Assumptions get broken

At a religious, church-related social services agency and administrator frequently told me if you cut “assume” three ways, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” (A heck of a statement by some guy in that position.) His message was don't ever assume. I had a journalism professor that also said “assume nothing.”

Despite their advice and admonishments, the reality is that we all make assumptions or we assume. We assume good things and we assume bad things.

In my job, one of the bell-ringers is that people with panic attacks and agoraphobia are people who assume the most. They assume that they are going to have bad things happen to them in Walmart and other big box stores and any public place and any time they are alone.

I have also learned that the grief and loss process has something to do with assumptions as the first stage is shock or denial. The shock or denial goes against assumptions that we make that the loss of the cherished person, thing or idea taught otherwise.

I think that we all tend to assume that things will go on as they have always gone on. I have learned that lesson this past week as I have found my assumptions crashed.

On Thursday, August 28, 2008 my boss came up to the floor I was on and had a special meeting to inform us that the CEO and Vice President of our hospital had been terminated that day. For the most part, I had assumed that the CEO and Vice President would always go on in their roles.

We loved them dearly and I respected the CEO greatly. I was most interested in how a nun came storming in saying that she would no longer volunteer at the hospital because of how unjust the terminations were. She really assumed hard.

One of the people I had talked with had been in a meeting with the Vice President the night before. She related that the Vice President had talked about details of future plans and what the hospital was going to do about several situations. The conclusion was that the Vice President was truly blindsided with the termination early in the morning. The CEO and Vice President had been called downtown for a meeting at 8am where they had been informed they were no longer with the organization.


My unit's medical director (a psychiatrist) also said later in the day that the terminations were a shock to him—and he had been at the organization a long time. A second psychiatrist made the comment that the changes going on were crazy.

Things have been happening very quickly at the hospital over the past 72 hours. I have had the advantage of walking by certain places in the hospital and have seen that there have been a lot of emergency meetings.

From what I can judge, the top brass at the healthcare system home office have acted amongst themselves out of what appears to be desperation. They have been acting so quickly secretively and in what seems to be a crisis mode that they have not changed the website to remove the photographs of the hospital CEO and Vice President.

The facts of the terminations are coming slowly. Some of the scuttlebutt has to do with allegations of fraud as to how a case was handled. Some of the more reliable “intel” is that the CEO and VP are being blamed for the state putting the hospital and the whole healthcare system under a 23-day probation to fix some problems or lose Medicaid and Medicare billing ability. I figure that more facts and factoids will be coming.

I got a call today from my supervisor saying that there will be a 8am meeting on Tuesday, immediately when we come back from Labor Day. There are going to be a series of emergency educations to achieve compliance.

I believe that there will be many other changes. I believe that my supervisor will probably be a basket-case. She has said to a number of people that she fears that she will be terminated too. For what I do not exactly know, but probably because they want to downsize even more.

Things are suddenly feeling like recession as like other corporations where they are talking possible cutbacks and layoffs. There is a air of instability. I am back in the spirit of why I started this blog!

I go back to the matter of assumptions. Only when this kind of stuff happens do you realize how you assumed that it would not.

I think that we must assume things will go on the way that they always have. Otherwise we would never move ahead with dreams and goals. Also, if we did not assume, we would likely be paralyzed in our generalized anxiety over every and all things.

I think that we must assume that reasonable people act in certain reasonable ways. People who are anxious assume the worst while claim they are hoping for the best.

In addition to making the normal human assumptions, it is important to trust in your own problem-solving abilities. You and I need them when our assumptions turn out to be wrong.

Problem-solving abilities and your belief in yours are two elements everyone needs as no one can tell what the future is and no one can be truly prepared for the future.

I have decided that my problem-solving abilities will be along the lines of staying calm and focusing on the job. I will try to allow others to vent feelings and share as they need.

I also feel that I will need to be careful about how I think about things, and how much I try to pry and find out new things. Curiosity kills cats. Otherwise, I am confident that more and more facts will come drifting out and I will learn all I want and need to know without looking like a busy body.

There could be advancement for me within the organization. I have wanted to stay with the organization, but I have not seen anywhere I could advance. Now that there are changes, more executive roles could be created.

I have given some thought to what could happen if the hospital gets closed down. I have thought what would happen. However, I also assume that things will get worked out as I see the state of Kentucky bureaucrats in Frankfort not wanting to get themselves stuck with closing down a non-profit facility they have made the De facto state psychiatry hospital for children and having no place else in the state to put these kids and explaining to the governor why they shipped 200-plus kids to out of state facilities.

However, I assume that I would file for unemployment and then I would begin looking for work. I would probably have my wife get a more substantial part time job. I would probably apply for factor assistance to get help acquiring my son's factor replacement therapy medication. I assume that I would get another job in my field, or my new field in which I am getting my Ph.D. Any which way, I assume at this time the options I will likely have.

Would I have the options? I don't know and I may never know as I assume that the potential situation is only a potential situation composed of a number of different variables. Thinking too much about this causes way too much stress that I really do not need.

Well, we win and lose, laugh and cry on account of our assumptions. It is okay and it is rather human to do, but be ready to work on picking up pieces and solving problems should the assumptions crash.