2005-10-11 - C.O.W.

Originally Published 2003-05-24

This past week, I attended a mandatory meeting at the nursing home I work at. A motivational speaker was hired to address issues at the home among the employees. We were to attend the C. O. W. inservice. Customer Service was the topic. At 8 am, I walked in to find the speaker dancing in the aisle to the very loud music from "Grease," and shouting about what a great day it was. I wanted two things...coffee and quiet.

This was going to be a long three hours.

She asked us to tell her the issues we saw among the employees, and then we were to suggest possible solutions. At the top of the list among 500 employees, the Number One issue was gossip. Then genuine caring, then respect and the list went on. Twenty issues were mentioned, just from our group of about 50. Our speaker continued to tell us funny stories and jump around through the isle. It felt much like a pep-rally in High School. I sat there thinking that we never really addressed the core issues like short staffing. But instead, we addressed all the fallout from not addressing those issues. We were told the acronym C. O. W. stood for Courtesy, Open-mindedness and Win/Win. That was how we should treat each other, and then things like gossiping would stop. We wrote on index cards the good things about ourselves, and weretold to read them everyday. If we "loved" ourselves, we would certainly treat others better.

Hmmm... the nursing home is a "Christian organization" and advertises that way. It is the reason I chose to work there. Maybe we would have done better to realize that no matter how much chocolate icing you put on vanilla cake, it is still a vanilla cake. You can teach people "customer service," but you need Jesus to teach them to be servants. Maybe we should have had a seminar called S. I. N., Self Indulgent Nature. Maybe we could have been called to repentance (the real core issue) and discovered that our worth is not found in how many "motivational" books we read, but our worth is found in Jesus Christ. I know, there are a hundred reasons why the workplace can't teach that. So they will go on paying tens of thousands of dollars to motivational teachers. But we, the church, are called to live our lives, everyday, in such a way that people will want to know what makes us "different." I am going to follow up and attend the meeting for those interested in helping implement the changes at the home. I am praying God will give me the words and wisdom to speak up about what I see as the real issues.

Perhaps, God is showing me, as another devotional writer recently said, "Who knows, but that you have been led to right where you are, for such a time as this." Amen

In His Service,
Rick and Sandy

Psalm 122:6