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Working at a hospital it is rare for me to have anything close to interactions with the patients. As the night time PC Tech, I deal with nurses and doctors as well as working on the preventative maintenance of all the PC equipment.
For a "clean" facility, it's amazing the amount of dust that still is generated and ends up as dust bunnies in the computers.
So I have a call. One of the mobile computer carts is not happy. It isn't holding a charge meaning that either the charger has gone shot, a fuse is blown, or we have a flat battery with a dead load cell or two.
So tool kit in hand I wander down to the ER to deal with it. The computer cart was left next to one of the ER rooms and since it is one of the better lit areas, I just move it out of the way and start working on it.
Woman in the room (HIPPA regulations prevent me from stating what the woman's problem was so please do not ask) has her child with her. A female in the 4-5 range. I'm working on this cart and I reach for my tools and they are sticky. Looking over I notice that the child is eating a donut and that the donut is jelly filled. OR at least was at one point as the child had bitten into it on the side away from the fill hole. The pressure of the jaws naturally squirted the jelly all over the place. Down her dress, in her face, in her hair (assuming some help from her hands) and all over my tool box.
Delayed now by having to find a container of anti-microbial wipes (didn't really need that level, but being a hospital...was what was on hand in abundance) and cleaning my tools out I tell the child that she needs to find her mother. Mother glares at me for having the audacity to speak to her child but doesn't say anything other than to call her child over to the bed.
Tools are cleaned enough wo work with and back to the task at hand. Not the fuses, volt-test the power supply/charger...mothersmurfer! we're only pushing 4 volts to try and charge a 12 volt battery. Charger is borked. Naturally, it's the part that is the most labor intensive to work with. I need to go back to the shop and pull a spare. Having the good sense that God and Goddess gave me I pack up my tool kit and put it some place up out of this child's reach. I didn't want to come back only to see the trauma team trying to scoop her brains back into her head after pulling a 200 piece socket and screwdriver set onto her melon.
I come back with the charger, retrieve my tools and start the job. Now I've used this tool set for years and I am anal-retentive about keeping everything in its proper slot. I can find anything by touch and usually do. I just reach behind me and there is the tool I need. I need the large socket wrench and a 3/4" deep socket to get the housing off. I reach back, find the deep sockets, find the 3/4 inch one, now to grab the wrench and...there's a hole where the tool goes, but no tool. Perplexed I look back and sure enough the tool is gone. A quick look around I see that the tool is in the hands of the child and she's running back to her mother. I ask the nurse in the room to retrieve the tool and to hand it back to me.
Mother goes ape-shit. "How dare I accuse her child of stealing?" The nurse tries to calm the woman down with limited success.
I move the tools to the side away from the room and get back to work. reaching back for another tool and instead of cold chrome-vanadium steel I feel soft, squishy and warm. Quick look and yeppers...it's the child again. I ask the child to leave my tools alone and I scoot them into my field of vision where I can keep an eye on them.
Thinking that I had outsmarted the child I continue with my work. <whack!>
Look at the pretty stars.
Yes, child was annoyed that I took away what in her mind must of have been her shiny shiny pretty pretty tools (chrome-vanadium steel taken very good care of by anal-retentive me) and found a crutch and thwacked me in the head with the goddamn thing. Doctor in charge saw the whole thing and starts making sure that I'm ok (how many fingers, what day is it, etc etc).
Woman feels that the child wasn't in the wrong and was in fact encouraging the child and praising her for clubbing my head like a baby harp seal. At this point I inform the charge nurse that I'm taking the cart back to the shop and I'll work on it there and bring it back. I place everything on the cart and I take it back to the safety of the locked (even security doesn't have a key to our offices) and finish fixing the damn thing in peace.
As I was leaving however I did take sadistic glee that the child was crying, howling, screaming, and blubbering and generally having a tantrum over the fact that I was taking "her" (please note the sneer quotes) tools away. I was impressed. I heard this child's howls until the door to my office closed and muffled her out to a dull roar which some Disturbed took care of the rest of the noise.
Fifteen minutes later the work is done and I'm wheeling the repaired cart back. I open the door and it hits me. The cacophony of the child still having a meltdown over something (presumably the loss of "Her precious" (in the same context as Gollum and his). I bring the cart back and leave it out of sight of the room that the woman is in, but still where the nursing staff can see that it is back and I use my wireless extension to call the charge nurse to let her know where it is.
I come back to my office and sit down to eat dinner and I'm still hearing this child's vocalizations echoing throughout the corridors.
My revenge for the woman and her poor parenting skills is the fact that on top of the issue that brought her into the ER, I'm sure that she now has a migraine from being in close quarters with a child bellowing with ever fiber of her being.
For a "clean" facility, it's amazing the amount of dust that still is generated and ends up as dust bunnies in the computers.
So I have a call. One of the mobile computer carts is not happy. It isn't holding a charge meaning that either the charger has gone shot, a fuse is blown, or we have a flat battery with a dead load cell or two.
So tool kit in hand I wander down to the ER to deal with it. The computer cart was left next to one of the ER rooms and since it is one of the better lit areas, I just move it out of the way and start working on it.
Woman in the room (HIPPA regulations prevent me from stating what the woman's problem was so please do not ask) has her child with her. A female in the 4-5 range. I'm working on this cart and I reach for my tools and they are sticky. Looking over I notice that the child is eating a donut and that the donut is jelly filled. OR at least was at one point as the child had bitten into it on the side away from the fill hole. The pressure of the jaws naturally squirted the jelly all over the place. Down her dress, in her face, in her hair (assuming some help from her hands) and all over my tool box.
Delayed now by having to find a container of anti-microbial wipes (didn't really need that level, but being a hospital...was what was on hand in abundance) and cleaning my tools out I tell the child that she needs to find her mother. Mother glares at me for having the audacity to speak to her child but doesn't say anything other than to call her child over to the bed.
Tools are cleaned enough wo work with and back to the task at hand. Not the fuses, volt-test the power supply/charger...mothersmurfer! we're only pushing 4 volts to try and charge a 12 volt battery. Charger is borked. Naturally, it's the part that is the most labor intensive to work with. I need to go back to the shop and pull a spare. Having the good sense that God and Goddess gave me I pack up my tool kit and put it some place up out of this child's reach. I didn't want to come back only to see the trauma team trying to scoop her brains back into her head after pulling a 200 piece socket and screwdriver set onto her melon.
I come back with the charger, retrieve my tools and start the job. Now I've used this tool set for years and I am anal-retentive about keeping everything in its proper slot. I can find anything by touch and usually do. I just reach behind me and there is the tool I need. I need the large socket wrench and a 3/4" deep socket to get the housing off. I reach back, find the deep sockets, find the 3/4 inch one, now to grab the wrench and...there's a hole where the tool goes, but no tool. Perplexed I look back and sure enough the tool is gone. A quick look around I see that the tool is in the hands of the child and she's running back to her mother. I ask the nurse in the room to retrieve the tool and to hand it back to me.
Mother goes ape-shit. "How dare I accuse her child of stealing?" The nurse tries to calm the woman down with limited success.
I move the tools to the side away from the room and get back to work. reaching back for another tool and instead of cold chrome-vanadium steel I feel soft, squishy and warm. Quick look and yeppers...it's the child again. I ask the child to leave my tools alone and I scoot them into my field of vision where I can keep an eye on them.
Thinking that I had outsmarted the child I continue with my work. <whack!>
Look at the pretty stars.
Yes, child was annoyed that I took away what in her mind must of have been her shiny shiny pretty pretty tools (chrome-vanadium steel taken very good care of by anal-retentive me) and found a crutch and thwacked me in the head with the goddamn thing. Doctor in charge saw the whole thing and starts making sure that I'm ok (how many fingers, what day is it, etc etc).
Woman feels that the child wasn't in the wrong and was in fact encouraging the child and praising her for clubbing my head like a baby harp seal. At this point I inform the charge nurse that I'm taking the cart back to the shop and I'll work on it there and bring it back. I place everything on the cart and I take it back to the safety of the locked (even security doesn't have a key to our offices) and finish fixing the damn thing in peace.
As I was leaving however I did take sadistic glee that the child was crying, howling, screaming, and blubbering and generally having a tantrum over the fact that I was taking "her" (please note the sneer quotes) tools away. I was impressed. I heard this child's howls until the door to my office closed and muffled her out to a dull roar which some Disturbed took care of the rest of the noise.
Fifteen minutes later the work is done and I'm wheeling the repaired cart back. I open the door and it hits me. The cacophony of the child still having a meltdown over something (presumably the loss of "Her precious" (in the same context as Gollum and his). I bring the cart back and leave it out of sight of the room that the woman is in, but still where the nursing staff can see that it is back and I use my wireless extension to call the charge nurse to let her know where it is.
I come back to my office and sit down to eat dinner and I'm still hearing this child's vocalizations echoing throughout the corridors.
My revenge for the woman and her poor parenting skills is the fact that on top of the issue that brought her into the ER, I'm sure that she now has a migraine from being in close quarters with a child bellowing with ever fiber of her being.
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