“It was a concern for Ryatt. He figured that, with no progress, you would ask him to leave.”
Dani’s jaw dropped. “Oh, wow. I wonder where he got that idea from?”
“I don’t know, but it was certainly a concern. He did talk to Shane about it though, so I’m really happy that Ryatt got it resolved—in his head at least.”
“I am too,” Dani said. “That’s not the type of mental confidence that we need them to have. It’s tough enough beinghere without being afraid that, if you don’t do enough or if you don’t make the grade, you can’t stay.”
“That’s why I told him to go talk to Shane, to make sure that that was put to rest before it became an even bigger issue.”
“Absolutely.” Dani shook her head. “No, it was that meeting yesterday that brought me here. Did you take some notes? I was supposed to, but I apparently got so caught up in it that I didn’t.”
“I took some notes, but we really should just ask them to send over a recap of bullet points or whatever at the end of every meeting.”
“We should, but there’s just so much going on sometimes that I don’t know if any of us remember to ask for that.”
“Then maybe we need to appoint somebody as corporate secretary to Hathaway House and to attend certain meetings, specifically just to take notes.”
“Good idea,” Dani muttered. “As the center has grown, still Dad and I remain the only corporate officials in charge.”
“Which means it falls to you,” Lana added, handing off the notes that she’d put down on paper. “Not a whole lot here though.”
“That’s fine,” Dani muttered, as she scanned it. She tapped the page. “Here. That’s what I was looking for.” She wrote down a number, leaving Lana’s notes with her. “Thanks.” And, with that, Dani was gone again.
As Lana sat down, she realized just how much her own insecurities were always at play because, when she’d seen Dani like that, upset and not in the normal Dani type mood, Lana had immediately worried that something was wrong with the job Lana was doing. She could hardly blame Ryatt for being concerned, when she’d fallen into the same trap herself. Still, thankfully that wasn’t an issue now because she’d brought it up right away with Dani.
As Lana went about her day though, she wondered just how much these kinds of insecurities affected everybody at the center. She wondered if it was something they needed to make clearer at staff meetings in general and at patient and staff relationship meetings specifically. She brought it up to Dani later in the day.
Dani stared at her. “You know what? After what you said about Ryatt, I was thinking the same thing.”
“And seriously my own insecurities too, when I saw you there, standing at my office this morning. My instinctive first thought was that I was being fired.”
Dani whistled. “Isn’t it just amazing how the mind immediately goes to a trauma and can’t figure out any other way to see itself clear?”
“It’s kind of rough though because it’s not how we would want to deal with issues and certainly don’t want the patients to have that added stress either.”
“No, of course not,” Dani agreed. “And I think you’re right. I think we need to add it to the staff training to ensure that patients understand that they’re not on… what?… What is it I want to say?” she asked, staring off in the distance.
“They are not on sufferance or probation and, while they are expected to put forth the effort to improve, that they aren’t expected toperform or else,” she murmured.
“Yes, exactly. Can you write up a brief summary of those ideas? We’ll send out an email as a reminder.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea too.”
The following Monday,Shane popped in and asked Lana, “Was that your idea?”
“What?” she asked, staring at him, confused.
“That email about the staff ensuring the patients feel like they were not on a probationary testing ground here.”
“Yes,” she muttered. “At least somewhat of an idea. Dani and I were both talking about it.”
“I presume Ryatt brought that up.”
“Yes and no. I came in the other day, and Dani was standing at my door, and I immediately worried that I was being fired,” she said. “It brought up that, if it was happening to both Ryatt and me, maybe a whole pile of other people feel that way too.”
“Well, several other people have brought it up now that it’s been addressed, so good call on your part.” And, with that, he was gone.
She smiled. It’s the one thing that most people here were really good at—they gave credit where credit was due. And, for that, she was quite happy. At least whenever she put up a suggestion somewhere, it wasn’t knocked down as being stupid or too… useless or whatever. She remembered a few times in her previous marketing job where she had similar problems, where anything that she would suggest would be shot down because it wasn’t relevant, because it wasn’t a good idea. She’d started to get a bit of a complex out of it.