That beautiful orchid was a gift from on my vendors. I was having a really bad day, and she called and delivered some more bad news. She showed up later with that orchid and told me she thought she'd made me cry. [for the record, she hadn't] In this picture, you can also see the walker that we have had in our office for over a year. A patient left it behind, and told us she'd come back for it. I'm guessing she's not.
Here you can see my water bottle and the folder I use on a daily basis. That folder contains all the important phone numbers I need - nursing facilities, home care agencies, insurance companies. It is like my bible. I cannot do my job without it. You can also see my respirator mask. I need to use that when I go speak to patients who are on isolation precautions for things like TB and the flu. Yup, the flu. You also get a good look at my calender, which (if you zoom in) has phone numbers and notes scribbled ALL over it. On top of my calender is where I keep/write on my daily census report (flipped over to protect patient identities).
Here is a close-up of my bulletin board. It's got pictures of Matt, my sister, my best friend Steph, my mom and Jeff, and my dad. It also has some silly comic strips from my friends, plus a thank-you card from one of my patients' families. It also has some Dove wrappers - one says "You're allowed to do nothing." Another one says, "Love is always the perfect gift." And the last one says, "It's not onlyokay to be different, it's fantastic!" It feels mildly sacriligious to be putting Dove wrappers on my wall (Dove is a Mars product. Remember, kids, I'm from Hershey), but...they're just too good to not look at every now and then! There are also some recognition certificates from coworkers, and a note about a patient's funny name. Because my coworkers and I are 10.
Here you can see our messy shelves. They're over my desk, but all 3 of us in the office use them. They contain mostly brochures from the various facilities and agencies we deal with. Plus some other crap.
The social work button. I sometimes have to fight the urge to actually point at this when some people are in our office.
This is my top drawer in my desk. It houses my pens (they have to be hidden - we get too many nice pens from our vendors, and they tend to disappear if they're on my desk), my business cards, my tea, and the office's supply of cab vouchers and SEPTA tokens. Cab vouchers and SEPTA tokens are the baine of my existence as a hospital social worker. A tip for all my blog friends out there - if you go to the hospital, have a ride home. Just because we have vouchers, doesn't mean we give them out, nilly-willy. Every time I give one out, I hear about it from my boss.
Kate talked about her food drawer. I don't have a food drawer. But I do have a shoe drawer! I walk 8 blocks each way to get from the train station to the hospital and back. And I don't do that in heels. So I wear my sneakers to and from work, and change into my heels when I get to work. Oh, and those fuzzy purple things are my USB boots - they have a warming strip in the bottom of them and when you plug into the USB port in your computer, it warms up the strips and you have instant toasty feet!
So that's it. My office. My desk. What does your work space look like?
