In 2008, when I was planning my future, I imagined what it would look like. I had no idea what was coming in my personal life but I knew what I wanted from my professional life. One day when I was particularly ambitious, I made this to go on the wall of my office. It says “Those who complain teach me how I can please others so that more will come. Only those who are displeased but do not complain hurt me, they refuse me permission to correct my errors and improve my service.” It has moved with me countless times over the years, but I refused to hang it until I was the person responsible for handling complaints.

Today one of our residents came into my office. She was frustrated, I could tell. In fact, I’d mentioned to our nurse earlier that she’d seemed a bit off these past few days. I haven’t known her long, but something was wrong.

I listened as she told me she didn’t like the pandemic restrictions I was putting in place, how she was mad about something another resident had done, that the door needed to be fixed. I explained that I have rules to follow that have been put in place to keep everyone safe, and this pandemic has affected so many people in so many unexpected ways; I told her that the common areas are for everyone but I would speak to the resident she complained about; and ohmygoodness that door is a thorn in my side and I am going to get it fixed if it’s the last thing I ever do! (Because it really is, and I really will!)

She laughed at that. But, still, there seemed to be something more. She seemed to be fighting back tears so I walked around the desk, pulled a chair closer (fully masked and sanitized, I promise), and took her hand. And the tears started to flow. Every time she tried to make herself stop, I urged her to let it out, reminding her that it feels so much better to let it out than hold it in. (She chastised me for trying to teach an 80-year old woman about life, and we both laughed at that.)

She told me about how she had taken care of her own aging mother, her husband’s mother, and her sister, so she understood that we all need help when we get older. Her husband took care of her after her stroke until he died of cancer two years later. She had been living alone ever since, until moving into our residence. In the past few months she’d met new friends and thought the staff is amazing, even the one she told me she didn’t like last week.

I told her how much I believed in the retirement living lifestyle, how I’d known so many people who were all alone, rarely seeing another human being, especially during this pandemic. I told her how important it was to me to do everything I can to keep her and everyone else safe from this terrible disease. Not because she was old and feeble, but because she was important, and we were her substitute family who wanted her to stick around a while longer. And through it all, she wept while I held her hand.

Then she took a deep breath, dabbed her eyes with a tissue and said she’d best get going, her friend was probably waiting for her in the lounge for their afternoon tea break. She smiled at me as I held the door open and my heart swelled to see that she looked like herself again.

Thank you for complaining, lovely woman. And thank you for letting me help you work through it. I think we are both exactly where we belong.

When I got home I dug it out; my framed motto will be hung on my office wall tomorrow.