So, back in July, I was hired as Donor Center Tech (DCT) for Grifols Plasma, a plasma bank. As a DCT, I do finger sticks to collect blood to ensure that donors are healthy enough to donate that day. It’s actually a way cool job, and I work with really fun people, so it makes going to work really fun. It can, however, be a bit monotonous to be in a screening booth for three hours, sticking finger after finger, and measuring red blood cell/plasma proportion. I do get to meet a lot of fun people, and it's cool once you start to know people by face that come in, and you can ask them about their lives.
Plasma itself is actually really important for healthcare, because certain medications can only be made using plasma, and because drug companies make so much money off of it, it means that it’s also saving college students from living off of Ramen everyday, as they are paid for their plasma donations. In short, plasma saves lives.
Yesterday, I got to work, and was screening donors for about an hour, when we had a slight lull in donors. On an average day, we can have over 60 donors/per hour, and we are open from 6am-9pm. Experiencing a lull in the middle of the day on a Wednesday was pretty unusual, but it was nice to get a break. As a friend and I were talking, a manager approached us and asked if we would like to help with a service project, while still being paid as if we were staying at work the rest of the night. Umm, heck yeah! We (me, Marlie (our service committee head), Kimball, and Mat(also DCTs)) headed over to a building nearby that Grifols own, and also uses as storage. We were given blue shirts that say “Heroes Donate Plasma” on them, and then we headed off to Wells Fargo.
At this point, we still weren’t actually sure what the project was, and we originally thought we were just going to be installing alarms on the roof of our building. We didn’t know that we were heading off on a field trip!
When we arrived at Wells Fargo, we stood out because everyone else was wearing a red shirt, so we were happy to represent the home “Blue Team” vs. the “Red Team.” Yes, I was definitely comparing us using Cold War Russian sentiment. Don’t judge me.. I just watched the Elementary episode called "Red Team", so fellow viewers will understand my reasoning. Too, this was all through the Red Cross, and they said that the real heroes donate blood, so there was a cute rivalry between us and them, due to the question of who saves lives better- Grifols or the Red Cross? Anyway, everyone else there was like a real adult, and we were recruited because our manager’s wife works with Wells Fargo, and they needed more people. We finally learned what the project was: we would be going around to high risk areas in Provo, and installing free smoke detectors in houses. Well, that’s way cool! We received a short training on what to do, and with our map in hand, we headed to our assigned area.
Our team was rather unique because we are all returned missionaries, and 3/4 of us speak Spanish. That being said, no missionary, returned or otherwise, enjoys contacting, so when we approached the first house, the question was “Who is going to knock and introduce us?” Well, Mat was carrying a ladder, Kimball had the smoke detector bags, and Marlie was carrying a backpack, so they turned to me and said, “Johannah isn’t carrying anything, so she should do it.” Unfair? Yes, but as an RM, you just learn to suck it up, and knock. So, I headed up to the door and knocked. At first, my team told me to wait while we decided what to say, but the moment I heard from the Wells Fargo people that we would be offering free smoke detectors, I went into missionary mode and decided how I would introduce myself. So that wasn’t a problem. So, I knocked, ready to speak.
I think the first thing I learned from Hermana Giles in my missionary training was to always knock more than once. One time may mean that a teenager is ding-dong ditching you, or it’s like a postman or something, but two knocks means that you actually want to talk to the homeowner. So, I knocked twice like the good missionary I was, and a man answered the door. Now, most normal people open the door at least enough to see the person on the outside, but this particular man opened his door enough for us to not only see his bare, ugly chest, but also enough to see him zipping up his pants! Yep, I guess some people just sit at home with no pants on at 6 p.m. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. Of COURSE that would be the start of our smoke detector missionary moment. Needless to say, No Pants Man didn’t want us to come in. No problema, bud. Have a nice pantsless day!
We ended up getting into four or five homes, installing a total of eight alarms. Turns out, we were partially chosen because we were tall, which came in handy when a couple wanted us to install one about ten feet in the air above their stairs. Kimball, our resident 6’3-incher was on his tiptoes on a short ladder in order to install it. It was cute because the couple are actually senior missionaries for the area, speaking Spanish, so I looked at their bookcase, and found about ten sets of scriptures paired with tons of Spanish vocabulary and grammar books.
Our own Spanish came in handy as we met several people who spoke only Spanish, so it was fun to see each of us back in our “natural element”. It gave me a little glimpse of what each of them was like as a missionary, and we were all so different. Who knew smoke detectors could bring out the missionary in us? People do seem to be a bit more receptive to free smoke detectors than the Gospel, but it was interesting to see that while they allowed us in to install the smoke detectors, they didn’t seem to trust us the same way that I noticed as a missionary. People may not want missionaries in their homes, but missionaries do exude a certain presence of peace and goodness that people feel. I did love one home we entered where the Dominican woman asked us to come in and sit while she got her husband. It reminded me of all my sweet Ecuadorians who maybe wanted nothing to do with the Gospel, but still believed in hospitality, and would invite us in for an aguita and a pancito.
We finished around 7:45 and headed back to Wells Fargo to give them the paperwork and the remaining detectors. We compared results, and we got second place with 8 alarms. We were all ready to head back to work, but Marlie reminded Colin, our manager, that we hadn’t technically had our 15 minute work break yet, and Colin responded pretty well. He said, “Oh, that’s right. You know, you can just go get some food, and I could just clock you all out right now, or you can just clock yourselves out early when you go back to get your stuff.” Um, OKAY! We got paid to install detectors, we got to be outside, hang out, and we get to go out to eat on the clock, and clock out early??! Thank YOU!
We did feel kind of bad walking back into the center with food in hand, only to clock out while our fellow coworkers had twenty more minutes of work. But, they were just sad they didn’t get to go. When they asked why they chose us, I just replied that we were tall ;)
Plasma itself is actually really important for healthcare, because certain medications can only be made using plasma, and because drug companies make so much money off of it, it means that it’s also saving college students from living off of Ramen everyday, as they are paid for their plasma donations. In short, plasma saves lives.
Yesterday, I got to work, and was screening donors for about an hour, when we had a slight lull in donors. On an average day, we can have over 60 donors/per hour, and we are open from 6am-9pm. Experiencing a lull in the middle of the day on a Wednesday was pretty unusual, but it was nice to get a break. As a friend and I were talking, a manager approached us and asked if we would like to help with a service project, while still being paid as if we were staying at work the rest of the night. Umm, heck yeah! We (me, Marlie (our service committee head), Kimball, and Mat(also DCTs)) headed over to a building nearby that Grifols own, and also uses as storage. We were given blue shirts that say “Heroes Donate Plasma” on them, and then we headed off to Wells Fargo.
At this point, we still weren’t actually sure what the project was, and we originally thought we were just going to be installing alarms on the roof of our building. We didn’t know that we were heading off on a field trip!
When we arrived at Wells Fargo, we stood out because everyone else was wearing a red shirt, so we were happy to represent the home “Blue Team” vs. the “Red Team.” Yes, I was definitely comparing us using Cold War Russian sentiment. Don’t judge me.. I just watched the Elementary episode called "Red Team", so fellow viewers will understand my reasoning. Too, this was all through the Red Cross, and they said that the real heroes donate blood, so there was a cute rivalry between us and them, due to the question of who saves lives better- Grifols or the Red Cross? Anyway, everyone else there was like a real adult, and we were recruited because our manager’s wife works with Wells Fargo, and they needed more people. We finally learned what the project was: we would be going around to high risk areas in Provo, and installing free smoke detectors in houses. Well, that’s way cool! We received a short training on what to do, and with our map in hand, we headed to our assigned area.
Our team was rather unique because we are all returned missionaries, and 3/4 of us speak Spanish. That being said, no missionary, returned or otherwise, enjoys contacting, so when we approached the first house, the question was “Who is going to knock and introduce us?” Well, Mat was carrying a ladder, Kimball had the smoke detector bags, and Marlie was carrying a backpack, so they turned to me and said, “Johannah isn’t carrying anything, so she should do it.” Unfair? Yes, but as an RM, you just learn to suck it up, and knock. So, I headed up to the door and knocked. At first, my team told me to wait while we decided what to say, but the moment I heard from the Wells Fargo people that we would be offering free smoke detectors, I went into missionary mode and decided how I would introduce myself. So that wasn’t a problem. So, I knocked, ready to speak.
I think the first thing I learned from Hermana Giles in my missionary training was to always knock more than once. One time may mean that a teenager is ding-dong ditching you, or it’s like a postman or something, but two knocks means that you actually want to talk to the homeowner. So, I knocked twice like the good missionary I was, and a man answered the door. Now, most normal people open the door at least enough to see the person on the outside, but this particular man opened his door enough for us to not only see his bare, ugly chest, but also enough to see him zipping up his pants! Yep, I guess some people just sit at home with no pants on at 6 p.m. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. Of COURSE that would be the start of our smoke detector missionary moment. Needless to say, No Pants Man didn’t want us to come in. No problema, bud. Have a nice pantsless day!
We ended up getting into four or five homes, installing a total of eight alarms. Turns out, we were partially chosen because we were tall, which came in handy when a couple wanted us to install one about ten feet in the air above their stairs. Kimball, our resident 6’3-incher was on his tiptoes on a short ladder in order to install it. It was cute because the couple are actually senior missionaries for the area, speaking Spanish, so I looked at their bookcase, and found about ten sets of scriptures paired with tons of Spanish vocabulary and grammar books.
Our own Spanish came in handy as we met several people who spoke only Spanish, so it was fun to see each of us back in our “natural element”. It gave me a little glimpse of what each of them was like as a missionary, and we were all so different. Who knew smoke detectors could bring out the missionary in us? People do seem to be a bit more receptive to free smoke detectors than the Gospel, but it was interesting to see that while they allowed us in to install the smoke detectors, they didn’t seem to trust us the same way that I noticed as a missionary. People may not want missionaries in their homes, but missionaries do exude a certain presence of peace and goodness that people feel. I did love one home we entered where the Dominican woman asked us to come in and sit while she got her husband. It reminded me of all my sweet Ecuadorians who maybe wanted nothing to do with the Gospel, but still believed in hospitality, and would invite us in for an aguita and a pancito.
We finished around 7:45 and headed back to Wells Fargo to give them the paperwork and the remaining detectors. We compared results, and we got second place with 8 alarms. We were all ready to head back to work, but Marlie reminded Colin, our manager, that we hadn’t technically had our 15 minute work break yet, and Colin responded pretty well. He said, “Oh, that’s right. You know, you can just go get some food, and I could just clock you all out right now, or you can just clock yourselves out early when you go back to get your stuff.” Um, OKAY! We got paid to install detectors, we got to be outside, hang out, and we get to go out to eat on the clock, and clock out early??! Thank YOU!
We did feel kind of bad walking back into the center with food in hand, only to clock out while our fellow coworkers had twenty more minutes of work. But, they were just sad they didn’t get to go. When they asked why they chose us, I just replied that we were tall ;)
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