WHO FIXED THE DOOR?

George Degethoff was a talented mechanic and handyman.  One day, he took his 4-year old daughter, Denise, by the hand and walked her two doors down to the Lockwood house. 

After her husband’s death, it became a daily pleasure for “old Mrs. Lockwood” to come out the screen door onto the big house’s wraparound veranda and watch the neighborhood children play.  Only Denise and her friends hadn’t seen Mrs. Lockwood lately.  Instead, she stayed inside, looking wistfully out of the window.  Mr. Degethoff figured out her screen door hinges must have shifted, preventing the 90-year old from opening the door.

So he leapt into action.  He made the necessary repairs, then packed up his tools, grabbed his daughter’s hand and started down the porch steps.  “But Daddy,” Denise said, “you didn’t tell the lady!”  “That’s OK,” said George, “she’ll see its fixed.”  “But she won’t know you did it!”, replied Denise.

“Pumpkin,” her Daddy said, “I don’t need her to know that.  That’s between God and me…and you, too.  I didn’t do it for the praise, I did it because it needed to be done.” 

The Greek philosopher Epictetus (55 AD – 136 AD) wrote:   “Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?”  Mr. Degethoff understood that. 

And both Epictetus and George Degethoff understood what Walt Disney later articulated as the essence of the Disney “magic”:  Put yourself in people’s shoes…imagine what they’d like to happen…and then take action before being asked.  Walt Disney said the most important part of the formula was to take action before being asked, that was the most important ingredient in “making magic” and it was at the core of the “Disney Experience” that keeps thousands of people returning year after year to his parks.

But that’s Disneyland.  You couldn’t really “make magic” at YOUR hospital, could you? Of course you can! 

·         I saw a lady standing in the middle of our parking lot, looking bewildered.  An associate walked over to her and said “Can I help you find something?”  She was looking for the AA meeting.  The associate said, “It’s over this way” and walked her to the Multipurpose Room door.

·        Arriving for work around 7:30 am one morning, an associate ran into one of our patients waiting outside the locked lobby doors.  He had been discharged and was waiting for his ride.  The associate said, “Can I get you some water while you wait?  Do you need anything?”  The man said he needed to use the phone to call his ride and see where they were.  The associate let the man into the lobby.  And while he was on the phone, got him a bottled water from Admissions. 

I know these stories because I witnessed them.  I do not mention the associates’ names…it is enough that they know who they are.  They didn’t do it for the praise, they did it because it needed to be done.