Before you think poorly of me, let me explain. I was in the bar that afternoon only because I had heard such great things about the nachos. 

Not buying it? How about this: I was conducting an in-person customer satisfaction survey for a barstool company. Still no? I had a migraine and was avoiding the light? Because they serve the best water in town? I was distributing free copies of the U.S. Constitution? I mistook the bar for a church? 

Okay, fine. I’d had a hard day and just wanted a drink. Don’t judge me. The point is, watching the bartender at work made me think about front-line long-term care staff, the challenges they face and the greater admiration they richly deserve. 

The bar was packed with impatient customers with unreasonable demands, I among them, so he didn’t have the luxury of setting his own leisurely pace. He worked at hyper-speed, like a hummingbird, executing a series of complex tasks with precision while never seeming frantic or out of control. 

Though crafting elegant cocktails and maintaining quality, he couldn’t take the time to truly maximize his artistry. He had to keep focused and moving, because there was always another demanding patron on the stool. And through it all, he stayed cheerful, chatty, funny, patient—a picture of professionalism and sustained excellence while navigating a whirlwind. 

Many long-term care facility positions, especially nurses and CNAs, carry a similar burden of unrelenting urgency and high expectations, and watching that bartender made me realize I don’t fully understand or appreciate how difficult that truly is.

In fact, the last, and only, time I experienced anything like that kind of pressure, I was in college, with a summer job piling boards at a lumber mill. I know, you can’t easily picture me as a young, muscular Adonis pulling 18-foot 2x12s off a conveyor belt, sweat glistening on my shirtless shoulders. But I promise, it’s true. 

On my first day, desperate to impress, I worked feverishly in the blistering sun, trying frantically to keep up with the unstoppable waves of unstacked boards. But after nearly passing out an hour later, I had to be led to the medical station, where they gave me water pills and made me lie down for an hour in humiliating defeat.

Since then, in any role I’ve ever held, I’ve always been able to take all the time necessary to accomplish my assigned tasks. I often get to set and adjust my own timelines, take breaks when I choose, and wander the halls and chit-chat with coworkers under the guise of recharging my creativity. Methodically and, yes, sometimes even inefficiently, I enjoy the luxury of obsessing about the nuances of my craft. No one is monitoring my keystrokes. No one is screaming for attention. No government entity is looking over my shoulder, scrutinizing every mistake. 

Sitting at the bar watching that bartender gave me far greater empathy for the types of long-term care jobs I’ve never tackled. It revealed how poorly I’d probably perform under similar levels of expectation and stress, when faced with an endless procession of real people with real needs.  

Those of us who do things like write or manage or lead for a living should keep this in mind. We have the luxury of adjusting, pacing ourselves, preserving our strength for battles still to come. Those on the front lines of caring for seniors simply don’t. 

While working without respite in challenging conditions with unrealistic demands, the bartenders of long-term care somehow maintain effortless artistry and achieve magical, mood-altering results. Without the tips. 

Things I Think is written by Gary Tetz, a two-time national Silver Medalist and three-time regional Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Association of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) awards program, as well as an Award of Excellence honoree in the APEX Awards. He’s been amusing, inspiring, informing and sometimes befuddling long-term care readers since the end of a previous century. He is a writer and video producer for Consonus Healthcare in Portland, OR.

The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.

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