Long term planning - sort of

In my part-time position I work as a transition coordinator to assist persons being discharged from nursing homes. Basically I have to keep all the disparate elements focused on the goal of the discharge - be they state personnel, facility personnel and so on.

Emphasis needed. Photo by Patti

Today I was swamped with one woman who must be discharged on September 8. Busy afternoon, after about 15 different e-mails in regards to this case. I guess I haven’t been thinking about my transition today, as time to think (straight) was in short supply. So the thinking is going like this - I like the consumers that I have been assigned, the process and I differ as to what is effective vs. the process that exists...




I think that I have a sense that payment terms from the state to their contractors may be delayed due to the budget deficit issues in the state I live in. So payments may slow substantially - would my break occur if operating cash at my employer runs low. Therefore, my long term goals remain as before, my smarts to lead the way. Or at least I hope so... 

The past as prologue

What is it that compels me to want to establish employ on my own? Is it that I feel that I often know far more about many things than many of my employers or contemporaries? Or could it be hereditary? The last may be a stretch, or maybe not…

I suppose that the urge to at least attempt comes from my namesake, Grandpa. I have extensively written about the Sage of Steubenville (1902-1981), and his history is still instructive. Where eighth-grade was the norm growing up in his West Virginia

An iconoclast, he never fit the mold of an employee from the Ohio River valley from Pittsburgh to the panhandle of WV to Jefferson County Ohio. That would have been in a coal mine or in a steel mill in the pre-OSHA days. His father was in fact killed in a mill accident, which could have helped push him away from that. He decided his fate was in police/fire radios.

Grandma had been to a business school, and offered to help him in passing the test for his radio license, which he failed twice. Grandpa refused any help, preferring to study and learn and make it happen on his own. The third time was the charm in 1934.

Leasing radios to the agencies was unique in the day, but common now. He was well known for his integrity, his work ethic and his personality. His territory was extensive, In Ohio:  Steubenville, Jefferson County, Wintersville, Brilliant, Martins Ferry, Wellsville, Carrolton. In West Virginia: Brooke County, Weirton, Follansbee and Wellsburg

Can-do is a good descriptor, and he sold off the final piece of his business in 1978.  Obviously, tube radios were being replaced by solid-state electronics. But his customer list was important, his honor and customer service having a large residual value…

Okay, I am not the gentleman as described – yet, his background and instincts could have been passed down? My using a wheelchair often sets potential employers on edge. Okay then, it is my intellect (and courage) that needs to take over...How do I broadcast me??

Planning my escape - how?

I work for a non-profit who in turn works as a contractor for a State of CT (unnamed) state agency on an (unnamed – yet) project. I would prefer not to name names - although some people I am in contact with know exactly of whom I am referring.

What is annoying is how government as a rule adds zero value to any process. Where time is money, where speed with accuracy results in better outcomes.

Not that this unnamed agency seems to be concerned with outcomes in general are not the main goal – maintaining the flawed process instead. If anyone has been involved in the for-profit world (couldn't be anyone in the state I've dealt with), speed and outcomes matter. I don’t believe anyone involved in the project on the state level ever has…Even working at a non-profit, I have to work with these state people...And I am not knocking those that work for the state per-se, I am just not seeing true efficiency

I need to getaway, to what and how I can’t say. Yeah, at my age (55) and in a wheelchair, conventional employment is out. No whining, the decision makers will be nice about it during the interview, but…I have a mind and a modicum of intelligence. 


How do I plot my getaway???