A few years back while working at Game Show Network, we had a "Fire Drill." I don't mean that the fire alarm went off in our building and someone we worked with donned a green helmet and began directing us out while my co-workers slowly made their way to the stairs saying things that ranged from "A fire drill now, I'm in the middle of something due today." to "I hope it really is a fire so I can be off all week."
No, in business acumen, a "Fire Drill" is a fairly lame metaphor to describe a time when some sort of business "emergency" has occurred and everything you're working on needs to be dropped and all hands are called on deck to put out the "fire" of this particular emergency.
The fire drill I refer to had to do with a radio ad that was playing in Las Vegas that incorrectly stated that Game Show Network could be seen on Comcast cable, when in fact the cable company for the area was actually Cox cable. Due to a delicate relationship between Game Show Network and Cox at the time, this was more than just an unfortunate embarrassment and thusly a new radio ad needed to be created immediately and sent to the station that day.
So I called the owner of the production company that created the ad. I remember while speaking to him that there was a fair amount of noise in the background and hullabaloo all around. "Okay, okay," he said to me in a somewhat perturbed tone as I mentioned to him the problem. "I'm at the Dodger game right now, but I'll leave and we'll get something to you before 5pm."
The Dodger game, I thought to myself. I'd hate to be him. Buy those tickets, think you're spending a relaxing afternoon at the ballpark and then some schmo like me calls you up and makes you give up you're half-drunk, $11 beer just to re-record a 60-second radio spot. That's tough sledding.
Yet that's exactly the situation where I find myself today. Because at 3pm this afternoon, I too will be at the Dodger game. And this is no ordinary game, no mid-Summer Wednesday tilt against the lowly Pirates of Pittsburgh. This is a playoff game, against the slick pitching, high-powered Cardinals of St. Louis. And let me tell you, the last thing I want around the 3rd inning is a call from my office with the homecare equivalent of a new radio ad needing to be produced.
So what do I receive at 8am this morning. The "fill-in" caregiver (because the regular caregiver is on vacation) for one of our more difficult clients tells us minutes before her shift that she's got to go to the "emergency room" for an undisclosed illness and can't make her shift. I'll reserve comment on the legitimacy of the excuse, but thankfully our fine office was able to get another qualified caregiver over there and she arrived only a few minutes late. I commend both my office and that caregiver for their quick work.
Then, I receive another call at around 12pm from another client informing me that they need service at a different location than usual - some 48 miles farther away. When I inform them that we might not be able to send the same caregiver - who lives over 60 miles away from this new locale - they don't seem to quite understand why that is.
And first pitch is just 2 hours away.
Still, Right at Home here in Los Angeles is ready to go and certainly not depended on me to operate smoothly. My office staff is prepared, our schedules are set and we don't anticipate any issues for the rest of the day. Still, I full well know as the owner of this company that the buck stops with me...even if I sometimes wish the buck would stop with that other guy in row 9, seat 17 wearing the blue & white dodger wig.
But I made a promise to our clients. That one way or the other, we would always make sure a qualified, licensed and bonded caregiver will be there to take care of their loved one even if it means I have to stop what I'm doing and help tend to one our clients personally.
So, there will be no beer for me today and I'm prepared that my hot dog may have to be left behind half-eaten. But that's the deal I made and all in all, it's not so bad.
Oh, and by the way, GO DODGERS!
Showing posts with label elder care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elder care. Show all posts
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
A Year Navigating the Los Angeles Caregiving Maze
A little over a year ago, I opened up a business that would provide trained and licensed caregivers to take care of elderly adults in their homes throughout Los Angeles county. I had never worked in this industry before - the extent of my experience working with seniors being primarily limited to occasional discussions with members of the Silver Lake Seniors group while I served as co-chair on the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council - but nevertheless in January of 2008 I registered Right at Home in Glendale as a business with the California Secretary of State.
But it seemed like something I would like to do and certainly the need existed. Besides, after 10 years working in sales and marketing in television, the prospect of both working for myself as well as working outside the entertainment industry was beyond appealing.
Over the course of the past 12+ months, I've learned an immense amount regarding caring for seniors and disabled adults as well as the sometimes bizarre world that is senior care in Los Angeles. The lack of regulation, the lack of efficacy and at times the shocking lack of judgement shown not just by homecare agencies operating under the table and relatives of patients who would just rather their mom or dad go away, but of hospital nurses, assisted living facilities, hospice companies and more.
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not indicting the entire industry by any means. Still, if you walked the past year in my shoes and witnessed some of the things I have, your already skeptical view of the medical industry wouldn't likely decrease.
Still, today marked a day as to why this industry not only does employ many a fine person, but also gave me some indication that my company is beginning to form leaves on the branches we've so tirelessly attempted to grow.
After dropping off some brochures at Good Samaritan Hospital, I met with William Hwang, the President of Advantage Home Health. I stopped by without notice and he was kind of enough to sit down with me and discuss our services and how we could work together. Cold calling is tough and not always pleasant and sometimes the reaction you receive will do anything but warm your heart. So to have William take the time to speak with me - and with a smile to boot - set the tone for a positive day.
Afterwards, while driving to my next sales stop, I received a call from Bob King, a lawyer specializing in domestic care law out of Orange County. I had contacted Bob after reading an article he'd written in the Riverside County Bar Association journal regarding the "high price" of hiring care "off-the-books" (read illegally). He could not have been more generous with his time as we discussed the vagaries of wages for Live-In care and allowed me permission to use his article in my future presentations.
After another stop, I made my way to St. Vincent's Medical Center for a presentation to their Physical Therapists. I invited two (2) others to join me - Thomas Tilahun from Oceanside Home Health and Michele Lefever from ResponseLink. It was the first time I'd partnered with other companies on a presentation, but something I've wanted to do. I'd had success working with other neighborhood councils during my public service days as well as partnering with other companies in my television career and didn't see why more of this couldn't be done among those serving various parts of the homecare industry.
While Physical Therapists are not necessarily the first folks I look to market to at hospitals. That honor - or burden depending on how you look at it - goes to Social Workers, Case Managers and Discharge Planners. However, PT's can also be of help and I was thrilled to work with Dee Gilmore at St. Vincent's in setting this up. It was a nice group of folks who listened politely to all three of us, while devouring the pizza, soda (Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and, that's right, Sierra Mist too) and cinnamon sticks we bought for them from Pizza Hut (it was supposed to be cheese sticks, but they were out of cheese sticks, so they could give me 2 more pizza's, but I didn't need 2 more pizza's, well then what about cinnamon sticks, what's a cinnamon stick, it's like a cheese stick but with cinnamon-it will only takes us a few minutes to make them, why not put cheese on them instead of cinnamon, I make you cinnamon sticks). Thomas is a great guy and while I just met Michele and didn't want to overextend my relationship with her as I do work with another emergency response company, it seemed like we would work well together. All in all, it was a successful trip.
Finally, as I made my way back to the office, I received a call from a woman looking for a caregiver in Canoga Park. After a discussion that, if we were in a scene from Enchanted April could be described as nothing less than "delightful", we set up a meeting for this Thursday.
The highs and lows of running your own business can be extreme - and it doesn't help that I'm not always the most even-keeled person in the world despite what my outside demeanor may appear. Still today, I very much look back at it being a culmination of a year's worth of incredibly hard work and a steep learning curve. Not one thing I accomplished today could I have done a year or likely even 6 months ago. And for that, I am grateful. Plus, its inspired me enough to start this blog which I've been ruminating about since the day I opened.
So while most my posts will be about my clients, or the struggles of both owning your own business as well as the specific issues regarding homecare in Los Angeles, I figured a review of my day as microcosm of our companies growth over the course of a year would be a good place to start.
And with that, I've just received a text message that 2 of my caregivers scheduled for an overnight shift beginning at 11pm are both late. Time to stop the blog and get back to work.
But it seemed like something I would like to do and certainly the need existed. Besides, after 10 years working in sales and marketing in television, the prospect of both working for myself as well as working outside the entertainment industry was beyond appealing.
Over the course of the past 12+ months, I've learned an immense amount regarding caring for seniors and disabled adults as well as the sometimes bizarre world that is senior care in Los Angeles. The lack of regulation, the lack of efficacy and at times the shocking lack of judgement shown not just by homecare agencies operating under the table and relatives of patients who would just rather their mom or dad go away, but of hospital nurses, assisted living facilities, hospice companies and more.
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not indicting the entire industry by any means. Still, if you walked the past year in my shoes and witnessed some of the things I have, your already skeptical view of the medical industry wouldn't likely decrease.
Still, today marked a day as to why this industry not only does employ many a fine person, but also gave me some indication that my company is beginning to form leaves on the branches we've so tirelessly attempted to grow.
After dropping off some brochures at Good Samaritan Hospital, I met with William Hwang, the President of Advantage Home Health. I stopped by without notice and he was kind of enough to sit down with me and discuss our services and how we could work together. Cold calling is tough and not always pleasant and sometimes the reaction you receive will do anything but warm your heart. So to have William take the time to speak with me - and with a smile to boot - set the tone for a positive day.
Afterwards, while driving to my next sales stop, I received a call from Bob King, a lawyer specializing in domestic care law out of Orange County. I had contacted Bob after reading an article he'd written in the Riverside County Bar Association journal regarding the "high price" of hiring care "off-the-books" (read illegally). He could not have been more generous with his time as we discussed the vagaries of wages for Live-In care and allowed me permission to use his article in my future presentations.
After another stop, I made my way to St. Vincent's Medical Center for a presentation to their Physical Therapists. I invited two (2) others to join me - Thomas Tilahun from Oceanside Home Health and Michele Lefever from ResponseLink. It was the first time I'd partnered with other companies on a presentation, but something I've wanted to do. I'd had success working with other neighborhood councils during my public service days as well as partnering with other companies in my television career and didn't see why more of this couldn't be done among those serving various parts of the homecare industry.
While Physical Therapists are not necessarily the first folks I look to market to at hospitals. That honor - or burden depending on how you look at it - goes to Social Workers, Case Managers and Discharge Planners. However, PT's can also be of help and I was thrilled to work with Dee Gilmore at St. Vincent's in setting this up. It was a nice group of folks who listened politely to all three of us, while devouring the pizza, soda (Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and, that's right, Sierra Mist too) and cinnamon sticks we bought for them from Pizza Hut (it was supposed to be cheese sticks, but they were out of cheese sticks, so they could give me 2 more pizza's, but I didn't need 2 more pizza's, well then what about cinnamon sticks, what's a cinnamon stick, it's like a cheese stick but with cinnamon-it will only takes us a few minutes to make them, why not put cheese on them instead of cinnamon, I make you cinnamon sticks). Thomas is a great guy and while I just met Michele and didn't want to overextend my relationship with her as I do work with another emergency response company, it seemed like we would work well together. All in all, it was a successful trip.
Finally, as I made my way back to the office, I received a call from a woman looking for a caregiver in Canoga Park. After a discussion that, if we were in a scene from Enchanted April could be described as nothing less than "delightful", we set up a meeting for this Thursday.
The highs and lows of running your own business can be extreme - and it doesn't help that I'm not always the most even-keeled person in the world despite what my outside demeanor may appear. Still today, I very much look back at it being a culmination of a year's worth of incredibly hard work and a steep learning curve. Not one thing I accomplished today could I have done a year or likely even 6 months ago. And for that, I am grateful. Plus, its inspired me enough to start this blog which I've been ruminating about since the day I opened.
So while most my posts will be about my clients, or the struggles of both owning your own business as well as the specific issues regarding homecare in Los Angeles, I figured a review of my day as microcosm of our companies growth over the course of a year would be a good place to start.
And with that, I've just received a text message that 2 of my caregivers scheduled for an overnight shift beginning at 11pm are both late. Time to stop the blog and get back to work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
