On Becoming An Activities Professional

     Page Ten.
     As somebody who gets bored easily, I tend to collect professions, and education.
     In the summer of 1998 I'd just finished school... again. This time with a B.A. (my second) in Art History. I enjoyed learning about Art History very much and found it a useful tool. With it, I imagined, I'd be the perfect party guest. With my first B.A. (Interpersonal Communications) I learned to speak with almost anyone. Now with this second degree I had something to speak about. After all, just about everybody likes art, right? So my two degrees prepared me to be a great dinner party conversationalist. I was thrilled.
     Dinner party conversationalists can get paid a lot of money too, if they attend the right parties. Therein lies the problem. I didn't attend the right parties. So I became a hairdresser.
     I've been a licensed hairdoer since 1981 and occasionally find myself actually doing hair. Such was the case in the summer of '98 after graduating. It was really a case of "nothing else to do, so I'll go do hair."
     That particular salon, the one where I worked from summer '98 to summer '99, is a separate story; but come spring of '99 I was getting antsy.I really wasn't looking to leave, but I was getting bored; I simply needed some additional incentive to wake up in the morning. In one of my "flashes of inspiration" I decided to go to a hospital near my home and start volunteering. Innocent enough, right?
     So I called University Hospitals of Cleveland which is four blocks closer to me than the Cleveland Clinic and asked to speak with their volunteer department. I introduced myself very politely and explained that I'd like to volunteer to do arts & crafts with the sick children at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital. The Nice Lady and I  talked for a little while and the Nice Lady explained that that wasn't a volunteer position. However as it happened, on the prior day there was a resignation in the Hanna House Activities Department. Hanna House was U. H.'s post-operative step down or recuperation hospital, she explained. It was primarily geriatric and had a very quick turnover of residents (patients). The average stay was 12-14 days 'cause most people were simply there after receiving their new knees or hips. Some residents were there for other various and sundry medical experiments; new heads, new souls, etc. but really it was a lot of hips and knees.
     Activities Professionals are the cruise directors of the hospital she explained. They're the people who provide the cherry smiles, the Bingo boards, the radios and the parties and by law they must be in every nursing facility. Hanna House's licensing was technically that of a nursing facility. She though I should apply for the job and transferred me over.
     I left a message on Miss Leigh's voice mail explaining my situation. She called me back and I went in for an interview the next week. The interview went pleasantly but she explained that the job wasn't even posted yet, so the situation needed to be handled with proper protocol. Before Miss Leigh could make any decision, the job availability needed to go out to all hospital staff and she had to interview anyone interested. About four or five weeks later, Miss Leigh called me back and offered me the part-time job. She explained that I would start the second week of July so I could be scheduled for the proper orientation. All in all, from my first innocent phone call to the volunteer department to my first day working at Hanna House it was about twelve weeks.  
      I was really quite nervous about working in that environment. During the twelve weeks of forced contemplation, I thought a lot about this potential career change. I certainly had experience with elderly, Lord knows, but not in a hospital - such an official capacity! Also, my professional experience was with people who primarily required companionship, not outright care. But I didn't let Miss Leigh know of my serious concerns. After all, I collect experiences and stories. I love to live on the edge and challenge myself.  I wasn't going to let a potential new boss know that I was scared to death to actually receive the job that I was applying for.
     So that's how I started in the activities field. It was totally out of left field. But basically the profession was a good fit. It took advantage of many of my strengths. I don't know that I'll ever go back into it, but I also know that if I ever try to predict and bet where my life's path will wind, I'm guaranteed to loose my investment.