Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
So the meeting hasn’t been pure torture.
Not quite as painful as wiping out under a wave, sand and saltwater scouring your eyes and flooding your nose. No, this meeting has been more akin to a hairshirt, or self-flagellation, or an icewater enema.
In other words, if I put myself into the proper mindset, it’s almost enjoyable.
Our Noble Purpose*: to devise a dynamic action plan optimized to transform our hospital into a sustainable system which will thrive in the 21st Century healthcare market. Anyone flashing on Catbert yet? Seriously — I wrote these things down as the meeting progressed:
Sustainable system
Drill down
Building a transformational action strategy
Jack Russell Terrier
This last was the high point of the morning. The resort owner’s pooch kept coming round to socialize, and it was a joy to hear the guy running the meeting say, “I love this dog!” while his eyes are saying, “Where’s my .22 when I need it?”
This morning, I also learned a new acronym: EBITDA, which means, Earnings Before yatta yatta shmatta. PROFIT, as best I can tell.
Once we broke into discussion groups, life improved. Guess I’m a better talker than a listener. I surprised myself by opening my yap a fair bit, mostly to crack wise at the head honcho’s expense. Two examples . . .
We were given this one handout, a Venn diagram with four intersecting bubbles: money, doctors, services, and leadership. Head Honcho (HH) wanted us to keep these priorities in mind during our discussion groups, and went so far as to instruct us to close our eyes and visualize the four bubbles. (Oh, I almost forgot. Know what we were doing this morning? Visioning. And I thought you needed to suck blotter paper for that.) So, eyes closed, I said, “I see Money, but the other bubbles read Food, Sex, and Sleep.”
When we were brainstorming Money, meanwhile fretting over the average age of our nursing staff (half of whom will probably retire in the next five years), I said, “So you need to improve the overall payer mix, right? What the hospital needs to do is upgrade the employee retirement health benefits, thereby improving our EBITDA.”
HH said, “Now, see, that’s what I call . . .” He faltered a moment. Then, “Oh. You were being facetious.”
I resisted the urge to say, “Well, duh.”
“I really appreciate your sense of humor,” he said.
But his eyes said, “Where’s my .22 when I need it?”
D.
*The HH’s fair-haired and high-breasted assistant really told us that this morning. Our Noble Purpose. Why am I flashing on Steve Martin’s character in The Jerk? Oh, yeah — Navin had a Special Purpose.
Sigh. I think I’d rather have a special purpose than a noble purpose.
Did this one on my Blackberry, folks, so please forgive any editing errors. I’ll fix ’em tomorrow.
Excellent reporting. Back to the meeting with ya to get some comedy to entertain me! ha
My Special Purpose is Noble, so I’m covered.
Good Lord, I hate these sorts of meetings. I hate corporo-babble. I loathe buzzwords.
I feel for you.
No, this meeting has been more akin to a hairshirt, or self-flagellation, or an icewater enema.
Close your eyes. Pretend all the words are coming from a mouth of a muscular yet well-stacked woman in a leather (no, wait, not leather. She’s a vegetarian. What’s that stuff that’s plastic and shiny?) cat suit. She’s wearing 8″ spike heels with a trace o’ blood on the heels and she carries a basket with ummmm clothes pins, altoids and some sort of electro-shock machine.
Didn’t you say you wanted to pay for pain at one point? You’re getting it for free!
and here’s today’s link. A Weingarten column about people who not only use jargon but understand it. Read It and Lacrimate
Implementing a paramter-based verbal interface with the professionally periphrastic
This post, and I’m not sure why, sent me back to the third grade when the teacher would give the kid at the front of the row the newly mimeographed worksheets to take one and pass it back, but when I got them I had to stop and smell – deeply inhale the amazing smell of mimeograph ink to where the teacher had to yell at me to pass the stack back.
Something about “…sucking blotter paper” made me remember my mimeo addiction.
I love the phrase “Professionally Periphrastic.”
Dean, this morning was full of gobbledygook. I could dig some up for y’all but I don’t have the heart.
Kate, it’s not the right kind of pain. And thanks for the link — it was spot on!
Lyvvie, Kate, not only am I ignorant of ‘periphrastic,’ I’ve never even heard the word! Guess I ought to look it up . . .