CPI Certification Excerpt

Calgon, Take Me Away

I might be dating myself with that title, but for those of you who remember, Calgon® was a type of bath product. You dump it in the bathtub, and it’s supposed to give you this great relaxing experience. In the television ad, there’s a woman in a fluffy pink bathrobe. Her house is in chaos, one thing after another goes wrong. As things reach their boiling point, the woman remarks “Calgon®, take me away!” The next thing you see is the woman relaxing in a bath and all is calm and quiet. It was the perfect escape.

Who knows? That might have been how Calgon® worked, but when I consider that slogan, I wonder what is it you do that gives you that feeling of escape? What is it that you practice on a daily or weekly basis that’s going to keep you sane? What do you do that’s going to help you to decompress? What is it that will allow you to let go of the stresses from every crisis you were involved with over the work week? When I worked at the hospital, and especially when I became a supervisor, one of the most difficult things was keeping the positions in the facility filled. There was a high turnover rate of employees in the crisis prone environment. This was especially true in working with an at-risk population and it was difficult to fill positions. (Learn how to handle crisis situations with our cpi certification online and our crisis intervention certificate training).

Because the facility was in a state of constant crisis, I worried about the mental health and mental wellbeing of my co-workers. Not just the people who had been there a while, but the new people who came in, as well. With new hires, especially, I was concerned about making sure they had an appropriate process of debriefing, letting off steam, and letting go of stress. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t make it past the first few weeks after orientation. At our verbal de escalation training page will learn how to handle any situation with our verbal de escalation training course on our verbal de escalation training blog.

So, I ask again, what do you do to escape? What do you do to get some distance from the crisis situation?

One of the things that comes with my experience and background in working in mental health and with people at risk, from being in Iraq and the war, and then working in law enforcement for a long period of time, I have, unfortunately, seen some difficult things. Things that most people never should, or will see. The reality is that, at one point, I had to take a serious look at what all that negativity was doing to me, and figure out how to get a break from all of it.

Many of us watch the news and we’re bombarded with negativity over and over and over again. Believe me, I know. Watching the news is something I have to do to stay current in the industry. You don’t realize the effect all that negativity is having on you. It changes your viewpoint of the world and the people out there. You become very isolated and suddenly realize you’re judging everyone as if they are going to be the next mass murderer.

So, think about what you might do to escape. Hopefully it’s professional and legal–that’s important! Also, make sure you don’t put it off for so long that the stress and crisis you’ve been facing on the job turns inward, and ends up leading you down a road where potential medical or psychological conditions develop. Don’t internalize it. Plan to secure some time to be taken away from it all.  If you have to use Calgon® and a tub full of bubbles, go for it. Go to our  de escalation techniques for customer service page to learn why our de escalation techniques for customer service can take your employees to the next level in calming an angry customer using  de escalation techniques for customer service.