Monday, July 26, 2010

It's only a job

This is my new mantra. Over and over I will repeat to myself : It's only a job, it's only a job, it's only a job, IT'S ONLY A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is not helping.

I feel as if I should be writing my EMT Internship blog instead.

I had a bad feeling that today would not be wonderful. The sort of bad feeling that plagues you, the sort where you know that the day will not be all flowers and butterflies.

At the hospital, we collect insurance cards for insurance purposes.

The players:
Co-worker A
Patient B
Me

There we are, it's a semi busy day. Sick and injured people are rolling in left and right. Today, no one is training me, so I'm about 95% running solo. Co-worker A supposedly (pay attention here to the word "supposedly") gives me Patient B's insurance card and license to make sure that his information is properly entered into the computer while Co-worker A goes off and talks to the supervisor about a previous patient's account that has been messed up (good indicator here that there is impending doom)

Well, a good while passes and soon enough Patient B is ready to go home. It is customary to give back ones insurance card when they are leaving, but wouldn't you know, Patients B's insurance card and license are gone. As in vanished. As in disappeared. As in....lost.

Co-worker A immediately turns to me and begins a barrage of questioning:
"what did you do with the cards?" (nothing)
"is it in your pockets?" (negative)
"did you give them back to the wrong patient?" (impossible)

And then, reverting back to my child hood days:
"I want you to sit down and think about where you could have placed it"

Deeming that I have not thought enough about where the cards could be, she then tells to sit and really think about where it could be.

Wracking my mind, I am desperately trying to think if I ever even saw the cards and if I did, what the heck I could have done with them. The ED is only so big. Insurance and license cards don't just up and vanish.

The situation turning drastic. Co-worker A calls our boss. Could this get any better?!?

In she comes. Co-worker is telling another Co-worker of my immense failure, but turns and tells me to tell our boss "what's going on". (as if there were a hostage situation at hand or something of that immense caliber)

She instructs us to tell Patient B that we're looking and an insane search of the department begins. Again. Co-worker A keeps telling me that I must have done something with the cards. Meanwhile, we're all searching through the trash, paper shredder, behind computers, exam rooms. Everywhere.

Then my boss calls me, and says at long last the cards have been found in a folder that is kept under a cabinet.

Guess who did it. NOT ME!! No, it was CO-WORKER A who took the cards and put them mistakenly in the WRONG FOLDER.

My boss felt so bad she hugged me. Co-worker A tried to apologize, and while I accept it, all the apologies in the world won't help me forget what happened, and from now on have a healthy distrust towards Co-worker A.

It's only a job.


1 comment:

  1. She made you sit down and think about it?!?!?! What kind of crazy is this lady?!?! Omgosh!!! Sarah if I was you I would have been in tears. You are my hero.

    ReplyDelete