Monday, July 04, 2005
A Friend in Need
It's been a rough two weeks at work.
One of the other MOs went off sick for two days and naturally it fell to me to provide cover. It was stressful.
Then I had the fortune of being scheduled for two calls on alternate days, meaning I had all of one day to recover from the previous call... right?
Wrong. I wasn't "allowed" my post-call because said MO "had" to attend an optional conference with my registrar somewhere fancy... apparently it was above and beyond the call of daily work, leaving the remaining two MOs (the rest were all on leave) to cover the entire hospital by themselves. During the day. While I was post-call.
And then I started all over again the next day at seven thirty.
Seven thirty am to five thirty pm the next day, then seven-thirty am to ten thirty the next, with the prospect of another seven-thirty start.
I was too dazed to feel anything other than fatigue, but said MO got it into her head that I must hate her... and so offered me a late start, heck a whole "day off" today (which technically, since it's five am, starts in two hours).
Suddenly, I caught a scent of freedom. It was seductive, and I began to dream of all the things I would do with a day-off. I didn't really pause to think the dynamics of it through... it was, in my fatigued state, pleasure beyond measure.
I asked my reg about it, and he quashed my dreams in a hurry.
No, you cannot go, he says.
That will leave only two MOs to cover the entire hospital.
Resentment bubbled up.
What about friday, I asked.
He said that was different - that was the kind of thing which should not have happened.
And then it struck me that no, it should not have happened, really.
She didn't have to go for that optional seminar after all, did she?
And now I'm left feeling all sorts of unpleasant emotions. I suppose this is the path to the dark side...
*****
Naturally, after my (pretty much) 72 hours in hospital the last thing I wanted to do was go home and sleep, despite everyone's advice.
Life (outside work) is too precious to waste being asleep.
So somehow I found myself sitting on some rocks luxuriating in the warmth of the sun on my skin, the smell of the sea in my nostrils, and a humid seabreeze on my face watching a dragonboat race, only the person I'd come to watch (and support) wasn't in her boat.
I wondered about many things, staring off into the distance. Someone once told me that I wasn't really alive anymore, living mired in my past. I wasn't really living. I wondered if perhaps she was right - or was I just too unsleep-befuddled to make any sense right now? Perhaps today, if I gave it a chance, would be different.
I looked down at the phone clasped within my hand, and thought....
A lazy feminine voice just behind me, to my left : "Getting a tan, ah?"
I turned, and smiled.
"Hi."
*****
He stood on his perch just outside the gym surveying the city-scape.
It was so grey, shiny, and soul-less. So... perfect.
so sterile.
And he missed the time when perhaps he was a little younger, a little more naive, a little more willing to trust.
He missed having a friend he could speak to - really, just speak to. He knew what he had to do, and his fingers did it for him almost automatically as they keyed in a now-unfamiliar telephone number.
He raised his phone to his ear, heart quickening just a little, thumb on the blue "telephone" button.
And, after the longest time, he let it fall back to his side.
We are prisoners / of our own device - is that a line from Hotel California by the Eagles?
He keyed in several text messages to a few people he knew... he needed someone to talk to, tonight - too many thoughts floating through his head.
None of them had the time, or inclination.
A friend in need, is a friend in deed.
He had a need... but none of his "friends" would do the deed. And he thought about many things, including what a friend really was, and how, in their times of need he had often abandoned what he was doing to offer them help.
Such is the way of the world.
Later, as he sat in solitude on a shiny black stone cube watching the river by night and thinking still, about a person from once upon a time, his phone buzzed.
It was a new acquaintence, and fast-becoming friend who had time to kill, would he like to meet up.
He thought for a while more, and figured, ah what the hell.
And the evening wasn't so bad after all.
One of the other MOs went off sick for two days and naturally it fell to me to provide cover. It was stressful.
Then I had the fortune of being scheduled for two calls on alternate days, meaning I had all of one day to recover from the previous call... right?
Wrong. I wasn't "allowed" my post-call because said MO "had" to attend an optional conference with my registrar somewhere fancy... apparently it was above and beyond the call of daily work, leaving the remaining two MOs (the rest were all on leave) to cover the entire hospital by themselves. During the day. While I was post-call.
And then I started all over again the next day at seven thirty.
Seven thirty am to five thirty pm the next day, then seven-thirty am to ten thirty the next, with the prospect of another seven-thirty start.
I was too dazed to feel anything other than fatigue, but said MO got it into her head that I must hate her... and so offered me a late start, heck a whole "day off" today (which technically, since it's five am, starts in two hours).
Suddenly, I caught a scent of freedom. It was seductive, and I began to dream of all the things I would do with a day-off. I didn't really pause to think the dynamics of it through... it was, in my fatigued state, pleasure beyond measure.
I asked my reg about it, and he quashed my dreams in a hurry.
No, you cannot go, he says.
That will leave only two MOs to cover the entire hospital.
Resentment bubbled up.
What about friday, I asked.
He said that was different - that was the kind of thing which should not have happened.
And then it struck me that no, it should not have happened, really.
She didn't have to go for that optional seminar after all, did she?
And now I'm left feeling all sorts of unpleasant emotions. I suppose this is the path to the dark side...
*****
Naturally, after my (pretty much) 72 hours in hospital the last thing I wanted to do was go home and sleep, despite everyone's advice.
Life (outside work) is too precious to waste being asleep.
So somehow I found myself sitting on some rocks luxuriating in the warmth of the sun on my skin, the smell of the sea in my nostrils, and a humid seabreeze on my face watching a dragonboat race, only the person I'd come to watch (and support) wasn't in her boat.
I wondered about many things, staring off into the distance. Someone once told me that I wasn't really alive anymore, living mired in my past. I wasn't really living. I wondered if perhaps she was right - or was I just too unsleep-befuddled to make any sense right now? Perhaps today, if I gave it a chance, would be different.
I looked down at the phone clasped within my hand, and thought....
A lazy feminine voice just behind me, to my left : "Getting a tan, ah?"
I turned, and smiled.
"Hi."
*****
He stood on his perch just outside the gym surveying the city-scape.
It was so grey, shiny, and soul-less. So... perfect.
so sterile.
And he missed the time when perhaps he was a little younger, a little more naive, a little more willing to trust.
He missed having a friend he could speak to - really, just speak to. He knew what he had to do, and his fingers did it for him almost automatically as they keyed in a now-unfamiliar telephone number.
He raised his phone to his ear, heart quickening just a little, thumb on the blue "telephone" button.
And, after the longest time, he let it fall back to his side.
We are prisoners / of our own device - is that a line from Hotel California by the Eagles?
He keyed in several text messages to a few people he knew... he needed someone to talk to, tonight - too many thoughts floating through his head.
None of them had the time, or inclination.
A friend in need, is a friend in deed.
He had a need... but none of his "friends" would do the deed. And he thought about many things, including what a friend really was, and how, in their times of need he had often abandoned what he was doing to offer them help.
Such is the way of the world.
Later, as he sat in solitude on a shiny black stone cube watching the river by night and thinking still, about a person from once upon a time, his phone buzzed.
It was a new acquaintence, and fast-becoming friend who had time to kill, would he like to meet up.
He thought for a while more, and figured, ah what the hell.
And the evening wasn't so bad after all.
