Paging Dr. Johnson....Paging Dr. Johnson...

Today started like any other day at work. We had a full unit, so things were going to be a lot more hectic than we would like for them to be. Usually the doctors start trickling in around 9-ish to see their patients for 5-10 minutes at a time. The doctors tend to keep to themselves unless it's urgent, meaning they can't find a patient's chart or worse: they can't find a patient.

For some reason the doctors decided to all show up at the same time this morning, which made for a virtual grid lock behind the nurse's station. Three doctors were already meeting with patients when the fourth doctor, Dr. "Rodriguez" we'll call him, came in to do his rounds. Something was different about Dr. Rodriguez this morning; we couldn't quite put our finger on it, but he seemed to have a certain spring in his step and was more chipper than usual. And then one of the other counselors figured out why. Trying to contain the hysterics inside her, she told us what it was.

"Dr. Rodriguez's fly is open."

We kinda snickered to ourselves, not realizing how dire the situation was. And then the man turned around and we all saw for ourselves. It wasn't one of those "oh, the zipper isn't all the way up" or, "gee, I hope he notices that before it becomes obvious." It was too late for that. You could've driven a Mack Truck through this guy's trap door. And he just stood there, looking at us, completely oblivious, and asking for a patient's chart.

Being the only male on the unit this morning, I was quickly nominated to inform the good doctor of his security breach de los pantelones. I quickly wondered exactly what the etiquette for such a situation was. Had it been one of my friends, I would've called him out on it, no problem. But this was a doctor; this topic had never before been broached between doctor and counselor. My pulse quickened and I felt the adenaline start coursing through my body. If I didn't tell him, nobody would; and it would be even more embarrassing if one of the patients called him out on it. It was up to me.

I walked up to him. "Dr. Rodriguez!" I said. And then, in that moment, it was as if our differences in education disappeared. He was no longer a doctor, and I was no longer a counselor. We were two guys on the same level; on any other day we would've been drinking a beer and talking about cars.

This probably explains why I was able to convey to him the fact that his fly was agape with just a few one-syllable grunts. I can't remember what the grunts were or how they would be translated into everyday English, but he understood. He offered a rushed "thankyou!" as he went into the exam room, and I walked back to the counter, knowing that justice had been served.

The Good Ideas

It's always the good ideas that are already taken. Maggie Mason just published a book.

She beat me to it.

P.S. Christmas is just around the corner...

The Zero Sum Game

I discovered a fringe benefit to switching jobs: eliminating an entire load of laundry. No more having to wash nasty, for-the-love-of-God-what-is-that-over-powering-odor? work clothes. The natural order of whites and colors in laundry terms has been re-established. No outside considerations necessary.

What I didn't count on was the week's worth of ironing I had to do once the laundry was complete.

Whatever, I'll take it.

Blogging 101: The Basics

Over the past several months I have become a student of this thing they call "blogging." I've often wondered to myself as I'm reading, what exactly makes a blog readable? I've come across some excellent blogs and some really terrible blogs; and not so surprisingly, most of the terrible blogs are found on MySpace. So here are some tips I've found helpful in making my blog something at least I think is interesting. (NOTE: If I link to your blog or you are in my Top 8 Friends list, your blog is not considered terrible.)

Tip #1. You have to make people care. Stream-of-consciousness writing is fine so long as you can pull it off. More often than not, however, it comes off as a disorganized vat of drivel, hard to follow and making no sense whatsoever.

In order to achieve connection with the reader, stay away from words like "preggo," and "hubby." Those words really annoy me and "preggo" just plain creeps me out. I don't think I'm alone on this one. This also applies to UNNECESSARY CAPS and excessive punctuation!!!!!!

A second strategy to arouse interest is to pull from your daily experiences. For example, I work in a psychiatric hospital and blog material is abundant. I realized this week that 80% of the patients on my floor don't believe they belong there (and the voices in their heads agree with them). I've decided that, given the right combination of letters after a person's name, anyone can label another person "insane;" the more the latter debates the existence of his sanity, the more insane he appears. It's actually kind of funny to watch people go crazy trying to explain why they are, in fact, NOT crazy. You just want to shake them and scream "LISTEN TO YOURSELF! THAT'S WHY YOU ARE HERE!" (Caps necessary.)

A third strategy is to reproduce interesting and/or funny conversations you have participated in or overheard throughout the course of the day. Funny/amusing dialogue is all around us, it just needs to be captured. In fact, this exchange just took place between my girlfriend's mom and me:

Girlfriend's Mom: "Now Jason, don't tell anyone I said this, but
you're kinda cute with that backwards cap on. And if you tell anyone I said that, I'll deny it."

Me, thinking to myself: "Would I still be cute if she knew it said
'Budweiser' on the back of my head?"

(NOTE: This exchange was not creepy until I blogged it.)

Tip #2: It is imperative that you use spell check before posting. No one wants to read a blog littered with misspellings and IM lingo. So for the love of all that is pure and good, man, use spell check . I cannot stress this enough.

So there you have it. Make people care by discussing only interesting, relevant things. You can't go wrong by being interesting. And use spell chcek.

Training Day

Last Friday was my first day on the unit. I phrase it like that because that's how it was imparted to us during orientation: being "on the unit." Until Friday, I had no idea what a unit looked like, how big it was, what it consisted of, what the layout was, or more importantly, how it smelled. For an orientee, the phrase served no other purpose except making the unit into this mythical, larger-than-life, holy-crap-those-things-actually-happen-here?! kind of place. I felt like Ethan Hawke in Training Day: young, naive, idealistic; and expecting everything except what actually happens.

I wasn't on the unit more than 10 minutes before the first defining moment happened. In training we had been informed that some employees prefer to have something covering the last name on their badges, for obvious reasons really, but it wasn't as big of a deal as some people made it out to be. Of course, I didn't take the warnings seriously. So after becoming acquainted with the staff and stepping out onto the unit, one of the patients came up to me, looked at me with psychotic eyes, that in my opinion could see through bank vaults, and said, "You're new aren't you? Is that your real last name?" Point taken. I now have a red sticker on my badge covering my last name. Soon after that, I took part in restraining a patient for medicating purposes. I earned a certificate of commendation for my efforts; it was only my first day. Welcome to RSU.

The rest of my shift eased into more of a routine as the day went on. Many of the patients have phone privileges. I noticed several times that the patients would walk up to the phone, dial a number, ask to speak with so-and-so, and exclaim, "Oh, I must've dialed the wrong number!" It certainly made me wonder. The next time you get a wrong number call, consider the probability that the person on the other end is making the call from a psych. hospital. You'll sleep fine, I promise.

The staff I work with has the same warped sense of humor that I have. I think it's a prerequisite to work in this field. So, in a twisted way, I felt right at home.

I can't wait until my next shift.