Speech Therapy is one of those “feel good” jobs. People usually go into the field because they want to help people. They want to make other people’s lives better. However, this is a delicate balance that I think many of us struggle with. We see what more could be done and keep trying to do more and more for our clients. Management realizes that we won’t say no and so adds things to our workload. The next thing you know, people are working 50 hours a week and have no life and trouble sleeping.
The dilemma is that if we say no, the clients may not get what we need. If we keep saying yes, the caseloads and workloads won’t decrease. However, if we keep saying yes, the clients don’t get the adequate level of service/care because we are only human and can only do so much. Yet, the guilt seems to make us say OK.
In my current department, there are many people who complain about their workloads. They say that they have too much to do and try to get other people to add to their own workloads. If the therapist says no, they are labeled as lazy. So, there is even more incentive to to say yes and enable the “we can do it all” mentality. I have recently learned to say no and try to set limits. I have realized that I enjoy having a life outside of work. I do better for my clients. Yes, it means that some clients in the organization get nothing, but I would rather give a good service to some than a half way service to many.
