A story instead of a slogan
Deer Isle, Maine · 2020 to 2021
I entered long-term care just as COVID arrived. When the outbreak reached our nursing home, staff got sick, equipment failed, call bells multiplied, and every decision carried consequences no operating manual had prepared us for.
I worked eighteen-hour shifts, crossed departmental lines, did infection-control barrier work along with resident and post-mortem care, and watched good people try to deliver humane care inside a system collapsing around them. When the facility finally closed, I helped safely relocate roughly seventy residents.
That year changed how I understand leadership. A system is not successful because it works in ideal conditions. It is successful because people can still understand and use it when conditions stop being ideal.
