Workplace Miscommunication: The EpiPen

Whether its a job, sports team, organization or group there always needs to be open lines of communication. The importance of the easy and use of communication is paramount in conveying every one's ideas, setting up meetings and accomplishing the tasks at hand. Without communicating people may be unaware of deadlines or even jeopardize the safety of others. This became the case in one of my experiences in the past.

Although I have held many jobs, the biggest miscommunication in my workplace experience was when I was a camp counselor for TTS sports, a local day camp for kids. The one thing that is stressed when looking after children is always their safety. Above all it is vital to be on the look out for harmful things that may happen.

Numerous children have allergic problems these days and require the use of an EpiPen if an allergic reaction should arise. The situation began at camp one day when there was a miscommunication on who would take control of a child's EpiPen. Children who have such severe allergy problems must always have an EpiPen near by in order to ensure their safety. Furthermore at camp, it was the responsibility of the counselor overseeing the child for the day to have the medication at all times. As a matter of fact this did not happen one day at camp and the medication was left inside the field house for the entire day!! The miscommunication was a result of one counselor thinking the other had it and vice-versa. Obviously, this was a simple mistake; however it put the child's safety at risk.

Thankfully, the ramifications of the situation did not affect the child, but provided a valuable lesson for all of the TTS Sports staff. Our director really advised us that situations such as this one are very important to avoid and we must do everything in our power to ensure the safety of the kids. I think this situation could have been avoided by simply double checking with one another. For example, who is responsible for Jacob's EpiPen today? Which group of counselors is he participating with today? Also, we could have prepared a checklist of the items we need before leaving the field house including first aid kit, cell phones and of course specific medications for the campers. All and all, the miscommunication did not have detrimental consequences, but the result was a valuable lesson was learned.