It is supposed to be a quiet day, a day spent giving thanks for friends, family and so many things that add quality to our lives. Thankfully—there’s that word again—there are people like Kayla Peña and scores of others just like her who have resigned themselves to the unorthodoxy of career.
Peña is a Child Life Specialist at Denver Health and Hospitals. DHH is a place that no matter what the calendar might say, remains perpetually on its proverbial toes. Peña, as you may have guessed, will be working on Thanksgiving along with cops, firefighters, paramedics and so many others across the city, state and country whose skills are essential and, when called up, answer the call.
For those lucky enough to not make an unplanned or even planned holiday visit to a hospital and are unfamiliar with what a ‘child life’ specialist is, Peña explains. It is a person whose job it is to lend a helping hand or provide a moment of comfort to a young person, an older person or a family in a moment of stress, anxiety or total uncertainty.
“Families need a warm connection,” said Peña, “even if they’re not in a normal setting. We try and make it as special as possible.” People with jobs like Pena’s try and explain procedures, from surgeries to sutures, to younger patients in a moment when even the smallest degree of comfort can mean so much. They also do what they can to lower the temperature, the fear level of parents whose child may be awaiting a procedure, planned or unscheduled because of unforeseen circumstances.
For most people, it’s Thanksgiving. For Peña and her Denver Health and Hospital colleagues, it’s simply Thursday, but also a day that requires a slightly different approach to the job.
When seeing your name on the holiday work schedule, said Peña, it is no longer a big deal. Just the opposite. “I think seeing my name (on the roster), it brings me pride and joy because of the population we serve.”
For Peña and her DHH co-workers, the hospital provides a holiday meal and extends the same kindness and generosity to families who find themselves there, as well. For the younger patients, Pena said, if there are donations of gifts, child life workers make the rounds and give them out “to brighten their day.”
“Thursday is a holiday and while some agencies downsize for the day, hospitals,” said DHH’s Dr. Jacob Nacht, Emergency Medical Physician and Medical Director for Denver Health’s Paramedics, “do not have that luxury. Emergency Department and the Paramedic Division will be staffed like any other day. We will be fully staffed and ready to respond to any traumatic or medical emergencies that arise. Working nights and weekends is a known part of the job when people enter healthcare.”
A lot of agencies, ranging from public safety workers to news operations, often have a holiday meal catered. Or workers will get together and have their own potluck. Then, there are people like DHH’s Vernita Lewis and her mother, said Nacht, who “would cook and provide food in the paramedic garage and at dispatch for those working the holiday.” He called it “a moving display of kindness,” adding “the food is phenomenal.”
While clocking in for a holiday shift may not be the ideal way of celebrating Thanksgiving or any other holiday or special occasion, workers who deal with this reality are seasoned in inconvenience.
“My family really leans in,” said Peña. She said her family shares the same passion for the job as she does. They’ve found ways to work around holiday scheduling. “My family will do a brunch or an early lunch.” Peña’s schedule for tomorrow is the swing shift, mid-afternoon into the evening. Football, leftovers and tryptophan-induced naps are on a ‘catch-as-catch-can’ basis for Peña and company.
While cops, firefighters and other first responders are the first occupations that usually come to mind for workers punching in on holidays, there are scores of jobs that require staffing every day of the year.
This time of year, CDOT, the state’s transportation agency, knows that a winter storm can overwhelm the roads. Snowplow drivers are on call. Then there are people who staff airports, from ticket agents to Homeland Security, who must answer the call. And, of course, the military, an employer in every state, one agency among many that never takes a day or even a shift off.
Still, no matter the holiday, someone will always draw the short straw and be scheduled for work. But, for workers like Peña, it’s not a matter of inconvenience, neither for her nor her colleagues. It is what she and they signed up for.
But because Peña’s primary responsibility is the DHH Emergency Room where anything—anything—is possible, she and her colleagues have learned to simply roll with the punches. “Our favorite expression,” she said, “You just never know what you’re going to get.”
