I grew up in Maryland and have been there recently. In Maryland, there is always a “false Fall.” I’ll explain in a minute.

I now live in Florida, where May through October there is just heat. Hot and humid from the second you wake up until you go to bed. No cool mornings, no cool evenings, just melt your feet off, wrapped in a hot wet blanket hot.

So, I have been enjoying Maryland and getting lots of exercise without wanting to drop over. But as I said, there is a season we call “false Fall.” Don’t be fooled by it. 

Don’t go get a pumpkin latte. Don’t start thinking about your fall decorations.  Don’t start planning your Halloween costume. (Oh, as an aside, one year I was visiting my daughter in Burbank, CA, over Halloween. I wanted to dress in something that would really be scary, so I dressed up as gluten!)

Anyway, back to my false fall. Don’t relax and think everything is going well. In two weeks, it’s going to be hot as Hades. 

So why in the world am I bringing this up? Well, you know how sometimes we do a performance improvement plan (PIP) and think we have our problem solved. Maybe, it was a PIP to improve the dining environment. Or maybe it was a PIP to improve the workflow of morning linen change… whatever. And at first, it looks like it is working so we relax and move on to something else. But then, well, it gets as hot as Lucifer’s playground.

Thing is, when we do a PIP, we need to keep evaluating it over a few cycles, refine it and sometimes completely change it. Otherwise, instead of a false fall, we have a false sense of security.

Just know that most PIPs do take a good bit of refinement and you’ll be prepared and just fine. And eventually, your beautiful fall season will come around.

Just keeping it real,

Nurse Jackie

The Real Nurse Jackie is written by Jacqueline Vance, RNC, CDONA/LTC, Senior Director of Clinical Innovation and Education for Mission Health Communities, LLC, and an APEX Award of Excellence winner for Blog Writing. Vance is a real-life long-term care nurse. A nationally respected nurse educator and past national LTC Nurse Administrator of the Year, a 2024 McKnight’s VIP Woman of Distinction award winner, and an accomplished stand-up comedienne. The opinions supplied here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer or her professional affiliates.

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