Saturday 01/23/2021
In the morning I went for a moderate walk, circling back past the farmers’ market to pick up a nummy pastry. Shortly after I got back I had email from Marcia and Kim the HR. It seems that on Thursday, one of the meal delivery persons had somehow had an injury. Could we come talk to Kim about scheduling a safety class?
In the meeting it developed that whatever the injury was — Kim couldn’t say who or what — it wasn’t hugely serious as it wasn’t reported until Friday. But then, as usual in a care facility where any injury of a resident is a Big Deal With Reports Filed, Rhonda was involved. It somehow involved the tall aluminum wheeled carts that volunteers use to roll a load of 20-30 trays to a floor for distribution.
Facilities had been involved. They had straightened some of the horizontal rails that were bent and had tsk-tsk’d over the condition of all the casters, which are pretty wobbly. Casters have been ordered and will be replaced. In the meantime, Kim has arranged for Matt of Sodexo to give a short safety talk to the volunteers, but due to Covid, we can’t gather them all at once.
Marcia had made a mailing list of all the people who had volunteered for meal delivery, with 39 names. So 40 people. Kim opined we could gather 10 at a time, so four sessions, can you guys assign them to sessions and let them know? Sure, said Marcia, Dave you can make one of those signup sheets you do?
So by mid-morning I had made a sign-up sheet so up to ten people could sign up for each of four sessions, and composed a cheerful email to our volunteers about the what and why, and sent it out to the list of names Marcia forwarded to me. Also promised to video the presentation.
Later Marcia found out the who and the what. The woman had been wrestling with a tray that got stuck on those bent aluminum rails, and somehow the tray had smacked her across the knuckles, causing tendon pain that she didn’t notice until Friday but had to see a doctor about. It’s fortunate it was no more than that. Rhonda knows how much the meal delivery program means to the people who do it, and a worse injury might have forced her to cancel it and return the job to staff.
The rest of the day was pretty quiet. I read, fiddled with my airbrush, and took a second walk.
Codgerville 