My Support

My husband gives me daily emotional support.  He is my sounding board whom I can share anything with.  He listens to me and gives me advice when needed.  I like the fact that he can be unbiased and is brave enough to tell me when I’m wrong (even when I don’t want to hear it).  He helps me to transform from my culture biases and see things from a different perspective.  I respect and value his opinion and honesty.  I rely on his insight to keep me grounded and I hope that I never have to find out what my life would be like, without his valued contribution.

My daughter provides emotional support as well.  She helps start my day with a phone call to say “I love you” and “Have a nice day!”  After hearing this, I am ready to tackle the many challenges I may face throughout the day.  My daughter makes me smile and gives me a sense of empowerment and I hope that I do the same for her.  Sometimes I need this call for encouragement and reassurance and other times, just to widen my smile.  It would be extremely difficult if I no longer received this daily call before I go to work. 

My Staff provides daily report, by showing up to work and doing their job.  My staff ensures that the program continues to run as smoothly as possible whether I’m there or not.  This support lessons my stress level and provides a sense of pride and honor, because I know that I have a team of professionals working for me and with me.  It would be very difficult to run a high quality program without the support of my team.  I would not be able to meet the needs of the families in my community without their support.

Technology is crucially supportive to me.  I am able to retrieve and forward information in a matter of seconds.  Even when I am away from my desk, I am still able to conduct business just as easily.  Without this support, business will take longer to conduct and we will continue to destroy nature by cutting down more trees to make paper.  Without technology, my blood pressure would be elevated along with my stress levels. I would have tons of files and nowhere to store them; thus causing clutter and lack of organizational skills.  Time management would be blown out the window.

Challenge

Scenario:  I have a meeting with my supervisor concerning an irate parent in 15 minutes; a child had an allergic reaction to something he ate, so 911 had to be called. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is on the way and a teacher called out sick at the last minute and there is no one to cover her classroom.

For starters, I would need the support of my clerk, so that she could call 911 and the child’s parents.  Once she has made contact with EMS and the parents, I will need her to contact a substitute to cover the classroom.  I would also need the support of my assistant to cover the classroom until a substitute arrives to teach the class.  I would also need the support of my cell phone to contact my supervisor to inform her that I will be running late because of what is going on with the child and the classroom.  I would stay with the child until EMS and the parents arrived and then I would contact my supervisor to let her know the status of the child and that I was on the way.  I would need the support of my computer to write-up an official report of the child’s incident once I returned to the office.  The potential benefits of these supports are having them available to me.  Thanks to the support of government funding, I can afford to have a desk clerk and an assistant.  Due to the fact that the program is located on a military base, EMS is a part of the base community and is only five minutes away.  Without these supports in place, a child could have died, a classroom could have been out of ratio and full of chaos, and I could have gotten reprimanded for being late to my meeting with my supervisor.  Thank heaven for such an awesome supportive team!