Jinryu's Xanga

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Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:22:48 GMT

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Workplace Violence

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:14:32 GMT

I was too pissed off about to really write everything about that agressive parent the other day, but here's a few little fun pointers:

The family isn't from Canada. Which country they're from doesn't matter, but for the sake of accuracy, they were from Tunisia, and spoke perfect french.
The albulance that brought him in didn't like the man's attitude either and from their expressions, I wondered if something had happened within the close quarters of the ambulance as well.
The father of the family was the only one who was being all aggressive.
He verbally abused us at first in his own language plus hand gestures when he was outside of triage, and when he was inside, he switched to french.
When the triage nurse was gone for a moment, he tried to corner me and basically interrogate me as to what country I was from (as if it was relevant) and tell me that he was also a citizen of China and the he knew his rights. He wasn't, incidentally, Chinese, but not that matters-- he was mocking me, trying somehow to be smart and satirical about the rights of foreigners in Canada.
To mock us more, he started singing Canada's glory, including parts of our national anthem.
He came with his wife and two brothers/brothers-in-laws, and whenever they were with him, they were totally embarassed.
Security was called by the head nurse because she thought that the dude was going to hit her. [MT] was the nurse, the nurse in charge that night, and she's one of the nicest nurses I've ever worked with-- she doesn't put up with this kind of crap though, so I asked her to go and get security and that I would hold the fort.
All I can say is: Fucking. Tourists.
He actually raised his hand against me to put a finger in my chest, but I didn't allow him that opportunity.

He had his child, about 2 years old, in in right arm. I noticed earlier that he signed with his right, and that he was carrying the kid now with it supported this idea, so I assumed he was right-handed.

Circled counter clockwise around him, basically putting his kid in between us as a meatshield.
I thus made it impossible for him to easily hit me with his dominant arm or leg, and shortened the reach of his free left hand by putting it as the 'back hand' of his stance.

I stepped as far back towards the triage entrance as possible, because that's where we have security cameras. For privacy reasons, the actual triage area has no cameras in it, but the triage window has one outside the hall. I made sure that he was smiling for the cameras.
I didn't raise my hands in an actual guarded stance, but at this point I really thought he was going to hit me so I was on the balls of my feet and I had my arms at chest level, and I was had my clipboard ready to use it as a two handed edged weapon. I was also thinking about different scenarios-- if he dropped the kid and rushed me being the worst of these scenarios, because there are a lot of sharp looking things like pens on my desk that could be very dangerous in a scuffle.

The entire time, I spoke to him very respectfully, slowly, in a calm manner. I made no sarcastic comments or anything. I pointed out that if he was unwilling to speak to me with mutual respect however, that this conversation was over. To this, he apologized for being rude-- not once, but ten times, mocking me still.
Security finally got back, threatened to call the cops on the guy because he wouldn't get out of triage and because at this point he was swinging his arm in the air and swearing at us in Tunisian.
I don't know where that guy's brothers/brothers-in-law were all this time, but suddenly they appeared and started 'holding him back'

Motherfugger, you better hope they hold you back for your sake! Because if they let you go and you come at us... GOD !#JASDFASDKLFJKJA!#*!#@($(

The guy called the cops on us.

Can you believe it?? He called the cops on us. WTF!!

In the end, he left a couple of hours later without having his kid even seen. Mind you-- despite his actions, we were fully prepared to see his kid. All that was for nothing.

Why I Don't Like People

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:43:24 GMT

One of the greatest reasons why I think it was and still is so easy to be a loner is because people generally suck. I can be definitive about the things that I like about people, because when someone is good, it stands out a lot. If anything, the good things about people are why you should hang out with them.
But as to why people suck? There's just as many reasons, but perhaps it can all broadly be summarized as inconsideration.
________________
I woke up one morning, it doesn't really matter which, earlier than expected because one of my roomies, [SoCool], was talking a bit too loudly on her cellphone. The specific morning when this happened doesn't matter, since it's a frequent occurance.

Even I have my limits though, and if there's one word I really hate to hear, it's "sorry." Sorry is just a way of expressing guilt-- but guilt if guilt isn't enough to make you change your ways, then perhaps I need to be more explicit.

SoCool is 21 years old and like most people I know her age, she thinks she's got a perfect grasp on her world. In many ways, she's probably right, at least in the sense that she's got a grasp on the world at least as far as she sees it. She's got her rules about the ways to do things, and she considers herself a leader in our little household-- but sometimes, it's everything I can do to keep my tongue and not just explode on her because sometimes, she can be a self-righteous bitch. I don't say this to look down on her, because we are all in our own little worlds in our own ways, and it's always hard to see beyond our scope of experiences.

She has, for example, this thing about dishes in the sink. "I can't cook when there are things in the sink," she says. But the thing is, somehow it's okay as long as the sink is empty right before she's cooking, but if she or [Terminator] are leaving dishes until a later time, it's alright if there are dishes in the sink before I need to cook. Or, there's that she calls herself OCD for cleanliness, and I admit that's probably true, she uses a crapload of household cleaners all the time for just about anything, but she's go no sense of clutter-detection. Her laptop is always everywhere, she leaves bottles around. There's always some sorta stuff in the living room that fly just under her radar.

Now, you're probably wondering why I don't say anything-- the main reason is that I'm trying a different approach. In the past, whenever anyone crossed me, I'd tell them off to their face and be done with it. I'd have no regrets-- if you pissed me off enough, we didn't need to be friends. We'd go our separate ways. It's not a question of someone being better or worse than your expectations, it's just incompatibility, plain and simple. I would prune you right out of my life if you didn't change.

But in this case, she's not someone who I can just cut out of my life, because she's [Terminator]'s girlfriend. I think that in my head, she still shows up on my radar as "Terminator's girlfriend" before she shows up as "my friend" because there are parts of her personality that I don't really feel I need to put up with-- I guess what it comes down to is that she's not the kind of buddy I normally keep, and living with her causes me a fair amount of headaches (literally, since I'm sleep deprived because of her). It's somewhat out of respect for Terminator that I don't start skirmishes in our little household. That, and I guess that aside from her habits, she's actually kinda fun to be around. I just don't like hearing her hippocritic passive aggressive nagging about my domestic cleaning habits.

________________

I have a lot of respect for Terminator because of the training we've done together for years on end. It's not quite a decade that we've known eachother, but when you meet someone who follows a regimen of discipline and substance like he does, there's no guesswork involved in determining the nature of his character.

I find it's difficult for me though, because I feel that I compartmentalize most of my friends. That is to say, I only refer to them for certain subjects of discussion or activity. While it's true that naturally, each of your friends has some sort of particular thing about them which is why you hang out with them, I guess what I'm saying is that after Zanshin stayed in SK and I moved back to Montreal, it's been difficult to really connect with a bro who takes as much as he gives.

I guess it's natural that Terminator and I don't actually hang out very much, despite that we have a great deal of respect for eachother-- we both have different interests, different jobs, astoundingly different views on life.

But who knows-- maybe at the end of the day, I'm still that loner who I thought I'd evolved from, because most of the time, it doesn't bother me.

________________

with my family of friends, I expect that people will not only be there to bail you out, but to be there when the problems go down in the first place. There's something to be said about the time shared among us, or the lack thereof.

Frankly, I just haven't been organizing things for the group lately, and that's that-- I used to do it all the time, almost on a weekly basis, making time to try and coordinate everyones' schedules-- but nowadays, I just don't do it as much. And you know what? Nobody's calling me back. I guess that makes me somewhat of a sucker, don't it? Yeah look at me, whining at 3AM that I'm underappreciated for all the shit I put up with.

________________

It's true that if you have expectations, there's only two ways for that to go-- either they'll be fullfilled, which is what you expected so you don't think twice about it, or you're let down, in which case it's something that's hard to erase from your mind because it's so distinct as an event.

It's not that I need the attention of friends-- but friends should make time for eachother, simply, and it should be a two way street.

Which leads me to believe that perhaps I should suck it up and start making new friends.
________________

Time: 4:18AM Dec 2, 2009
Morale: MOTHERfugger you came this close *THIS CLOSE*

And speaking of things I don't like about people,
it's when people try to intimidate me. Let me get one thing straight-- I don't get intimidated by most people. I do get scared, I am human, but there's a difference between you intimidating me and be getting scared. Initimdation has to do with the means by which someone tries to scare me-- meaning, they try to use big words, aggressive body language and things, verbal abuse, volume, negative energy, basically: they're trying to make themselves seem big and me feel small. It translates to someone using their 'qi' to oppress your spirit and bend you to their will.

When someone at the hospital gets in my face, and by in my face, I mean their face is within a foot of mine and they're yelling at me, possibly pointing a finger this close to me, I don't feel intimidate. I am, however, scared and I am definately on edge. This isn't because of the threat you pose to me-- there are always threats in this line of business I think, especially at 4:30AM when people are tired. I'm not worried about you hurting me, to be honest. Not only am I fairly certain that you aren't going to be able to land a good hit on me, but I'm also rather certain that in most cases, I will be able to take that hit and still take you down if not kill you. Yes, kill you.

And that's what I'm scared about. I didn't learn martial arts so I could get into a fistfight with a parent of a potential patient a children's hospital. I learned martial arts because it was something fun to do, something recreational. It turned into something I could use to keep my body and mind in sync, including all those dark thoughts that tell me it actually is fun to hurt people. I am not intimidated because of the threat you pose to my physically-- in fact, that threat is laughable. But with every degree of escalated agression, and with every of my attempts to calm you down that fails, you are coming closer and closer to forcing me into a situation that could make me hurt you very badly you in self deffense.

I could beat up aggressive parents every night for all I care; parents who are getting agressive are almost always in the wrong. It wouldn't be good for promotional prospects at my job though.

Gone in 60 Seconds

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:33:53 GMT

It's not that it's a particularly dangerous world, but,

one of the things I like the most is just watching over [Supergirl] when she falls asleep. And no, I don't think that makes me a creepy stalker. Because of working overnights, I generally fall asleep after her. There's this moment of transition between when her eyelids are still fighting to stay open to when they just roll back and resign. There is sometimes a relapse and they'll flicker awake for a moment, and she'll mumble something like "I'm not sleeping" only moments before passing out again. Maybe she'll twitch her arm or something.

Having Supergirl fall asleep right beside me is one of those things that takes less than a minute of my night. I have Christmas lights in my bedroom that fade and pulse slowly, so sometimes, I might even miss it when her eyes finally shut. Or at her place, it's just dark. But regardless, I can feel it, even if her face is nestled in the crook of my neck and she's so close I can't even see her-- I can feel her body just give, her breathing change, and the softness about her that I'm always reminded of seems to grow even more soft. And I'll just lie there, making sure she's asleep. Sometimes for a few minutes. But even if it's an hour, and sometimes it is because of the way my sleep schedule is wired, it doesn't feel like wasted time. In my head, I hope somehow that even in dreams she knows I'm there. I'll be the conclusion to a happy dream that she wakes out of or the first familiar face of the real world to comfort her if it's a nightmare.

And in turn, sometimes, if for some reason I'm the one dozing off, I sometimes awaken to see that she's there, her face right beside mine, her eyes just looking at me. It doesn't creep me out. It just makes me feel like for all the time I spent up until now looking for where I wanted to be, there isn't any question about it in the brief, sub-minute moments like this. And then I close my eyes.

Systematic

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:51:23 GMT

It seems that every week or two, I need a hardcore 'maintenance' day. I treat myself like a computer, it's like doing diagnostics on everything. Registry cleaning, defragging, virus scanning, the works. Or maybe it's more accurate that I treat myself like a character in an RPG, and every now and then I overestimate just how much a human mind, body and spirit can take.

Last Friday was one such day. Maintenance comes in some pretty strange forms though, and I guess from person to person it varies.

Ninja Assasin. That movie turned out to be pretty much everything I expected it to be-- outrageous fight scenes, awful scripting. In combination, it was a fun experience. [Supergirl] was talking to her friends about movies a few days before seeing the movie with me, and her friend was commenting along the lines of what about that movie Ninja Assasin! Only stupid people would want to watch that! and yeah, that's me! It was fun and there were scenes where Supergirl next to me was practically covering her eyes, some of the scenes in that movie were so extreme. And I don't even always mean the scenes where they were killing things-- the 'romance' scenes in the movie were pretty ass kicking too. This movie really just reset my brain in a good mood after a week of work, culminating with that 11 hour FT shift from hell.

I suppose it goes without saying, but Supergirl is a part of my maintenance too. I don't mean 'maintenance' in the way we sometimes talk about those little things we have to do for our girlfriends just to keep them happy-- I mean, on the contrary, that spending time around her just fixes everything wrong with my day. I think the when I got into this relationship the thing I did right, as well as the thing I did wrong, is that I had no expectations. It was the right thing to do because then when I met Supergirl, I think I did a pretty good job of just taking her as she was. Unlike with previous relationships, I didn't try to change her or try to fix her life in any way that she didn't want to (at least not that I know of yet). That was probably the most significant problem with me when I was going out with [BadMedicine] or [Chamchikimbap].

On the other hand, it's also that Supergirl doesn't need me to take care of anything in her life really. And that's very different. I guess it's just that she's got her shit together, because she's got it together, and for everything else, it's as if our priorities are in sync.

It's was a mistake to not have any expectations because I think that expectations are what make a relationship grow in a sense, but now that I've got a better idea of who she is, I guess the truth is that I'm developing them. Maybe that's the way it should be done? See the situation first, and then see what can be done with it. Rephrased in terms of relationships, perhaps it is to start a relationship, build the foundations, and then start setting goals together.

Time: 2:00AM November 30th
Location: @work, in the crash room
Batteries: 90% (I've been sleeping a crapload during my day and a half off work)

"ECKSRAYS! ECKSRAYS!"

[JoD]: "Clear for x-rays!"

Eveyone shuffles out of the way hurriedly.

"Man, do you think they could give us more warning next time?" I ask.

"It's okay," mumbles one of the nurses. "Those were just my ovaries! Who needs kids anyhow."

Everyone laughs. Well, that is, everyone except the kid on the table.

Sometime early this morning, a 16 year old boy, while driving his girlfriend around, managed to somehow wrap his car around a cement block. The girlfriend wobbles out of the car in the freezing rain, took a few steps, then passed out. The boyfriend is still unconscious when he gets into our crash room, and nobody knows why because, despite the horrific state of his car, he's not obviously hurt in any way.

But they figure that it might be some combination of the crash and what the police suggest may be drugs they expect to find in his system once the blood tests come back.

An interesting development that [Dr. N] pointed out-- such an event is now called an MVC, instead of the old term, the MVA. What's the difference? The old term stood for "Motor Vehicle Accident," but has since been recently ammended to "Motor Vehicle Crash." Its mostly a philosphoical difference, but the gist of it is that nothing that happens when you're behind the wheel is an accident-- there's always something you could have done to prevent it. There are no accidents.

He's in the crash room for about an hour and a half, and I'm there thinking, man. They make 16 year olds /big/ nowadays. He's probably a head taller than me and lean. What do they put in cafeteria meals that they didn't have when I was in highschool?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Time: 4:22 AM
Batteries: 75%
Location: @work

When I look at the last decade of my life years of my life from about the time that I was that kid's age, I really changed quite a bit.

I ask what is it that they put in cafeteria meals jokingly that makes that kid that tall-- but the fact is that at his age, I was probably just as dumb as this kid on the table.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Time: 5:29 PM
Location: @home
Batteries: 99% (I just woke up)

See, the thing is, when I was his age, I wasn't driving yet, but within a few years I would be drinking, playing arcades, and fighting on concrete. How many times did I have a few strained ligaments ? How many times did I have a bone broken? A joint dislocated? And how many of those times was it a neck or head injury, just like the kind that the kid now needed a Miami-J collar to stabilize?

When I went to Emergency at the Montreal General Hospital for the first time after the first Dawson/Marianopolis tournament we organized because it looked like I was bleeding from my eye, because I'd gotten punched in the eye one too many times and I'd burst blood vessels all about the inside of it and they were afraid that my retina might detach, could I write on a form that it was an accident?

That the person I was contending against only 'accidentally' hit me in the eye that many times?

Or could we say that this situation could have been prevented-- I could have done like my mom always said-- that is to say, never done martial arts in the first place, and just taken the time to do this or that homework project better and become a better student.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

There's a bit of a duality to the way I philosophically look at the purpose of a hospital, and it follows, in some sense, a philosophy of gaming. The hospital where I work at, or any of them for that matter, is, within limits, a way of healing you. Sure, that's obvious. But just as there there are first aid kits, potions and inns in games that can always bring you back from the worst of redline situations, there are some plot-device situations where you become forever crippled, or worse still, you die.

A hospital comes with a cautionary tale. Everytime you go there, medical and non-medical staff will make jokes about you. It's a given. We'll goad you or your parents for being so stupid and not preventing this thing that's happened to you. But on the other hand, that's just what you have to accept-- you will make mistakes, and not only that, you will have to live with them and suffer the ridicule of it. If only you were conscious to hear what we say about you. But deep down, we believe that the work is important because people would like an extra life. Everyone does. Everyone wants extra chances. I don't believe that there's anything like karma within the span of a single lifetime-- because I think that after a certain amount of time elapsed between two seemingly oppositely charged 'karmaic' events, it's just coincidence, and there's no real sense of deserving except in the convention of a legal sense upheld by society. But I do believe that we serve this initiative, of giving people extra chances, because deep down we want more continues of our own.

In a sense, the reason why we keep doing this, is, in a sense: to encourage stupidity.

Could you imagine if everyone played things safely? Look at a Mario Bros game. If you had a single life, and you could never be brought back, would you even risk jumping over that hole? What if you slipped? It'd be all over. Nothing would happen if we didn't have some capacity for risk survival. And, well, if we just stood there and did nothing, the timer would eventually drain to zero and we'd die anyhow.

Because if I'm ever to get anything out of life, it's giong to be through those ambiguous situations where I've got to take a risk and try something different. Because that's how we learn, that's how we grow.

I don't mean this exclusively in terms of physical injuries and physical lessons. I mean this in terms of everything. No matter what decision you make, you can strike gold, you can get something very uninteresting compared to what you thought, or you could get something worse. Maybe you're just shuffling the cards, and for some things you win some things you lose.

That's just the way it works I suppose-- so we have systems in place to pick up the pieces. People say "why don't you learn from your mistakes" but what people don't always realize when judging others is that no situation is always the same, and if someone makes the 'same mistake' more than once it might be because they think this is the right thing to do, and they're just waiting for a lucky break that has nothing to do with them so that it finally works out.

Sometimes it's not even that dramatic. I mean, it's all about practice I suppose. You try to isolate variables, figure out how the system works, and then work towards your goals. Some people just seem more like idiots than others, but it's a continuum really from risk/security, just like in investing. I guess the real importance is to be systematic, and the paradigm by which we do so is who we are.

FastTrack

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:47:13 GMT

Time: 15:40 Nov 27, 2009
Location: @ work (yes, during sunlight hours!)
Batteries: 90%
Morale: ;)

I've been basically telling everyone at work today that I'm going to Ninja Assassin after work finishes at 22:00. I mean, it's a big deal. This movie has been a long time coming-I haven't seen a big budgeted Hollywood movie that centered around ninjas for perhaps a decade. That Chris Farley movie doesn't count. Ninja Turtle movies get an honorable mention, but I'm looking for something with humans. Not that I'm a racist or something, but while I love turtles, they're not human. It's just not the same.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Time: 15:40 Nov 27, 2009
Location: still @ work
Batteries: 80%
Morale: ;)

Today started off as pretty quiet, but it's quickly gotten really fubared. It went from a 1 hour or so wait for category 4s and 5s at around noon, to a 9 hour wait for cat 4s and 5s now (at about 7pm). I'm working as the Fasttracker today, which, I'm sure I've mentioned, is my favorite job. It's a long 11-hour shift, but it kinda balances out because I don't that many direct responsibilities. That's not to say that there isn't work to be done-- it's just that the FT coordinator is usually on support duty. FT is it's own independent little department that has almost nothing to do with the rest of Medical Emergency (MER) or Surgical Emergency (SER) from an administrative point of view, since we have our own rooms, our own coordinator (me), computers, office and communications systems. However, oftentimes what happens is that FT slows down because there aren't enough patients to see, and that's when I basically help out MER and SER as much as I want, but without having to take responsibility since MER and SER both have their respective coordinators who are calling the shots.

Fasttrack patients as so named because, in theory, they can be handled quicker than the average patient. These are the sorts of patients who show up with cases that realistically aren't worthy of emergency medical attention-they need medical attention, just not the emergency sort. A kid who has a sore throat or a cough are a few common examples. For that kind of thing, you just need some cough syrup or whatever. These patients, when seen, are mostly told to do something really simple and the plan of action is mostly reassurance from a doctor. There are plenty of over the counter meds that you can get at a drugstore that do the trick nicely, so many of them don't even leave with a prescription. Unfortunately, because common colds are, well, so common, you've got tons of patients who display these symptoms and they really bog down the system. Yet, you can't exactly say to a patient "you'll be fine, go home" because legally, if they come to a hospital and want to be seen by a doctor, they are entitled to. Yay Canada.

So, FT exists as a special sort of taskforce whose job is to weed these low priority cases out of the system while fulfilling our legal obligation to the public. Only a doctor can prescribe anti-biotics or whatevs, so we have an FT doctor whose essential job is to just see patients with uncomplicated symptoms quickly. In and out. Wheras a typical MER or SER category 4 or 5 patient is usually in the department for about 20 minutes from the time that a doctor first sets foot in a room (not to mention the amount of wait to get into a room), an FT case can typically be seen in under 5 minutes with a good FT doctor, and the wait times for FT cases are usually significantly less than MER or SER.

As a result, there is typically a huge volume of FT patient traffic in a short time, sometimes dwarfing the numbers of MER and SER. Just because most people who come to a hospital simply don't need to be here. They become FT patients.

As a direct result of the high patient volume, an FT coordinator is assigned. That'd be me, today. When I was first hired here, I used to do almost exclusively FT shifts. That was nice in one way-- easy work. But brutal on the sleep, since each shift was at least 11 hours, and I'd often do 4 or 5 shifts in a row. Nowadays I do the odd FT once or twice per month, but it's nice to come back to my roots.

What I mostly like about FT is the independence from all the mess of MER and SER. Physically, you're disconnected from them becase we operate in a different wing, so you don't induce any environmental stress by things that aren't your problem (which you normally would if you were in the main department). Also, you're afforded a lot more administrative and medical maneuverability, since FT basically consists of one doctor and one coordinator. You get to know the doctors personally a lot better like this.

So, though I say that we're kinda fubared today, by 'we' I mean 'they' since I'm only as fubared as I want to help them out of their situation.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I've got a few more hours of madness left. And then: Ninja Assasin.

For those of you wondering, my expectations for this movie are, contrary to what you may think, very low. Abysmally so.

I expect this movie to be so bad that it'll be great, actually.

Poolhall Junkies

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:34:21 GMT

Later on tonight, I'm going to be going with [Supergirl] and two of her friends to play pool.

I think this is probably noteworthy because on one of our first dates, the third I think, although my memory is pretty unreliable, we actually went to play pool at Sharks.

Thinking that she was actually pretty good at it, and thinking I was pretty bad at it, I prepared myself to be schooled. I told her in advance via email not to expect much, but I was game if she was, lol, haha, and all that nervous dismissive stuff that one uses to try and make things less awkward but which really makes things more awkward. I remember playing pool with her and thinking a few things:

Oh god, it's so loud in here! I can't hear anything she's saying! How are we supposed to talk like this? She's barely talking to me!
I had ordered a pint of beer for each of us but she was barely touching hers. What does that mean?

The fact that we weren't talking too much about ourselves was really getting to me. I sorta tried to dimiss my fears by saying that she was just really concentrated on the game, but that wasn't a very good guess, considering the way the games were going. And also, the beer: in my head, a girl who couldn't drink her share was someone who was probably a bit too conservative or stuck up. After Korea, I was all about meeting people who knew how to get out of their shells and have some fun. And, it was so loud in there that it was hard to really maintain any sorta casual conversation.

In my head, it was a pretty awkward date.

As to the score? After we played pool, I sent her an email late at night from work, and part of it reads:
"I enjoyed playing pool with you, it's been a long long time since I won 4 games in a row, thanks for sparing my manly pride and letting me win."

But who would have thought, that things would still work out in spite of it! Supergirl is just the initially quiet type, and she doesn't really like the taste of beer. And she's pretty awful at pool. Two out of four of my wins were because she scratched on the 8-ball.

...In spite of it though, she's all I need to make my day feel complete. We're not the two socially inept nervous strangers we were those many months ago. I couldn't ask for any other partner tonight.

Clunk

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:51:17 GMT

Location: @work
Time: 1:52 AM
Batteries: 80%
Morale: :|

Lets start with work.

It’s almost 2am, and I’m here at work. Big frikking surprise, eh? I’ve been here since 9pm, and I’ll be here until 8am. I’m doing overtime because a scheduling error on the part of the allknowing management gods fucked things up a bit. Someone from the day shift was actually /forced/ to do stay and do a double shift as a result. That’s because management didn’t remember to schedule an evening coordinator. That’s essentially like saying that you want to run an emergency department without having a doorknob on the entrance the hospital. Without a coordinator, the department basically just stops working.

The second reason is that a masters, especially the sort of distance education one that I’m going for, is going to set me back more than a few pretty pennies, so any extra dollars I can stow away in advance is probably in good advice.

After overnight shifts, I set my phone on a special call screening mode when I get home. The goal is pretty simple: prevent anyone except really important people from waking me up. I don’t care if you’ve got an astounding business opportunity, if you think I need life insurance, or if you think my opinion is important enough for a survey: if I’ve worked overnight, daylight means sleeptime. That list is limited to calls made from the phones of my grandparents, my sister, my parents, [Supergirl] and my roomies.

I do get a text message telling me that I have voicemail or something, which I check when I wake up. The text message sound will catch my attention if I’m awake, but it’s not loud enough to wake me up if I’m asleep. When I awoke today, I found several messages from work basically begging me to come in because of the shoft staffed situation.

Time: 3:45 AM
Batteries: between 50% and 75%
Morale: o_O

I am SO tricked out on sugar right now.

[JoD] brought in home baked chocolate chip and double chocolate cookies.
[J] brought down two sizable slices of lemon meringue from upstairs.
And, the fridge is just loaded with applesauce today.

Anyway, to continue what I was writing about before—I received several voicemail messages from one of my coworkers basically begging me to come in, because without an EC, someone was being forced to work a full double shift and nobody was allowed to take breaks. Another coworker was also being forced to stay a couple of hours extra. That kind of situation really bites, but I guess technically it happens because as essential services personnel, we don’t have any rights apparently.

When I used to work at the Montreal Chest Institute as a nursing resource manager, I’d be in charge of handling sick calls, among other things. I would show up at work at 5am (I used to work days back then) and if the nurses were really, /really/ short staffed, then I’d have the unfortunate job of telling a ward’s head nurse that they’d have to force an overnight nurse to stay for the shift starting at 6am.

Nobody ever takes that well, and usually, people demand that they sign a release of all liability, because, simply, they don’t want to be there and they don’t want to be held responsible for any mistakes they make due to exhaustion.

And that’s why you pay taxes. So the government can abuse some of the last people on this planet who /care/.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I was called up by Human Ressources department a couple of days ago, and apparently they’re interested in my CV and perhaps an interview for a position at the Royal Victoria Hospital. It’d be a clerical position in the pharmacy.

Just considering the position in my head.

Pros:

Day shifts! (I'd be able to synthesize vitamind D again!)
No more stupid shit from my current stupid boss!
Easier, lower stress workload.
Equal pay scale to my current position in the MCH Emergency Dept.

Cons:

Boring, monotonous work.
Maybe stupid shit from an equivalent, stupid new boss.
Equal pay scale to my current position in the MCH Emergency Dept.
It’s about 1.5 kilometers of extra biking, all up hill, which will be significantly more difficult during the winter months. It’s also rather difficult to access by public transportation from my apartment, if I decide that I don’t want to bike.

Well, no harm in sending in my CV and seeing how it goes. I’ve only been to the Royal Vic a handful of times in my life, all during the orientation periods of both my work at the MCI and the MCH. Aside from that, I've seen a few hallways while wandering around with [Supergirl] who has classes there. It reminds me a lot of the Montreal General, but even older.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

On a lighter note, I’m applying to do my masters with Athabasca university. It’s an online “open doors” university, which is their way of saying that regardless of how poor your grades were during your undgergrad days, they’d still take your sorry ass out of the rain, if you're willing to work.

I’m not interested in going into debt to work on this, which is why I’m going to be working on the masters part time and by distance education while I work.

As to why I’m working on it, I have no particular expectations about it getting me a 'better' job, although I suppose it does open up some doors to me. Mostly I’m going to do it because I’m interested in the program that I’m applying to. It’s a combination of arts, sociology, humanities and communications. Basically all that hot winded stuff that we all used to love and enjoy when we weren’t gagging on calculus and chemistry back in the day.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I know there’s always people out there who wonder about where they’re going with their educations, and they often ask me what it’s like to be in the workforce, post-undergrad, pre-grad. I’m not sure I have any advice for such people, is what I tell them-- education isn’t as simple as wondering what’s written on a piece of paper you can slap on the wall and I think that one of the major problems in contemporary society is that it tries to make you believe that education solves all your problems. This is sorta true, but it’s misleadingly phrased.
/Formal/ education in a higher institute of learning doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere, nor does it necessarily solve any of your problems, nor is it necessarily important. /Real life/ education-- that is to say, all the things that one usually learns about life, death, love/hate, trust/betrayal, integrity, goals, family, friends, the birds and the bees-- is what will teach you everything you need to know, assuming that you’re paying attention and diligently doing your homework. It just so happens that the time spent on real life education and formal education sometimes overlaps. You know what they say about summer: just because ice cream sales go up doesn’t mean that ice cream sales cause air conditioner sales to spike as well. However, this is a conveniently spun half truth that universities would like you to believe.

If you asked me to summarize it, I’d say that formal education is just a tool to facilitate your real life education.

In the end, real life education turns out to be heavily based on making yourself and other happy.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Time: 4:20 AM
Batteries: 45%
Morale: :|
Location: @werk, still

I get kinda annoyed at times with people who don’t keep in touch but still make great efforts to assume that we’re really close friends whenever we meet. Maybe it’s because despite my instructions otherwise, a lot of people I know still read my blog.

As a result, they feel that they know me because they’re constantly reading about what’s going on in my life and how my brain operates. Thus, they feel they know what's going on in my life and that makes us close.

The fact is though that this blog is for me. That's why it's got a lot of details that I probably don't bring up in person. This blog is usually written at the wee hours of the morning when I'm thinking about stupid things because I'm sleep deprived. You'll notice that I don't often talk about these things in person.

Just in general, I should point out that friendship is a two way street. You can't just take details out of my life and then think we're close if you're not going to share from your end. You'll get as much trust and as much dedication as I think you deserve. I'm always one to make first steps I feel-- I often invite people to do things, and I try to get friends of mine who don't know eachother to mingle and all that. I think that I take a lot of initiative to building social circles, and I think that I'm quite open to people.

People get all huffy when all of a sudden I don't always talk about everything with them, as if I don't trust them in person. It's true-- I don't. The old maxim that trust is earned couldn't be more true. As far as I'm concerned, if you're reading here, you're spying. I don't want to know that you're reading here. Reading here, as far as I'm willing to credit, is cheating-- you're diving into my thoughts at some of my most extreme moments, because extemities are often what push me to write.

But this isn't friendship. You're no more my friend than an author is to the audience-- you do nothing for me, and so in person, I won't credit you for knowing things that you didn't earn.

In large part, I beleive that friendship isn't just about knowing things about people. Not even secrets. You can find those things out in any number of ways. It's about confidence-- having someone trust you enough to tell you in person, to your face, not in just some sorta situation where you overhear or over-'read' as the case may be.

And it's about doing things together, sharing things, in person. Investing, mostly time, in a history together.

Like anything else, take risks and pay your dues!

Otherwise, what's the point?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Time: 9:33AM
Batteries: 25%
Location: @home, relaxing a bit before going to sleep

I'm going to see Ninja Assasin with [Terminator], [SoCool] and [Supergirl] on friday. This movie is rated 16+ in Quebec, which is astonishing-- usually, things that Ontario rates at R or 18+, we might give it a PG-13. We're hardcore like that I guess. If it's 16+ in Quebec, this must be one damn violent movie. So far, reviews say that the movie is absolutely unbelievable, which I think is on par for the course.

Don't get me wrong-- I don't expect this movie to be good, directly. I expect it to be so bad that it's good.

I kinda expect Terminator and SoCool to jump on things like this, since we have a long history of watching terrible movies out of Movieland's extensive collection of B movie horror and action flics, but Im surprised I guess that Supergirl agreed. I joke, but this is I suppose one of her first acts of true 'girlfriend duties' because it's something that she obviously finds is silly, but is going through with just because ninjas and terrible movies are important to me.

I'm really looking forward to this, not even because of the movie per se, but in large part I guess because Supergirl's coming.

It's really recently, within the last year or so, that I've begun to really embrace my inner geek, and I'm glad that Supergirl not only tolerates it but understands the lameness of my jokes enough to laugh or groan. Most people just don't get it.

Incidentally, you should all see Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

...Continue?

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:42:04 GMT

Location: @Work
Time: 00:42 Nov 21, 2009

Batteries: 70%

"You might want to pick up your pay stubs every now and then," said [D], handing me a stack of no less than 6 of them. That means that I haven't picked them up in over two months, considering that I'm paid bi-weekly.

"Oh," I purse my lips. "Thanks!"

Attached to one of the paystubs is a message in French relating to some changes to the Emergency department. Roughly translated, it explains about how with the coming of the new head nurse (I think she came into the unit about the same time as I did) there's been an investigation run by an independent task force of human ressources to see just what the Montreal Childrens' Hospital is good at, what it's bad at, and how we can make ourselves better. Roughly translated, here's what it reveals.

As far as our strengths go,

Good quality and safety of care
Great passion for pediatric care and clientele
Unpredictablity of work and a variety of challenges
Positive relations with physicians
Motivation and pride related to work
Positive leadership of the head-nurse and her assistant head-nurses in general
High feeling of professional autonomy
Cooperation and teamwork generally good

As to our weaknesses,

Cleanliness and order of spaces
Public access to certain places in Emergency
Violence at work
Equipment
Work volume compared to the unit's capacity
Shortage of nursing personnel
Productivity of some employees
Feedback and recognition
Communication and attitudes
Information circulation and team meetings
Flexibility of work schedules
Standardized and documented work processes (especially administrative)
Management leadership for the patients attendants, clerks and administration technicians.

WELL, to be honest, I could've told you all that!

The way that you can read this is essentially the same way that you could've read my blog, ever since I started working at the Chidlren's back in January.

In summary, the people at the front lines are passionate caring people, but we're far outnumbered and outgunned compared the situatinos that we're put in. We get little or no appreciation from our higher ups and we're left to basically run this department shoulder to shoulder and back to back out of FUBARed situations using POS equipment all the time.

It's rather misleading, you'll note, that some of the strengths seem in conflict with some of the weaknesses, but I that discrepency exists because the letter forgets to mention that they've not separated the feeedback of nursing aspects from the adminstrative aspects-- for example, nursing generally has efficient managment, wheras administration has terrible management.

Case and point-- I've requested new hospital scrubs since last January 2009. I wear size small or medium-- my current set is XXXL. I've asked for new scrubs forever, but the department seems to think that it's more of a priority to install electric staplers and these little mounting stands for computers so that they've got wheels on them. Where in God's name are we going to be moving these computers anyway??

I should point out that my manager's office is being redone, and it's costing 1000$ of taxpayers' healthcare budget to get painted a room that's essentially the size of my apartment living room. One. Thousand. Dollars.

I digress.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

If there is nothing else I've learned throughout my life thus far, it's that passion is what keeps the world turning.

Depite it's shortcomings, this Emergency department ingloriously runs on the fuel of people who care in spite of their own best interests. And by that, I mean, the conditions are awful, the pay is lousy, the hours suck, you're always getting sick, and nobody appreciates you. Of course there are days when it's better than others and days where it's worse than usual-- but hey, who am I to bitch? That's life, and that's goes for everyone. In any field, any profession, there will be things to gripe about. And it seldom gets much better.

The only way anyone gets anywhere though is if the terms of victory are found somewhere within the heart. It may not be efficient, but what kind of passion can you really pump efficiently through a machine anyhow? The best parts are always the dirty ones that show character-- without these struggles, that is to say, the shit that we do gripe about, what really is the point of victory?

I mean, what's the point of going somewhere if we're already there? What's the point of winning if there's nothing to lose?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

But wait.

That's the way that I've traditionally thought of things.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

I'm begining to wonder if that paradigm is just... incomplete? Maybe I'm so entrenched in that perspective that I can't see outside of that box?

Why does anyone have to go 'looking for trouble'?

-=-=-=-=-

Time: 3:41 PM Nov 21 2009

Location: @parents home (came here after finishing work in the morning to visit for the weekend)

Batteries: 10% (I'm sooooooooo tired, but I can't seem to sleep because it's too noisy at home =_=)

Daybreak isn't always characterized daylight, and this was one of those days. My thumb pushed into the germicide despenser, spitting a light bubbly foam into my palm. I waved and said goodbye to the guard in French, turning to face him just enough to give the automatic doors the second and a half it needed to notice me. Like curtains, they drew themselves shut behind me as I stepped out into the world outside of the Emergency.

The morning fog smelled and tasted nice. That these curtains were made out glass is probably a good indication that this wasn't le fin at all though. You could still see things going on. That they open just as automatically to let me as in as out tells you that this is one of those plays that never really comes to an end. Days come and go, but human sympathy for human stupidity goes further, and thus a hospital like this will stand forever. And if it is to one day be knocked down like a house of cards, it's only so we can try and build a bigger one with the same faces and more somewhere else.

It was foggy out that morning and if you followed the roadway down the hill and checked out the greenery by its side, you'd have seen that the blades of grass were lightly frosted, almost like the glassrim of an Ameretto sour. This is the kind of world that one only sees this early in the morning, before the sane working people get up to go to work, instead of geting up to go home.

Rounding the corner, my bike was one out of three on the rack. Droplets not big enough to be drops hung from the bike everywhere, so after taking off the lock and stowing it in my bag, I lifted the Warthog up and let it bounce a few times to shake it all off. I'm not sure why I do that, since it's pretty much impossible to stay dry on days like those.

Maybe I just like the idea that the Warthog can take a little roughing up.

Details

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:02:42 GMT

Location: @Work
Time: 2:56AM Nov 20, 2009
Batteries: 85%
Morale: A

Small Things, in No Particular Order:
-Takeout gyro souvlaki at 3AM.
-The feeling of [Supergirl]'s breath on my forearms.
-Reading over an email to faraway friends before hitting 'send'.
-Being the first person to see morning frost that'll dissapear before the rest of the city awakens
-My bike with it's mean ass tungsten-carbide studded winter tire.
-Reverse spin kicks.
-Extra teddy bears to give out.
-My comfy, cheap work Crocs (as stupid as they look)
-Being able to speak French.
-Google products.
-A few episodes of any Josh Weddon series.

Those are some of the things that I randomly enjoy or appreciate throughout a day. Every day might not have the same list, but one gets the idea.