Hey, this is Sandy. And Randy?
And we're here on AT Corner. Being an athlete trainer comes
with ups and downs and we're here to showcase it all.
Join us as we share our world in sports medicine.
Welcome back to another episode of AT Corner.
So we have mentioned multiple times athlete training is about
being. Adaptable.
Yes, so this week's episode is going to focus on the reason
athletic training is adaptable, and that's just change in
general. Honestly, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's the driving force and why we have to be
adaptable is just change. Do you like change?
Not really. Did you know that most people
who answered our poll do not like change?
I would not be surprised by that.
So I did ask on her. Oh, go ahead.
Sorry. I asked on our Instagram stories
the the very first question I asked this week was do you like
change? And 65% of people said most of
the time no. I feel like that's I feel like
that would be like what I would expect.
I think most people don't like would probably gravitate towards
not liking change compared to enjoying change.
I would say most people like or do not like change, but I kind
of expect it to be higher than 65%.
Honestly, yeah. Did he see the 35 liking change?
I thought, I feel like that was kind of higher than what I would
I would expect. I think it gets.
Boring without change. And we don't like boring.
Like I think change is exciting, especially.
Change is also necessary right times.
Like if you, if you don't have change, you get too complacent.
You're in your comfort. Zone.
That's fair. OK, so that leads into one of
the next questions I asked. Have you ever had a change at
work you were dreading but it end up being much better than
you anticipated? That's a good question. 65 I
don't know why the 6535 split was the thing this time. 65% of
people said yes. It was much better than I
anticipated. I feel like I don't.
I don't know if I've had anything that was much better,
but I've had things that it wasn't as bad as what it kind of
probably was going to be or like what it was viewed as.
Being. But I think that's the thing.
I think when we think of change, a lot of it is like fear and our
mindset and our thoughts. True.
Yeah, I think so. I think so.
I'm trying to think of like a context, like, yeah, a lot of
times it just wasn't as bad. I mean, there were also the ones
that were like, hey, this is going to be bad and it was bad.
But no, there were there's been stuff that it's hasn't been as
bad, like OK, like that's survivable.
Yeah, that's I think it also. Depends.
Like, obviously if you have something that's working, then
change is scary because you're like, this is working, Yeah.
What if it gets worse? That's what they say.
If you know if it's not broke, don't fix it.
Exactly. That's what they say, but that
doesn't mean it can't be maintained.
I feel like this happens a lot like when you get a new admin
administrator. Like even if you have a.
Good new administrator. I feel like just the
anticipation of what they're going to crack down on is kind
of scary. Yeah.
And it's, it's, it's, it's just, yeah.
It's that unknown. You don't know.
You, you don't know. You just don't know how they're
going to be about certain things or philosophy.
And I think it, it kind of goes back to the idea of like a, like
when you're trying to buy a car or determine when you're like,
should I get a, a car or not? Like, like your car, like, you
know the problems, right, Right. You know what to do, you know
what's been going on, you know how to handle it.
But then like, if you get a different car, like you don't
know you, you could do as much research as you can, but until
you get it, you just don't know. So it's kind.
Of like that. The unknown is scary.
Yeah. Our first story is from
Anonymous. They said we changed how we did
treatments to appointments using sign up Genius.
And it was wonderful. Most kids complied with the
change quickly. Those that were lazy learned
really quickly that they weren't getting treated without an
appointment. Well, my kids at least.
My boss just used it as a well, we'll see if we can fit you in.
And most of the time disregarded it.
It was a great system when used correctly.
My kids liked it too because we only allowed six appointment
slots. I was always really clear with
my kids that if they saw two teammates already signed up for
that time, don't bother because I will not be running around
like a chicken with my head cut off one off Circumstances were
different, but for the most part they were really good about it.
That's good. I see.
That's especially post COVID or like during COVID.
I've seen a lot. Of of appointment changes.
And I feel like people. Moving to appointments.
I feel like it's great from our standpoint because it, it does
help you out a lot instead of just mass chaos.
You can really kind of lock in on certain people.
But I think that is the, the hard part is like everyone's got
to be on the same page when implementing it.
And if there's any like weaknesses in that, like it
could make it a very difficult system to try and implement.
But yeah, I've, I've, I've been lucky enough to be in that
system and it, it was nice. It's nice to know who's coming
in that day, what you can focus on.
And also too, like, if you don't have any appointments, if you're
in a position where like, hey, I can cut my day a little short,
you know, that's kind of nice too.
Honestly, I think the transition from no appointments to
appointments can be like like there is a.
Big hurdle. Yeah.
There because you have the learning curve of everyone
having to figure out how to sign up or like just expecting a walk
in or forgetting that they have to sign up or like getting the
coaches on board. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I yeah, I and I think too, a lot of it is again, getting the, the
kids on board because a lot of them too, if they're not used to
like making appointments, like it might be a little bit, even
though like it's not like we make it hard.
And it's like you're calling somebody like, it's probably
like an app or something like that, which they're always on
their phone anyways. And I know and they're good with
apps, but like, I don't know, it's like it's weird because
you're, you're asking someone who's probably had for the most
part, maybe hasn't necessarily had to do a lot of appointments.
Like maybe mom and dad helped a lot with that.
And now you're telling them, Hey, you need to make this
appointment, even though this is probably the easiest appointment
they'll make. I think, I think that is kind of
hard. And again, it does depend on to
where they came from. Like if they haven't come from
an appointment based system that might seem super foreign to
them. And then they're like, Oh well,
I'm used to just walking on in. I've actually had it.
Actually, two places I've been where we had an appointment
system and we changed to no appointment system.
I mean, I think right now where I'm at, I'm actually OK not
having an appointment system. Like I think like how the days
kind of spread out. It's not, I don't feel like it's
as chaotic to where I'm like, we need an appointment system,
right? So I feel kind of comfortable
with that, even though I still think it would be beneficial.
But I think it, I don't know, I haven't felt the need to be like
we need to change this. I feel like when it works, it
works really well and when it doesn't like it doesn't like I
think it just depends on your on your setting, but like I I think
more like the change from or to like could you imagine changing
to an appointment system right now with your kids?
No. No, I think, I think overall it
would be difficult, but I know there would be the the handful
that would get it pretty quick and could and could get it done
appropriately. I still think my majority would
probably have a hard time with it, right.
And then it would just end up me doing just the same thing.
And then and now, then you get the ones that are like, well, I
made an appointment as yeah. So I think, yeah, to answer that
question, it would be difficult. Yeah, another big change that a
lot of people have dealt with is adding another athletic trainer
to their staff. That's fine.
That's. Always fun. 57% of people said
yes, they have added another athletic trainer to their staff.
43% said no. But within.
I also asked about changing roles at your job because that's
a that's a big one. Like it is you could be
assistant athletic trainer changing to associate athletic
trainer, or you could be an athletic trainer changing to the
head athletic trainer, or you could be an athletic trainer
with lacrosse now working with track or you know, whatever.
Like now you're taking on insurance duties or you know,
there are so many different roles or even like more admin
responsibilities or. Yeah, I mean that.
Yeah, that's a big change. 67% of people said they have changed
roles at their job. Nice.
I hope, hope for all good reasons, like all like moving up
or like doing something you wanted to do as opposed to be
like this is terrible. I gotta get out of this.
Right, right. This first one from Anonymous
says I'm currently in a float role where I'm full time but I
float between 2 high schools so we have 1 1/2 a TS at each
school. It's new here, so lots of
change. You think of the average high
school AT they're working with one AT to 300 to 500 athletes
and in our location they keep adding sport coverage.
It's not safe and it makes it hard to have work life balance.
I was hired a few years ago. And it has been interesting to
help burned out, overworked. Might I respectfully add
prideful a TS understand how to work with someone else.
We've been trying to incorporate 1 1/2 at each school and while
it's been received well, I've noticed that as a tease, the
pride of my teams, my tape, my treatment, etcetera, rather than
let's work as a team. It's a great transition.
I think it helps us as healthcare providers be more
mature and understand that it's about the athlete getting the
care they need and never about us.
Yeah, that's true. I think it's so easy to put the
focus on us. Yeah, and it's like we're.
Always with ourselves. So like this is like what you
know, right? And especially you don't really
have another perspective until someone kind of points it out.
Yeah, and I do agree. I think like if you have like a
definitely a bunch of professionals that are probably
used to being by themselves, they've gotten used to a system
and they've made that system work for them.
Then you throw maybe another person and now your system's
kind of like, well, we, we're like, I don't know where it fits
anymore. And it's like we're doing fine.
I don't see why. Like even though we always see
why we need more staff, but I could see like, right, right.
That kind of pride thing of like, Oh my, I really like doing
this or like stuff like that or like, man, I really like this
team kind of thing, right? Or connect with this team.
I, I did ask if this was a like almost like a the district
forcing this addition additional role or if this was like the a
TS asking and they said, you know, helps always ask for which
like makes sense. Like, and I think that's The
thing is like, I think sometimes we ask for things but don't
actually realize the implications of that and then
realize that we have to go through this like uncomfortable
change period, right? That like we, we asked for this,
now I have to like figure out how to make it work.
It's not just magically going to be perfect.
Yeah, for sure. And I think this too, like I
don't know anything about the school, these teams, like I
don't know anything about this situation, but I could see how
like one full time being there all the time is probably like in
their control. They're like, this is everything
that like I do, right? And then all of a sudden this
secondary person coming in doesn't feel like it's like
equal weight. I was just going to say like,
let's take this on the flip side.
Like it's also not easy on the person that's coming in because
now it just feels like, like they can't do anything because
it's like, Oh, well, everyone's going to this person or right,
you know, it's, it's a weird transition because like when you
bring someone in new, like there has to be a give from the people
that are there to make it an easier transition for the person
that is new and coming in. Because like, I don't know, it's
like really hard for just someone to voluntarily be like,
Hey, I've been working with you. I've I've really liked working
with you. Oh, someone's new here.
That's allegedly like covering my team.
Oh, I'm just going to go to that.
Right. So it it does take a little bit
of a give from the people that are there to hopefully help make
that transition a little bit better.
Right. I mean, I've also been seeing
this with especially like in our setting, we're both in the
Community College and even like both Randy and my schools both
each have three athletic trainers, but they previously
both of them had two athletic trainers.
And a lot of community colleges down here are transitioning to
three athletic trainers depending on how many sports.
So you're, you're really seeing like this, these addition of new
positions and then you're seeing all these colleges that have to
find, even though like they like these colleges need more
athletic trainers. Like we definitely need more
than three athletic trainers, but the transition of trying to
figure out how to make a third or a fourth or whatever position
and, and how it's always been done, right?
That's really the the comfort zone.
This is how it's always been done.
As the that that statement is just it, it that's that one's
just, it's tough to hear the statement when you're trying to
progress things. Right.
But then now all these schools are adding another position and
it's like, well, like you want the help, but how are you going
to divvy that up? So that third role is actually
really needed. Yeah, I mean, for sure it's
needed, but how are you going to find space for this?
Role yeah, I, I, I think too, you got to remember like what if
what if that was you, you know what if you were put in that
position, right, you wouldn't like that.
You wouldn't like feeling like, Oh well there's I'm literally
twiddling thumbs, right? Or like people aren't going to
me or I like I don't have this communication with someone
right? Like you wouldn't like that
either, you know. So that's why I like like, you
know, there should be that that kind of give also to help with
that transition. Mm hmm.
I think to it is really helpful when people kind of lean into
the change and kind of like are willing to weather the back and
forth, I guess and the the hard parts they know it's temporary.
I think that's. Yeah, growing pains.
Right. We all had them when we were
kids. But it's more much more
comfortable when you don't have to do that.
Of course it's true. But then in growths, I don't
want to say doesn't happen, it's it's just maybe slower or
minimal. Yeah, it's different.
It's different, Maddie S says. We added one AT in addition to
cutting 6 sports. I mean, OK, first of all, that's
nice that they were able to still add an AT in an
environment where sports were cut because anytime you start
talking about cutting sports, you feel like, oh, well, we're
probably not adding a staff member because we're trying to
save costs. So I mean, it sucks for the
sports uppercut because those are jobs.
It affects the kids absolutely. But it's just, it's good to see
like from a business side of things from that school that the
funding was still there to add a staff member even though there
were sports cut because that that does get scary when sports
start start getting cut. You're like, Oh no, what's going
to happen to my staff now? Well, so I figured I I was like
wow, I need to know more about this because I have never heard
of that position ever. Like I've never heard of people
cutting sports and adding a TS. Yeah, I'm at the same time.
That's like I said, like if you're, if the school's in an
environment to cut sports, like they're usually not going to be
like, yeah, we're going to add more staff too while we're at
it. So that is a unique kind of
experience. So Maddie said we used to have
three sport assignments and now we each have two, one travel
sport and one non travel. It's made a world of a
difference. I feel like I actually have time
to focus on my two teams versus struggling to come up for air
and give everyone what they need.
That third team just puts you over the edge on workload and it
was not manageable or sustainable.
I got our admin to do an audit on the department.
The audit guy wrote up a whole report on things we had to do as
a department to function at industry standards.
The NCAA will soon mandate audits.
They didn't used to be mandatory, which is.
Crazy NCAA's pre organized on that.
And that encouraged admin to do it because they would be ahead
of the game. Oh.
That's good to hear. My coworker and I wrote up a
whole report on why we need an additional AT.
It showed that we were functioning at the lowest
capacity compared to everyone in our conference.
It actually showed that we needed to hire an additional 2
to 3 ATS to make even. And at the same time, the NCAA
made a rule that you can pay for two assistant coaches instead of
1. This was going to become
expected across all sports. So in order to meet all of those
demands at once, they cut 6 sports, meaning we only need to
hire one AT to make our ratio equal, and turned each sports
volunteer coach role into a paid position.
Oh, interesting. So this is like.
A prime example of when deficits are identified, but then there's
actually something done about it instead of just saying Oh well,
you got to make it work. I just love how the admin was
all, all aboard on the hey, we'll be ahead of the game
because too often it's easy for like depending on like levels
like, hey, this is what's coming down the pipe.
Like, we're going to have to do this to just be like, Oh, well,
we will deal with that when it comes, right?
So it is. That's pretty cool to hear.
Admin was very open to being like, hey, yeah, let's get ahead
of this. Let's get used to this kind of
system getting used to the change.
Hey. That's cool, That's awesome.
Be the change, be the change. Be the ball.
I think it also helps like when you're last in the conference
like I think it. Oh, anytime you get to do that
and say yeah. Like we're the only.
One yeah, look at the other schools.
I mean, that sucks to be in that position, but.
Look at the other schools. Gosh, because anytime you go
back to athletics, well, you don't want to be last.
Nah, that's losing. Either you got to be better than
them or just let's just do the same thing everybody's doing,
right? Have you ever had construction
at your workplace that changed your EAP?
Not really. Really.
Ever. Yeah, actually, Actually, yeah.
I've ever been. In a place where we've had
construction affect our EAP. That is really funny because.
I've had it multiple times. Yeah, no, I.
Have multiple locations and 6062% of people said yes.
Oh, we almost had another 6535 split was 62 percent 30. 8
missed opportunity, yeah. So one time I was actually
giving an EAP talk. Like we had one of the local
MSAT programs come over and they were doing for their emergencies
class. They, they were coming over and
they were talking about the EAPI think I was supposed to give
them an EAP example and talk about like one of our fields.
And then I took them to some other fields and then they
would, they would ask me questions and then they had to
write an EAP for those things. And so I wasn't supposed to give
them any information except for whatever they asked me so that
they could, they could write the EAP for that.
Nice. Yeah, really cool assignment.
They and I actually, I was walking cause Pam, who was
teaching that class, she asked me to give her the examples of
the Eaps. And then that morning I got an
e-mail that one of our roads was gonna be closed because of
construction. So then I was like, OK, so
here's a prime example of what you have to be careful of
because now I have to like I have to alter this EAP.
And it just happened this morning that like they're
changing this road. And so like, that was a perfect
example for them. Change being an AT is about
being adaptable. But then also we had a lot of
construction near our football field.
And so then we had to figure out like an entrance because they
were working off where our primary EAP access was.
Yeah. So we had to, we had to figure
out how to get around that. Interesting.
That's pretty cool 'cause people were still practicing on the
field, of course. Yeah, sports don't stop.
I thought this it was perfect to add this story from Matt E who
works in construction. Oh, OK.
You want to read this one. Yes, Matt says working as an
industrial AT change happens frequently.
Loli work in construction. I'm on a site that builds data
centers from the ground up, so EAP things that change early in
a project are how the EMS team would access the site as well as
get around once on the site. My site has an east and West
entrance now, but earlier it used to be only it used to only
be one open at a time, and they go back and forth on which one.
Great. Yeah, that's just what is it
today. On top of that, certain roads
going around the site would be closed or blocked off depending
on excavations, active cranes, etcetera.
Then also if an employee is hurt on an upper level or the roof,
we communicate with local EMS on how they would be recovered.
Oh what a word recovered. Some of my Co workers, we
usually have five across the whole campus every day, have
coordinated with the local fire department to have them come
walk the campus and assess or even reach out directly to the
training center as they're familiar with the capabilities.
That's interesting. That's that's a lot of change
frequently. That's really interesting
because yeah, I guess like if you're in construction, they're
building things, so it's constantly changing.
And you definitely have to have an EAP for that.
Yeah, for sure. And always wear your hard hat
hard hat area. One time I accidentally walked
into a hard hat area. Without a hard hat.
Uh huh well, actually that's what clued me and I saw everyone
else wearing hard hats and I was like, I don't think I'm supposed
to be here, but the gates were open 'cause the basically it was
this is so not athletic training talk, but off topic.
I was like walking and there there was a gate that said do
not enter hard hat area, but it was open to let in a big truck.
And so like the big truck went in and like I'm supposed to be
going down the street, but the gates were completely open.
So I didn't see the sign that said like do not enter hard hat
area. And so then like I like walked
in and I was like, that doesn't look like a through St.
Like I don't think I can get through that.
Like that looks like construction.
So then I turned around and then I see the gate that's open that
says like do not enter hard head area.
And I was like, Oh well. Speaking of construction, so
when I was a a like a volunteer student, they were doing some
major construction at where I was at, like they closed off a
section like that. There was an out there term
like, Hey, this this one's really not going to be used
anymore going forward because they're going to be doing
construction and they were building a stadium, a new
stadium. So naturally things have to be
torn down. We got to like redo ground.
We're moving earth basically. So they have these like giant
earth movers, like basically going in a loop, right.
So naturally there's a, there's one individual at the
construction that saves everybody's life and it's the
dude with the stop slow sign. Yes, right.
So he, we got waved to go and we're going.
But again, like, so where we were driving in this golf cart.
So it's me and and another volunteer student and I'm in the
passenger seat. So I'm not in control of this
situation. So obviously there's has to be a
road big enough for the earth movers to go.
So where we're going, we have to go past that road and then
continue on our merry way. No, no, no, no, no.
The person who is driving decided, oh, I'm going to go on
the on the track that has the earth movers that, you know, are
ginormous, that aren't going to stop and really quickly and are
probably going to be pretty pissed off if they had to.
So we start to go. I'm like, so we had to like put
in reverse, literally an earth movers coming at this point.
And luckily we got out of the situation, but I could have
died. Thank you for not dying.
That was wild. I've never heard that story.
I forgot I forgot about that story, but the construction made
me think of it. That's really funny.
Yeah, that. Was a wild time.
It's also like now this is just making me think of like all the
change we've had at work. Like even from having one golf
cart to 2G carts or 1 golf cart to no golf or like to 2G carts
to 1 golf cart like going down a golf cart or like having 2 ice
machines to 1 ice machine. Or to none.
And you have to adapt to like the things that just pop out of
nowhere. Yeah.
Oh yeah. You know what?
I do have that a lot. My ice machine always breaks.
Yeah. So I have been down to no ice
machines before. Yeah sucks.
Oh oh. Another change moment is when my
lights were out at the in my clinic.
Oh, I remember that they. Were out for a few weeks.
They were, yeah. But OK, so like normally I'd
just be like, OK, I'll go work in the other office, but this is
when I was new and I was trying to get my gym at the training
room, like people to go there, right?
So I. You're trying to get
established. Exactly.
So I sucked it up and sat there in the dark.
Did you treat people in the dark or?
As best I could. You're like in the middle of the
building. How did you manage?
That I mean there was light from the hallway and there was like 1
like safety light in there too. So they're like.
It was moved. It wasn't like, yeah, it wasn't
like it was just dim, right? So it wasn't like pitch black
like I could see. OK, yeah, well, your locker
rooms were pitch black. Yeah, the team rooms were pitch
black for the team, so that that was about and then the men's
restroom was too. And so is the football locker
room when we travelled there. Yeah, it was.
It was. OK, so Mason B says our main
elevator was being replaced for eight months, which changed all
of our Eaps, especially of his stretchers needed.
Interesting. The entrance is on the 2nd
floor. The gym is on the 1st floor,
athletic training rooms on the third floor.
What? Holy smokes.
Auxiliary courts, indoor tennis courts and weight room are all
on the 4th. Floor This is intense.
I know we do have a freight elevator but it's tucked away in
a corner and not many people have keys of.
Course not. So if the.
EAP was activated when I would usually go tell someone to hold
the elevator for EMS. They either wouldn't know where
the freight elevator was or they wouldn't have access to it, so
EAP adjustments had to be made. That's.
Great. What is this facility?
This is this is crazy. I don't know, but I did.
I did my observation hours and a clinical site in a basement
athletic training. Room.
That's crazy too. And there was like a set of
stairs and then there was also an elevator and the elevator
broke. So it was so temperamental.
That sucks. And it was so easy to break.
Like I still remember like if you push the the cart, like you
know how the elevator like door has like I don't know if you
know this, but like how it has like 2 parts the door there's
like the indoor, the inside door and then the outside door.
And so like if you are pushing the cart and the elevator door
decides to. Like.
Close like the whatever door it's like touching will like not
open that. Sucks.
So then the door separates like the inside door from the outside
door and then and then like you have to go call campus safety to
get people to come fix it because like you touch the door
with the cart, it would happen so often.
We in the gym, we had one that would do that like when we would
when I, this was when I was a student and I was working event
staff. So we're like when I'd set up,
when I'd help set up for like the basketball games.
And like, we kept like the really nice courtside chairs.
Yeah, we had courtside at this 1950s gym.
We had the really nice ones stored upstairs, but we had to
get them to the first floor to, to court level.
So naturally, the elevator's the fastest way to do that instead
of lugging these heavy chairs because they're nice chairs.
So they're a little heavy downstairs.
And if you started going up and down too much.
Oh, this bad boy would just stop.
And so like it's it was almost something like that.
Like if the doors were closing and it hit the cart and had to
reopen, like they just wouldn't close again and the elevator
would be just shut down and just it would sit there with the
doors open. Do you know how many times I
would show up and the elevator would just be sitting open like
that's how ours was? That's pretty funny.
So it's like, oh, I guess we're not using the elevator.
Today I would say when I walked in, I'd say the elevator is
broken. Not using that today.
That's funny. Oh gosh, could you imagine not
having an elevator and they call EMS to the 4th floor?
I think that would suck for EMS. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna have to
lug that bad boy all the way up. Mm.
Hmm. I hope they lift.
I hope they're right. I hope they lifted.
Actually, we were thinking about that for our football EAP.
There are four, technically there could be 4 entrances
'cause there are 4 gates, but only two of them are fire gates.
And the other two, one of them has a very like just a normal
doorway gate and then a sharp turn to to a like a 2 steps.
And so it's like, OK, that would be difficult with a stretcher.
But the other one is just a doorway gate.
So OK, the stretcher could go through that.
But like like just the stretcher.
Do you want to read this one from Christina S?
Yes, Christina says. I just dealt with the lock to my
door of my office being changed and they wouldn't give me a key
and wanted me to use my ID access but I didn't have that
either. It took me over a week, lots of
emails, texts and phone calls to finally get it.
I cried lol it was so frustrating.
I did end up getting access after a 30 minute phone call
with the director of IT and him him being like try it now try it
now try it now. That's a bummer not being able
to get into your office. Is, you know, this is, I don't
know if this is getting more popular around anyone else, but
like I feel like I'm I've been seeing more and more ID card
access like my school is not we're so far away from that, I
think, but you. Can't.
You can't hack in your lock. But my last school we had we had
hard keys and we also had ID keys like I think 'cause they
were trying to transition over and the like little card like
they would like it automatically locks so that you can't use the
card after 10:00 PM and on holidays.
I think that's. Dumb.
And I'm like, you know how often I'm here after 10:00 PM?
And do you know how often I'm here on a holiday?
Yeah. And I think weekends, yeah.
So I was like so. Makes.
Sense. Yeah, very frustrating.
Also like the bathroom, I'm like I need to get in the bathroom.
I need to be. Yeah, so change.
Yeah, changing locks and not getting giving the things you
need. It's crazy.
Oh my goodness, that's crazy. Yeah.
So I can just imagine how frustrating this is, 'cause just
like I remember, yeah. Have you ever had to temporarily
move out of your athletic training facility?
Yes. When?
So I was grad assistant, they were we had to remove, we had to
remove asbestos. Oh, we have a story about that.
Oh not yes, yes again, 1950s gym.
So naturally it was lined with asbestos.
Don't worry, I also did my undergrad there so I was
spending years within the asbestos before we decided, oh
there's asbestos I. Think you were there for like a
decade with the asbestos, weren't you?
Oh yeah, they didn't, they didn't change that until my last
year as Aga. But yeah, so literally, I don't
know how beneficial it actually was.
So like our athletic training room was right next to the
athletic training like classroom.
And so it's it was actually it outs if you take away the wet
area in the athletic training room, I'm pretty sure this
space, the classroom was bigger than our current athletic
training room, so. Honestly, I never thought about.
That, but actually, yeah, that lab was pretty big it.
Was it was a bit like if you take out, because obviously it
was a lab, like it was a classroom, so all the tables
were treatment tables. So there was like a ton of
treatment tables. You take that all out and set it
up for like an athletic training room.
It was actually very spacious. It was actually kind of nice.
Yeah, actually, yeah. Yeah, a part of us did kick
around the idea. Like what?
Just. Switch like.
No take over both knock down one of the walls that.
Oh yeah. And make that our full athletic
training room. Well, why don't they do that?
That idea. Was kicked around, it probably
sounded expensive and they didn't do it.
Taking down a wall. Yeah.
Some places do that. You're right, some places do,
but not not ones that are super budget conscious.
Apparently our athletic training room used to have a wall.
And. Then it used to be part, it used
to be part of the men's locker room.
And then, I mean, not the athletic training room, but now
like we took a chunk of the men's locker room to be.
That's nice. Part of our Yeah.
That's cool. ATR.
Yep. That's dope.
I've heard lots of stories. I'm sure.
OK, So this one, I never, I never shared these results.
I guess 42% of people said they did have to temporarily move out
of their athletic training facility, 58% said no.
Interesting. I don't think that I actually I
have for COVID. Oh yeah, you're right.
We made three facilities instead of out of two.
Oh no, we made four, we added. There was a yoga studio that.
We I remember. That we added and then we also
there were portable classrooms that we added.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.
I forgot about that one. Catherine G said we had to
change locations for AVP debate in 2018.
That's crazy. Nightmare.
Fuel, I bet. It was D1 mid major college.
Oh, mid major life. The debate was within our gym,
so clearance had to be done for the whole building.
We were displaced for six months through the end of September
when the debate was. Luckily they moved for us, but
we moved a lot. Treatment tables, Chattanooga
machines, rehab equipment. There was business space.
A former hair salon by the way, downtown that was vacant so we
were moved there. Small college town so it was
still somewhat convenient for the students to get to.
Location wasn't too bad because we had a really good outdoor
access and a lot of our fields weren't near the AT room
anyways, but basketball practices were in so many weird
locations I bet. The best and.
Most dangerous part was that we had a Moe's Mexican food
restaurant right next door. Oh, that's nice.
And through all that, when the duet happened, Mike Pence didn't
even say our school name, right? That one stings.
That, that one I'll I'll that, that one stings.
That's a bummer. So I actually.
She had just said Moe's and I, I didn't know what Moe's was.
Oh really? I guess it's not really a West
Coast thing. No, I'd never heard of it
before, but I imagine like being next to a Mexican food
restaurant all day long. Like I would probably, I would
probably have chips and salsa every single day, probably like
twice. It does get dangerous when
there's good stuff around you. I remember the last place I
worked, we literally had a Starbucks, like like a 2 minute
walk. That was, yeah, we had Starbucks
a lot. Isn't.
Don't you have one on the way to work now?
Yeah, but it's not a convenient on the way to work like this
one. Like I could literally step out,
walk to it and be back quickly. Whereas this one, like I can't
walk to it quickly because it's like half a block down.
Can't it's too much work to get in the car, wait at lights, go
to the drive through. It's just, I mean, luckily
there's stuff on campus, but I don't know, it was a different
magic when you could just walk to the Starbucks.
Our students love to walk to Starbucks, I bet, so we have one
on campus. Yeah, see, yeah, we have like
our campus up that serves like Starbucks stuff.
So like I, I do like that better 'cause, you know, support the
school. I think I like, I mean I don't
really drink too much coffee or tea, but I like the smaller
places. Yeah, I feel that.
That's why I'd rather support the school.
At least give the money to the school.
I never thought about that. Do you want to read this
asbestos one? Oh yes, I have experience with
that. So this one's a gem from Gen.
Well, you want to hear about change and you mentioned moving
Atrs. I got one for you.
So I was the first AT that my school had ever hired.
Talk about change. I know that's a big change.
The whole thing took about 3 weeks and it was obvious that
they weren't super prepared for the first semester.
I had an office on the second floor of my building and my ATR
consisted of a giant food service ice machine, a Whirlpool
older than me, and a taping table that was in room in a room
the size of a large closet. That's very interesting.
I was hired in the spring, so over the summer my AD decided to
take part of the men's locker room, knock out a wall, and
double the size of my roommate. Yeah, that's basically what
happened to ours. Yeah, yeah.
Instant, instant improvements. My very first AT room was born.
It had two doors which was pretty convenient, 2 taping
tables, a treatment table, some storage, my desk and a bookcase.
That was my home for the next 8 years.
Wow. Then came 2009 and our major
building campaign. I was disappointed to learn I
wasn't going to be getting space in the new building, but was
going to get a space that was going to be renovated just
across the hall. That was probably five times
what my old space was. Holy.
Crap. Constant improvements.
Wow. However, the road to get there
came with a few twists and turns.
First twist I had to complete completely vacate my current
space because of asbestos abatement and initial
construction. Yay, I had to move my entire
life for a semester and a half to a spot across the building.
We had no water. Oh no.
Yeah, so every day was a trip to the cafeteria to fill up ice
chests and coolers for the day. It's also like you can't wash
your hands. No, the other fun part was that
I shared the room with the elevator electrical room.
Oh no. So every time I went up and
down, you could hear it and it was loud.
The second twist, summer break came and no one really thought
to tell me what was going to happen during summer or even if
I'd be able to get into my new space before pre season.
Pre season rolls around. I start the first part in my old
space. About halfway through the
foreman comes to tell me that my new space is ready and did I
want to come see it? Well, of course I do.
It was big. The floor wasn't what I wanted
because why ask me? Dude I feel like this is so.
Common, yes. And the colors were weird.
We're forests green and white. The tile work was more like a
sage green. But it yeah, I, I love sage
green, but like not on any sort of furniture or buildings or any
like our when we moved into our house, like our shower was like
sage green and it was like really disgusting.
Yeah, that's gross. Yeah.
But it was my room, all mine. My joy was short lived when I
went back to look at the wet room, which the foreman
obviously hadn't seen judging by the words that came out of his
mouth. It looked like a drunk toddler
had done the majority of the tile work on the floor and the
walls. The floor sloped toward a corner
of the room with no drain. Oh, love that.
The slope continued along the wall, down the small corridor
that ran along the outside to my of my office and into the body
of the ATR where the floor was rubber.
It was even more amazing when the architect showed up the next
day. The man was a redhead and his
face turned redder than his hair when he saw the quote UN quote
work that had been done. Oh no.
Poor guy. I worked for the fall semester
with the wonky wet room floor and they fixed it over Christmas
break. Now, 14 years later, the room
has gone through some small changes.
Things added, subtracted, rearranged.
I love my room. I think there's only going to be
one more major change to the space before it changes
ownership and I retire. My boss wants a permanent cold
tub in there, so that's my project for now.
Change, change to see. OK so the permanent cold tub,
like that's cool. Like the jacuzzi style, that's
cool. But like, I mean, I I probably
still would rather have that than like the silver ones.
But like, dude, cleaning those things, there's a bear.
Do you have to drain it? Yeah, I mean, so I've.
Never had. I've never had one.
You've got a like. You have one now, right?
No, we do, but not in my facility.
So I don't have to deal with it that often.
It's not like like the metal ones where you're like you clean
it regularly. Like these ones are pretty good
because again, it's like a Jacuzzi, right?
So it's pretty good. Like if you keep the chemicals
right, like it stays pretty clean most of the time, but you
still have to like at least once a month or so, like actually
scrub this thing and like clean it.
Or you should. You should right?
And I'm sure like it probably depends on like the style, what
chemicals, like I'm sure there might be some that you probably
have to do a little bit more often than a month.
But like it's a Jacuzzi style, right?
Like it's basically a jacuzzi. So it's like you have to drain
this thing, this huge sucker, but like it's not like all the
water's out. So you can clean it.
So then you have to like get like buckets and stuff and get
the last little bit of water. But don't worry, don't worry,
not all the water's out. So now you got to get like a
sponge to soak up the little bit of water and like squeeze that
out. Why does it not like drain very
well? Because there's so many like
crevices and like, it's not like there's like literally just one
drain that's not like at the lowest point.
So then it's like. Who made this?
Yeah, it's a bad system. So then you spend hours cleaning
this thing, your body hurts, and then you have to do it again,
like in a couple weeks. Well, I mean, your body hurts,
you just fill it back up and then now you have a jacuzzi.
Yeah, but if it's going to be a cold tub.
Well, that might help too, yeah. I guess so, yeah.
So safe to say I'm not. I they look cool and they are
nice, but it's just like I'm I'm done.
I'm not cleaning it. Someone else can clean it.
So this reminded me, I don't know how I forgot.
I think. I think I've said this in the
podcast before, but not at my current job, but there's at my
one of my previous jobs there, our sink.
I don't know what was like. We had like this wet room, not
really a wet room, wet area. Yeah, I was gonna.
Say it's more like a wet. Hall, a wet hallway.
Yeah. It was a hallway.
Within the room. Within the room, it was really,
there was like there was like two like random walls that were
like 6 foot walls. Like if you were taller than six
feet, like you could see over this wall and they were just
like maybe like 6 feet tall, like by like 5 feet wide.
Like they like just a big block of wall.
And there were like two of them. Three of them.
Yeah, there were three. I don't know why our room.
Was like there were two set like 2.
Openings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know. It was weird.
And then there's like, you walk past this wall and there's a big
sink, but the sink, if you run the water for too long or if you
dump anything in the sink, it floods the floor.
And not only does it flood the floor, like the flood goes
straight to our desks. And want to know how I know
that? Because I've been warned
multiple times that it does that.
That's pretty funny. But where are you gonna dump the
cooler? You're gonna dump it in the sink
where the drain is, right? Yeah.
No. Yeah.
Well, no. So yes, then Towel mountain was
needed to be made. That's.
Pretty funny and there are multiple times almost happened I
was. Gonna say, I feel like the
students for sure 'cause like there's just so many of them and
then like constant flow of different students, like right,
right. You know, I could.
I could see that being just an accidental problem.
Right. Also the ice machine broke like
the not the actual ice machine, but the lid broke and the lid
fell off. I remember that and like fell on
top of my foot. Yeah, I remember.
That and it hurts so bad. Like it made, it was making me
limp. Yeah, I'm sure I bruised my
bone. And then and it was like, right
when I was meeting one of my future students and like, I
didn't know they were there. And then like they walked in and
I'm like cussing and like, I like, like limping all over the
place. I'm like, oh, hi.
Sorry. I just dropped the ice spin.
On. My foot, That's all.
Do you have you ever had an ice machine been like hit you in the
head? Yeah, but not like that bad.
I've had it like the door accident just drop, but I
haven't like, I don't know, it hasn't been super notable.
That's good. I've been in an ice machine.
You have been. In multiple times actually to
clean it. So it's now I I occasionally
give that joy to the students 'cause that's what I've done.
I have never been inside an ice wishing to clean it.
Once you're in, it's actually pretty roomy.
That's good to know. I'll leave that to you.
Yeah. Oh, I'm not doing it anymore.
Like I said, students can do that.
Nothing is beneath you. I've done it, so I did it.
So. I did it.
I've been there. It's not like I'm giving them
something that I haven't done. OK so action item I know this is
a story episode and not an education episode, but tell us
how you deal with change in your job.
I have some I took some gems that I.
You wanna hear some? Yes.
Some of my favorites are control what you can and figure out how
to deal with the rest. Oh.
That's good. I like that.
Embrace changes as a way to grow or learn something new.
I like it. Roll with punches instead of
trying to fight them. That's a good.
One honestly, like I think just like try it like try it first
and then and then you can have your reservations and.
Then you can fight it right if it needs to be fought.
One of one of my favourites personally that someone also
submitted know that nothing is permanent.
Yeah, that's. True, this is like this.
Is temporary. This is temporary.
You can get through anything.
Yeah, true control what you can. And I read that on personnel
changes are the perfect time to set new expectations, rules or
boundaries that need changing. I like that.
Yeah, that is the perfect time. And I'll leave you with this
one. If there's a way to be more
involved in the change, do it. It can make the transition
easier. Yeah.
For sure. Overall, being an AT is about
being adaptable. I'm surprised we didn't say that
like 8 times this episode. I think we only said it like 3.
Yeah. Well, I started the episode with
it. You did.
That's my. Catch phrase it is.
I borrowed it. You can have it.
No thanks. You have any other like change
anything? I think change keeps us fresh.
Yeah, I mean, I changed my room right now a lot because it is a
newer room. So like I change the vibe of the
room to see what as I get new things too, to see what works
better. So I've been doing that a lot,
like OK, I'm done with this over here now.
I think it needs to go somewhere else would be better.
Yeah, Tell us what you guys think.
A change in our Facebook group, facebook.com/group/eighty Corner
podcast. If you guys are new, we do lots
of different types of episodes. We do story episodes like this
one, I believe next week we are also doing a story episode, so
stay tuned on our Instagram stories for that.
We have interviews which we haven't done in a while, but
maybe we'll we'll start bringing those back.
And then we do education episodes where on actually a lot
of those are CU episodes. So those Randy takes research
articles and digests them and we talk about them in a
conversational format and our partner athletic training chat
and our partner clinically pressed turn them into CE us.
So we are so grateful for that. If you're interested, again,
head to the show notes. e-mail us at at corners@gmail.com.
Everything else fine print down below.
I think that's all I got. Perfect.
Thank you for helping us showcase outside training behind
the tape. Bye.