And as a former ICU patient, I thank you tremendously for this. At the time I was too drugged to really give a shit, but in hindsight I appreciate the fact that my dangly bits were never exposed to everyone in the room... that I remember. [Actually, and I know this is kind of a derailment from the funny in this thread, but as a former ICU patient I'd like to thank the nurses like you a lot. I was in there for a week total (should have been a lot longer), and I actually look back on it quite fondly. Yeah, it absolutely sucked, but it could have been so much worse. Don't get me wrong I had a few jerks (and one idiot trainee-whatever that tried to change the dressing on my jugular catheter the wrong way), but the ones that cared, really made a difference. They took the time to talk to me and answer questions, and they responded to what I told them I was feeling and not just what the computers were saying. I should have been in there three plus weeks after major brain surgery; because in large part of the nurses that cared, I went home smiling few days later. Moral of the story: when you take pride in your care, we notice. Even if we are too morphine-riddled to vocalize it at the time.]
One of my secondary responsibilities is staying on top of patients' charts. Every day I pull the people coming in the next day and make sure the visits are still within the parameters of the prescription (they're written for a specific amount of visits over 4 or 6 weeks). I let therapists know when it's time to write a progress note for someone or if the chart is missing something that needs to be signed by the referring doc. It's not the end of the world if we have to back-date a prescription extension request or a progress note, but I like making sure the faxes sent to docs are appropriate and timely. Also, I take pride in problem solving on the fly. Essentially, my job is to make everything run more smoothly and efficiently in the clinic. Sometimes when I'm teaching a patient a new exercise they can't do it. I have to modify it to fit the injury/their capabilities. I think that's important because they still reap the benefits of executing the exercise, and they don't feel frustrated or defeated dropping it completely. Some come in really depressed and frustrated because they can't DO anything. I try to keep things positive and light. Or sometimes the flow of patients gets wonky and we end up with no empty tables or rooms. I like coming up with a solution of how shuffle people/timing issues through the not-so-smooth patch. They are very small things, but I think they make a difference in someone's experience.
I take pride in getting paid. This may seem weird, but as a small time Contractor, it is very easy for the customers to stiff you on the final payments. If they decide to do this, it is very difficult to get paid. So to have a customer willingly, and happily pay you, means you did a good job and should take pride in it.
I work for a company that sells Education Savings Plans, allowing a lot of families to send their children to post-secondary that wouldn't otherwise have any means of affording the insane tuition costs. Sometimes, days are long and frustrating. Sometimes, I want to throw my computer out the 12 story high window. Sometimes, I talk about how if I ever won the lottery I'd take a dump on my boss' desk and blow him a kiss goodbye. Most times, I just believe so whole heartedly in what we do that I shovel as much shit as necessary to make sure our clients are happy. I take ownership for mistakes I didn't make, and I follow up with clients that should be dealing with different departments and employees, just to make sure they believe as much as I believe.
Right now I'm making lectures for nurse practitioners before I head off to Australia on January 5th. They're flash videos online, and I take great pride in making them as polished as humanly possible (given my time constraints). The job boils down to making a 20-25 slide presentation in powerpoint, then recording my voice while the slides play through. So far I've made 4 presentations: Crohn disease, atherosclerosis, pulmonary embolism and gastric ulcers. I can probably give out the link if anyone gives a damn (although I'm quite certain most other people find these topics boring and don't care).
I'm a valet at a hotel with a small parking lot. As such we park the cars straight instead of following the diagonal parking spot lines painted, however it seems I'm the only one that cares enough about maximizing space to park the cars straight and neat. My co-workers always park a little crooked with too big a gap in between. They also never fill out the ticket correctly; how hard is it to get the last name, last 3 license plate digits, make and color of car and damage? Too hard apparently. When all of this comes together a guest can have their car to them in 20 seconds or less, if it's not all there then it could take one minute....in a parking lot that is 60 yards long. Why can't people just pay attention to the easy details? Am I the only competent one?