We Lived to Tell About It!!!!!

Dan's center had a HUGE audit by the European equivalent of the American Medical Association on August 5 & 6. We've known for several  months that this audit would be coming and the center actively spent the previous 7 or so weeks preparing; cleaning, organizing, straightening, repairing, etc. If the audit didn't go well, it's serious enough the auditors could close down the center and the manager could possibly lose his/her job.

The stress levels at work, and home, were high. Dan was constantly focused on work related concerns even on his days off. Because of these concerns he spent more than one of his days off working anywhere from 4-8+ hours at the center. His scheduled days were rarely less than 10 hours and often he had 10+ hour days with no lunch break.

I did what I could to help. The end of June I used some scrap paper and made a paper chain for him to take to work. I tried to pick up the slack at home so that things were organized and tidy. Most importantly I tried very hard to not complain about the situation. We both knew it was temporary but we also understood how important it was. I can't say I was perfect at not murmuring but thankfully those days were infrequent. When Dan would call me saying he wouldn't be home for another 1-2 hours after his scheduled time off he'd usually hear a sigh but that would be it.

As the audit drew nearer, tensions at the center began to rise. Everyone was beyond their breaking point. To try to reduce the stresses and help the employees feel appreciated we did a variation on "The Twelve days of Christmas." The first couple days were:

On the 12th day till audit the big boss gave to me...
A handful of penny candy.

On the 11th day till audit the big boss gave to me…
A pencil to write my SOP’s.
(SOPs are the Standard Operating Procedures the employees MUST follow for what they do.)

On the 10th day till audit the big boss gave to me...
A glass full of  ShastaTiki
(Tiki Punch Soda, can you say sugar rush?!)

After the first day, Dan came home saying everyone at work tried to guess what they would receive on the 11th day; "What rhymed with eleven that Dan would give us?" We had things most of the days. Unfortunately we skipped a day and the complaints immediately rolled in...."Somehow I feel like something's missing..." Dan assured them that they weren't forgotten and that the missed days would be covered.

The Tuesday before the audit they scheduled their monthly staff meeting. To make up for the missed days and to carry them through the remainder of the days till the audit, we made Biomat Audit Survival Kits for everyone. (The true definition of we: Dan ok'd my ideas, I shopped for stuff, and put everything together.) Since we were giving the kits to the employees on Tuesday morning, I had Monday to buy everything and put them together.

Here are the "ingredients" to the Biomat Audit Survival Kits:
(See if you can guess what they are for, I'll give the answers towards the end of the post.)

Everything was laid out for collating: 

Within a few minutes there were 29 Biomat Survival Kits.

So....here's what each item was for....

The colors were done so the wording was matchy-matchy with the item. (I'm a girl and we do those types of things.)

(The candles are to "not blow your top" and I didn't see the error until doing this post...I hate it when that happens!)

Thankfully the employees appreciated the efforts we'd I'd made on their behalf. They all seemed to like their survival kits. Dan received several words of gratitude from the employees and I did too on Thursday and Friday while I was at the center with lunch for them.

Dan's assistant manager was there on Friday afternoon when, during his lunch break, he came out and saw me (he was "off limits" while in his audit so I just had to stress and be supportive without any connection during the day). She said it made her day to see him "light up" when he saw me and as such she would gladly work late so he could get off early and we could get on the road sooner....(Yes, another post is coming...)

Did you guess the items correctly? If so, you think like us! Doesn't that just make you want to celebrate or something?!?!  :)