Saving Lives

Prioritization is something you learn throughout life and often it’s from on-the-job experience. You have a whole checklist of things that need to be done. You assess which items are the most important things to do while also determining which items can wait for a few hours or days.

I think I’m pretty good at prioritizing stuff. If what I need to do affects clients, then I need to get on top of that as soon as possible. If it is something that doesn’t impact clients, I can move it down my list. But what I come across on a daily basis is a serious problem – it’s the chicken-without-a-head urgency that some people put on work items that in my view doesn’t merit all the commotion that they are creating.

A few days ago this guys called me at work and sounded like he was hyperventilating about completing something. This ‘thing’ didn’t impact clients and it certainly wasn’t super important in the scheme of things. But boy did it sound like an aneurysm was about to happen while he was talking on the phone with me.
I finally told him he needed to calm down because it would all be worked through and completed. It momentarily quieted his ticker but I’m sure after he hung up, he must have croaked.

I’m not a doctor and I sure as hell don’t play one on tv. What I can’t seem to understand is why so many people in the business world think that everything is a matter of life and death. I must have missed a memo! I don’t see the point to all the fire drills and all the dog-chasing-its-tail madness. I guess that could explain why I don’t feel like I’m going anywhere while others move up the ladder.

All I have to say is that it’s nice when some people who are ‘saving lives’ at work aren’t at work. I feel like I never have to scrub in and resuscitate anyone. All of this mad scrambling certainly makes me appreciate those emergency room doctors and nurses a lot more though.