Archive: Working Girl

That was me, landing on the couch.

I like my job, but returning after nine lovely days away was not exactly an event of celebration for me. Oh, sure, the beach is not my personal vacation spot of choice, but pretzel-shaped donuts, sunwashed pictures, and fresh seafood do much to win me over. Even after a certain hassle stemming from my simple desire for a red Ocean City sweatshirt that involved one faulty screen print and then a second sweatshirt that I took home only to realize that the pattern was crooked, four lazy days at home following the family vacation had sufficiently buffered me before my return to my nine-to-five existence.

What a struggle to put on nice clothing in the morning! Shorts and a t-shirt would certainly not fit the bill today, and I burned anew against the no-jeans policy. When I got to my office, I glanced at my phone for that flashing red light, but — yes! No voicemail! Wading through my inbox was quick work of weeding out mass mailings, marking others for follow-up, and doing whatever it took to get rid of that number of unread messages.

To my relief, the day passed fairly quickly, partially due to my lunchtime field trip to my old office. I went back to return a loaner book that I had been holding hostage for months, and I ended up chatting with two former co-workers for the better part of an hour, catching up on who was still there, who was having kids, and who was promoted. We made informal, “someday” plans to take advantage of the half-price burger night at a local bar, and I left feeling strangely homesick for the camaraderie of that office but still glad that I had moved on. And then I dropped clothes off at the dry cleaner, and I had forgotten to bring the one dress that actually had a stain on it. Of course.

When I got home, JG was waiting with a dinner of penne vodka and a calm, worn-out Ted. I changed into pajamas, and the only things left in my day were to wash the dinner dishes and veg out on the couch with a rerun of How I Met Your Mother. Ah, yes.

Maybe I should consider weeknights as mini vacations. Yeah, that sounds better.

From what I can tell, my carpool arrangement is no longer in effect. With all of my moaning and groaning on the topic, one might expect a jubilant cry of freedom from this development, but I am somewhat speechless.

See, after my carpool partner, Joe, suggested the trade-off a month ago, we carpooled steadily for the first two weeks. The following week, he had visiting consultants at the office and anticipated late meetings, so I was off the hook. The next week started with Memorial Day, so I figured that we would play it by ear. However, I thought it was strange when I didn’t hear from Joe at all last week, since he had taken the initiative all along. I’ve been enjoying my newly-solo commutes, but at the same time, the sudden break in communication with no explanation leaves me a bit put out.

I feel oddly rejected. Was that one instance of cutting off another car enough to scare Joe away? Was I not sufficiently chatty? Did I roll my eyes too obviously when he asked to stop for coffee? Was he very annoyed that one time he called from my driveway, apologizing for being early, and I was not out of the house for five minutes? Wait, was that our last day of carpooling? It was!

I don’t suppose I can blame Joe for not renewing our carpool contract. We were not on the same schedule, and I doubt that either of us was completely free of the ire arising from being bound to another person’s comings and goings. But still! Not even an e-mail to validate the four out of seven times that I drove? I would like some closure, please.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been slightly shifty in trying to ensure that I don’t run into Joe in the neighborhood. I steer Ted around to different routes to avoid confrontation, in the hopes that Joe and I won’t have to make small talk on the sidewalk, pretending that our two-week arrangement never existed. Maybe it wasn’t me; it was him. Maybe he wasn’t ready for a commitment. Maybe the timing just wasn’t right for where we are in our lives. Maybe we should just be friends.

During the second week at my job, I had to attend a mandatory orientation that included the history of the hospital, safety procedures, and a particularly heartbreaking session about end-of-life care for terminal pediatric patients. For me, the atmosphere of the two-day session was akin to the first day of college classes. As I entered the room, I sized up the optimal seat for seeing the projector screen and being close enough to the front to force me to be (or appear) attentive, so I took a seat at an empty table near the speaker’s podium. Presently, the table filled, and we made small talk about where we worked, where we had previously worked, and how we were getting lost in the hospital.

One of the people at my table was a pleasant middle-aged man named Joe. In our general “get to know you” conversation, we were surprised to learn that we lived just a handful of houses away from each other, and I recalled silently that I had been traumatized by his large-ish boxer, Emma, during walks with Ted. When I mentioned that I had been having some car trouble, Joe gave me his number and generously offered to drive me in to work if I ever needed a ride, and I took him up on it until we replaced my car. Since then, we’ve been on our own for commutes, with the occasional shared ride for things like car inspections.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from Joe to the effect of, “Since gas prices are so high now, do you mind carpooling once or twice a week?”

I hesitated for just a second. My mouse arrow fluttered over the Reply button.

I had three silly, stupid reasons for hesitating, but they do not include wanting to spend lots of money on gas, maximize my consumption of fossil fuel, or kill the Earth, I promise.

1. I get really nervous about driving with someone else in the car. I put on a good show about being all cool and collected, but my stomach is in knots because I am afraid that the one time I have a passenger is the one time that a person merging into my lane won’t see me. It’ll be the one time I hit a slick part of the road and go hurtling into a tree. In addition, I am really self-conscious about my habit of throwing sarcastic remarks in the general direction of idiots in other cars — “Oh, sure, drive through the parking spots. I didn’t have the right of way anyway, even though I’m in a lane!” — and I have very little faith in my self control.
2. Joe is just slightly younger than my dad, and my driving lessons with my dad were somewhat stressful, to put it mildly. My hands still sweat when I think about it, and not just because I once confused the accelerator and the brake pedals and went roaring over a curb. Driving with Joe makes me feel like I need to prove myself as a driver, even though he is so much more easy-going than my dad. I can only hope that, while riding with me, he doesn’t want to grip the door handle in fear while he is screaming on the inside.
3. Joe likes to leave for work about 30-45 minutes before I do, and in my world, that is a significant chunk taken out of my sleeping time.

I sighed. Then I clicked Reply and sent a chirpy response about how that made sense, and anything would be fine. The idea really did make sense, and my schedule really was open for this arrangement, but, oh, how I quivered in fear at the thought of having to drive and mourned for that lost morning prep time. Joe replied that he’d pick me up the next day.

I arrived at work today before I left the house yesterday, and somehow, I managed to pack my lunch, walk Ted, chase him out of the office, feed him, shower, get dressed, and take a self portrait with enough time to sit on the stairs for two minutes before Joe pulled into the driveway. Huh. How about that? It gives me hope that I can pull it off again tomorrow, when it’s my turn for pick-up.

Reluctant though I am, this small act of discipline will build character, save me money, and conserve resources. I know that it’s for the greater good, but it’s probably awful that I wish that the greater good had some kind of candy reward system.

#81

It’s easy for me to forget that I work at a hospital. Oh, sure, when people ask where I work, I have the answer, but the reality is that I do not work in the hospital. I park on Level 4 of my garage before I walk to my office on the top floor of the administration wing, which is the farthest point from the main care-providing areas. It takes me twenty minutes to walk to the cafeteria and back. We don’t hear any announcements over the public address system. If I don’t leave my desk during the day — which is often the case — I would not come into contact with patients at all. For all intents and purposes, I work at an office.

Today, a physician called about a submission to a scientific journal that uses an online interface, like many other publications. She was a little nervous about transferring files and reviewing proofs, so I went to her office to help. I went down the three flights of stairs to the bottom of my building, walked over to the connecting bridge, followed signs for the south elevators, took them up to the third floor, and made my way to the anesthesiology department. On the way, I greeted a mother and her son, a pre-teen boy almost my height who kept drifting over to the walls to trace out shapes with his finger — a “J” on a locker, an arrow on a sign, and a “1″ on an exam room door. We rode up on the elevators together, and they got out on the second floor.

I sat next to the physician for the next forty minutes and walked her through the submission process to make sure sure that all of the files were included, everything was labeled correctly, and she had saved a copy of the proof. About halfway through, there was a beep on the PA system:

“Attention. Attention, please. Code tag alert. Outpatient lobby. Code tag alert.”

Thanks to my new employee orientation, I remembered that a tag alert meant that a patient was crossing a certain boundary without permission. Usually, it’s a child who is being discharged, but the staff forgot to remove their alert wristband, and it’s no big deal. Sometimes, however, the child is being moved unsafely, without consent, so this alert can be very serious. The safety representative at my orientation made it clear that if we were ever near the location of a tag alert, we should get out of the way, and fast, to make room for security people. I took a deep breath at this announcement. I was glad to be out of the way, but I hoped everything was okay for that patient.

During the walk back to my office, I heard the “all clear” for the tag alert. Good. The relatively short time span meant that the alert was a false alarm, so no one was being abducted or hurt.

Relieved, I sat down at my desk. My next project was to lay out a research poster, and I was startled to read its content: a congenital skin disorder that newborn babies don’t survive for more than a day. I am ashamed to admit that I couldn’t bear to look at some of the images of the disease, but after the initial shock wore off, the reality set in that the pictures showed someone’s baby who couldn’t even be held because of severe pain. It was a stark reinforcement that health care exists because people are not always healthy, even to the point of heartbreaking conditions.

I think working in the medical field is always challenging, but it’s different, somehow, with children. I should be more mindful that my daily tasks of submitting research papers, editing manuscripts, and laying out posters all goes to the improvement of care for these kids. I need remember that I really do work in a hospital.