Performance Assessment

Performance is not point, but range
Which makes assessment issues strange;
Decisions made when things are low
Impact the upper range quite so.

Alzheimer's is a range-y case,
With mini-mental test of pace;
While not exact it gives a check
To see how far the mind is wrecked.

So checked at low point gives one score,
And upper times show something more;
Decisions made by self and staff,
Interpreted, can make one laugh.

For tests are made by inside folks
Who have an axe to grind, so joke
It is – with what they want to hear
Emerging as the point that's clear.

Each home saves money best they can;
Here, drugs and nursing wages can
Be seen to be primary way
To run a home and make it pay.

A standard for performance set
Of workers is a range: we get
Quite good, quite mediocre, and
Quite low – like dragging in the sand.

I couldn't do that type of task,
It's way beyond what I could ask
Of skills You built within me, Lord
So that's the leverage which they hold –

“You do it, fella, go ahead,
Six days of this you'll wish you're dead;
We've not just one but twenty-five
With adult needs to keep alive.”

Health issues push us to the brink
If healthy, we can clearly think;
We make out fine, no need for care
But when there's problems, we're in there.

It's hard enough to do our lives
As singles, pairs, or husband-wives
When in this range over a life;
How factor in such later strife?

For even if we stay away
From styles of life that later pay
Such dividends avoiding such,
There's other aspects we soon touch.

The pointlessness of living long
Points back to how we get along;
For maybe now is where to look –
See how today our goose is cooked.

Not just with slow emerging facts,
But now, with daily chosen acts
Perhaps long-range is only part;
Short-range is part of living's art.

I'm so attuned to long-term gain
As major part of living's game;
I fail to factor in what rest
Of this society think best.

I weather short-term flak at times
To gain a long-term goal that's mine;
My quick responses which emerge
Make future roads in life diverge.

Most times I act quite unopposed;
To most the future's undisclosed;
They do not future factor in,
But focus here to present win.

So few the tasks which center here;
Long-term results to me appear
To be where life is easiest –
A point of view which I find best.

So what to do which down the way
Will make for mother's top-range day?
Make use of what's already done;
Play out from storage; have some fun.

There's cash for such a time as this
Now mom walks close to that abyss;
How best to structure played-out time
So range in life plays out sublime?

For self, pull back, do other things,
New tasks new benefit now brings;
Make new arrangements, set up ways
To make for better fuller days.

Constraint and lavishness dial in,
It's love that shifts it so to win
A better time for all concerned;
Proceed with care that none get burned.

Hold back, keep room to move in range,
Leave space to tune with later change,
Change focus now, seek better ways
To impact mom with high-range days.

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