Week 6

Despite being a holiday week, I would consider this week a little more stressful then normal.  With departments moving into new spaces every weekend now there is much to be done.  Though it was nice to have a little break for 4th of july it has put a big stress on everyone to meet the needs of the move before the weekend.  With everyone scattering to get everything ready for the move there has been a lot of craziness and irritated people.  This week has definitely proven a number one key tool in any profession is “patience”.

There are several steps involved before a department is actually moved from one space to another.  First the space to be moved to is determined by the design team and then reviewed over with the heads of that department as a courtesy and to address any concerns.  Once the spaces are agreed the interior designers arrange all the furniture needs. In most situations the department’s original furniture may be tagged to be moved with them.  If there is any additional furniture that is needed then a order is put in and the move date must provide plenty of time for the furniture to arrive and be installed.  Also in preparing for a department’s move in there must be informational signs with brail made and placed in appropriate areas for patients to see.  Finally just before the move takes place a walk through with the head of the department is performed.  The purpose of these walk throughs is to identify any potential issues of the space and further address concerns the department may have about a particular space.

Of course things can’t always be as easy as it looks or sounds. Like anything else, sometimes there are situations to come up putting a strain on things.  This week we hit a slight problem, when doing a walk through inspection we had noticed that one of the rooms that was assigned to have cubicles would not be suitable as planned because it didn’t have enough power and data connections.  Coming up with a quick solution,  it was decided by the design team that the best solution would be to use the break room right next door for the cubicles.  This room is the same exact size and has all the necessary connections for the cubicles as the room originally to be used right next door, naturally this seemed like the perfect and easy fix but we were wrong.  Once the head of the department heard that we were going to swap the break room with original room that was going to be used, they were not happy at all.  The argument from the staff was “our employees need that break room because they need a place they can relax and release the stress that they overcome from their patients”.  It was explained to her that they were still getting a break room that was exactly the same, the rooms were just simply being swapped.  She was so upset about this situation she had to put a request in to the higher department of the VA that the break room not be moved.  

The move is now to be delayed until another room is found suitable for all connection needs and agreed on.  Because the head of that department refused to simply swap the two rooms that are the exact same, the move is delayed and now delaying other moves as well.  Since another department was supposed to be moving into their old space the following weekend that move gets delayed too.  I find this situation a big test of patience and shows that though its not easy its very important to maintain professionalism at all times.