice mails. Keep it up." Erika added then returned to her office.
I didn't even have time to respond, but I grinned as I pulled my headset back on. We'd finished running today and tomorrows insurances, so I'd been back on voice mails. Not a bad way to end the day.