Lessons learned from my broken wrist

At the end of March, I fell getting out of the hotel shower while on vacation. I broke my wrist. Luckily, it was my left wrist, as I am right-handed. I always sort of figured my left hand was not as "important". I have been amazed at how many things in this life require two hands.  

I have learned so much during the start of this process.

• Clothing has way too many buttons, zippers, snaps, hooks and laces.  Thank God yoga pants are acceptable these days.
• Laundry is hard to hang up, fold and put away. And laundry baskets are impossible to carry down the stairs. Though dropping the basket down the stairs is easy (but freaks out the cats).
• Tucking socks together to put them in the drawer is tough, but unrolling them and putting them on is even tougher.
• Touch typing is really slow and requires a lot of thought. Apparently as a touch typist, I let my mind/hands just do their job without really thinking of capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. Just typing this blog has taken about ten times the amount of time I would normally spend crafting a post.
• The car's turn signal should be an Alexa option ("Alexa turn on right blinker").
• Lunch salads are impossible. Restaurants serve a ton of food that requires a knife and fork combo. Luckily, the appetizer menus have finger foods. My diet is suffering.
• Short hair is much easier to care for than long hair. But, still tough to color.
• Clipping and filing my fingernails seems so scary I am avoiding it for now and just letting my nails get longer and longer.
• Twisting off beverage lids/caps has me either begging for help, or drinking just water.
• And, last but not least, don't even get me started with going to the bathroom.

Overall, I am finding creative ways to do a lot of things. My husband, friends and family are all super supportive and help when I need it.  Yes, this sucks, but it could have been so much worse.  I feel blessed in ways I never thought of.

I truly have taken my left hand totally for granted.  I will never do that again!

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Who is my client?

When I worked as a waitress, it was easy to know who my client was... it was the patrons.  I lived off tips, so if they were happy, they tipped better, and I made more money.  Certainly, when I owned my own company, customers were my clients.

When I started working in offices, it became much harder to know who my client was.  A few of my first temp jobs were for sales companies.  We all worked to help the salesmen make more sales.  The clients were our customers.  Pleasing them was our main goal. So, that too was pretty easy.  

As I worked for different industries and got further into my admin career, the question of who my client was became harder to understand.  Usually, it was my boss/manager - the one that approved my pay increases and promotions.  Yet, this seemed harder and harder to decipher as my role became office manager / assistant / chief of staff / girl Friday.   Suddenly, I had a lot of bosses and no true "client".  

As I was cross-training to replace a lady who was retiring, she informed me that everyone in the office was my client. If they were all successful in their various roles, then I was successful, and the company was more successful.  It all trickled up and down.  She taught me how to look at them all equally, and prioritize based not only on title, but on necessity and urgency.  It was okay to tell your boss you needed to push their work to another day, if a co-worker's request was more urgent or would affect a greater number of people.   These concepts were very eye opening for me.

Now, I look at everyone as my client. My boss, her boss, their assistants, their project managers, the people in facilities that help keep us all safe and sound, along with all the other people that reach out to me each day.  I do my very best to treat them all as my most important customer - for when the prosper, I can feel good knowing I helped them a little bit along the way.

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Shoe rack or winter wear holder?