She made several phone calls, but the locksmiths said the soonest they could come was the next day, and the last one said he could be there in the afternoon.
“That is too late,” Raj said, nearly in tears. “I need inside right away.”
“You could break the small ventilation window in the basement,” one of the locksmiths suggested. “That would be the quickest way to get in, and it’s not expensive to repair.”
Raj nodded. “Let’s do that.”
Belinda called her son downstairs, and they all went to the side of our house. Her son picked up a big rock and used it to break all the glass from the window. Carefully, he climbed through the window and unlocked the front door. As soon as Raj entered the house, Subhash ran to Raj to give her a hug. He was happy to have his mother back, but there were no words to express how joyful Raj felt to be back inside with her son.
When I came home from work that evening, Raj told me, “We need to get the basement window repaired.”
“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”
She told me everything that had happened, and I stared at her in alarm.
“Raj, all that you went through!” I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you just call me?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt you at work. You could have been in a meeting. And it is forty-five minutes to get here. I didn’t want you to drive all this way, and then drive back.”
The next day when I told Mr. Gilreath about Raj’s morning, he said, “Boy, Raj is very brave to jump off the deck like that, and she sure is considerate of you, Kris.”
As time passed, my foremost goal was to change the SPD Department’s image from “Stupid People Downstairs” to “Super People Downstairs.” This department was the most difficult to improve. With eighty-five employees at the bottom of the totem pole, most of them lacked motivation to do well in their work. They did not consider their jobs important, and they knew they were looked down on by the employees on the upper floors.
One day at the weekly staff meeting, I looked at the employees, some of them slumped in their chairs, arms crossed, most of them looking bored. I knew I had to do something drastic to get their attention. “Just so you know,” I said, “all this equipment you guys are working with—the washers, the sterilizers, the distribution system—is all fixed. It’s not going to move anywhere. Only people are replaceable.”
The employees were taken aback by my boldness. Right away, my comment caught fire, and in the following weeks, people began saying that I was not sensitive to the employees. Mr. Gilreath also heard of my comment. “Kris, that was quite blunt,” he said. “Perhaps you should have stated it differently, even though it is a fact.”
After that, I became more sensitive to the way I stated things and tried to choose my words more carefully. However, the perception that I was not sensitive to employees simply was not true. I made a point to learn everyone’s name, and when I spoke to people, calling them by their first name, they would look at me in amazement because I could remember eighty-five people. As I made rounds, I spoke to the employees about their personal situations. If someone was in the middle of a divorce or became engaged or had a new grandchild, I would listen and ask questions, showing concern or interest about their lives outside of work. If someone went on vacation, I would ask where they were going, and once they returned, I made sure to ask them how they enjoyed their trip. If a family member was sick, I made certain that I followed up with the employee to see how that person was doing. I tried to be nice to the employees and show that I genuinely cared for them, but at the same time, I expected them to work hard and to know their purpose at Providence Hospital was to provide good service.
As time went on, one other problem weighed on my shoulders. The surgical instruments were still not being redistributed in a timely manner. It was a life or death matter if a surgeon did not have the appropriate instrument to continue a procedure. I began developing a case cart system (CCS) for the preparation and sterilization section which involved getting a list of instruments, supplies, and stainless steel bowls and trays needed for each individual case. Then, the case cart with the requested items would be prepared from the processed stores section and sent to the designated area of the operating room, so the carts would already be there for the next day’s case. The Surgery Department used thousands of different instruments, and it soon became clear that I would need help if I were to make any valuable contribution to this area.
Mr. Gilreath suggested that his wife, an operating room nurse, could help me with the project. With Mrs. Gilreath’s assistance, I could better understand the terminology and issues relating to each surgery.
In the SPD department, I began holding monthly meetings with the eighty-five employees. Sometimes Mr. Gilreath joined us, and once, he announced, “Hey, as staff members, you need to work with Kris so we can make all these improvements. Once we implement them, and once you guys start showing improvement, I will treat you all to an evening at the Beverly Hills Club.”
A buzz went around the room at the prospect of being treated to a night out. An outspoken black woman raised her hand.
“Yes, Annabelle?” Mr. Gilreath said.
“Oh, you are going to take us to Beverly Hills, California?” Annabelle asked in a hopeful voice.
Amused, Mr. Gilreath smiled and answered, “I would love to, Annabelle. But I meant the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Newport, Kentucky.”
Everyone laughed at this, but now, with a motive to improve their department,
