Lessons learned at work this weekend

It was Thanksgiving this weekend, so a three day work week for me. Normally, I am not a fan of stats, even with the extra pay, because it means I am missing out on a day at home with my lovely children (!) as well as a fancy meal prepared by my mother. Well, my mother is currently in England so no fancy meal and some of my children are slightly less than lovely these days so I didn't mind working this weekend. And sometimes? Work makes for okay blog fodder.

I learned a few things at work that I thought I would share with you.
I wrote the first one on plurk but in my ever so intelligent way I thought "Why share it with the 50 or so people who my come across it on plurk, when I could share it with my remaining half dozen readers?" Smart, that's me.

Lesson #1: Old men are pervs. Example number 1: I pick up a fellow who is the tender age of 80. His son is visiting and he is very tall. Not freakishly tall, but easily the tallest person I have seen who doesn't wear an NBA uniform. The patient himself is quite tall, and he tells me that his 3 sons are all taller than his 6'1", being 6'5", 6'6" and 6'10" (that would be the visiting son.) I say to him, "Your wife must have been quite tall also." And he says, "I put it all down to good titties."

Um, ewwwww?

Example number 2: I am walking into the ER and what do I see down the hall but a man sitting in a brod.a chair (a chair with wide padded belts that fasten up between the legs) having a wee wank! At first I thought he was just pulling at the blanket between his legs but when I walked by him about 5 minutes later he was actually playing with himself.

Again...ewwww.

Lesson #2: 20 year old girls can talk on the work phone, text on their cell AND study all at the same time. I worked with one girl for 2 of my 3 shifts who literally spent the entire time either on the phone or on her cell. How many times did I hear the story about her sorority sister buying her some amzing gifts? About 6 times, which was 6 times too many. What else did I learn about her? That she is voting only because her friend told her she should, that she missed a concert because she needed to study but that instead she talked with her friend until 4 am, that "dude, that is so dumb!" and that "dude, it was so great!", that she partied to hard but still would e went to an interview and that she thought the game the Oilers won, their first game of the season, was a Stanley Cup game.

Tonight I worked with another girl, who is also 20. These 2 girls are worlds apart. This one can carry on a conversation that does not take place on a phone and doesn't only involve talking about sororities, drinking and calling everyone dude. This one actually talks with me, and even though I rarely see her, I realized tonight that she knows the names of my kids, I don't think the other one even knows, or cares, that I have children. I always enjoy talking with her, even though our lives are completely different (she's a med student, off to work in Africa next year) we have a lot to say to one another. Shifts are never boring with her around.

Lesson #3: I am aging, and looking it. I think I have generally always looked younger than my age, but working amongst all these young ones has made me realize how very old I am. Today we were talking about schools it turns out that the guy I was working with went to the same junior high that my daughter goes to, that I also went to many years ago. For some reason this made one of the others ask how old I was and when I said my age she said "So you are older than my kids." Now it used to be that when I said my age, or how old my kids were, people would say "You don't look it!" or "You don't seem old enough to have a child of that age." Apparently I am that old. And I am old enough to have a child who is 13. What I am not? Is tall enough to have a daughter who towers over me a grand total of 4 inches. Okay, 5. Whatever. Can I not have that extra inch I have lied about for so long I actually forgot I was not that height until we measured me to see exactly how much taller Taylor was than I?

The point of this tale? People no longer tell me I look younger than my age. And when I look in the mirror even I think I look older. Blah.

Lesson #4: Nurses make a lot of freaking money. Whereas I was paid time and a half today, the nurses made double time. If they worked overtime today? They made double that. Imagine..$120- $160 an hour. Funny to think there is a nursing shortage in the province, where nurses are the highest paid in Canada, and amongst the highest paid in North America.

Lesson #5: Making out with your boyfriend when he is disgustingly dirty, reeking of drink, sick as a dog, lying in a stretcher in an ER hallway with EMTs around him and oxygen tubing coming out of his nose? Is not pretty. It is not pretty at all. I have seen some freaky ass things in that ER, but you, with your unlit cigarette hanging out of your mouth and your disgusting PDAs win the prize for freakiest of all freak asses.


And that in a nutshell was my Thanksgiving weekend.

I'm off to vote later today, as it is Election Day in Canada. Who to vote for? I am very torn. But that's a whole other post.