Bravery, or the lack thereof

The blog has been a bit quiet lately because I’ve only really had the urge to write when I’m frustrated or sad – which hasn’t been terribly often, but I don’t want this to become THAT BLOG, the one where the writer whines and moans and puppy-eyes the readers for sympathy ALL.THE.DAMN.TIME.

I’m not really a sad person. And it’s nicer to write happy things.

But that being said, I am really annoyed and I figure since I haven’t blogged for awhile, I may as well write something.

Thing #1: No one wants to be at the hospital. No one wants to be a patient, and no one wants to be here visiting because no one wants the person they have come to visit to be in pain.

Thing #2: No one wants to be in the hospital cafeteria. People are here because they have to eat and there is no place else to eat on this campus.

Thing #3: Which means this is not McDonald’s. Or any other restaurant, for that matter. No one chose your cafeteria food because it sounded good or they had a craving. No one is in your line because they really want your fries in particular and are prepared to go through some degree of trouble – up to and including dealing with your shit attitude – to get them.

NO ONE WANTS TO BE HERE.

And you treat them all like they’re the biggest pain in your ass. You and your audible, drawn-out sighs that let us all know that you don’t want to move an inch. You and your eye-rolling, your back-turning, your rude grunts. How can you do that to these people? How can you be such a bitch to visitors IN A HOSPITAL?

I get that we all have bad days. I get that sometimes we, the employees, don’t want to be here either. But we’ve got badges on. Take out your venom on us if you have to, but you stupid cow, quit making sad people even sadder ABOUT ONION RINGS. Do you need to snap at a little old lady “I’m GETTIN’ to it!” when she’s leaning on a cane, just waiting for onion rings while you’ve filled several orders ahead of hers?

In what world is that okay?*

I stood in the line fuming. I was back in street clothes, leaving for the day, and my badge was tucked in my purse. She didn’t know I worked there. She didn’t know I know her boss’s boss – and if she did, it shouldn’t have mattered anyway. I ordered chicken strips because they were a grab-and-go and I didn’t want to look at her face any longer. She tossed them in a box and shoved them across the counter at me. Not a word. Not even a grunt before she turned and glared at the next customer as if daring him to ask for something.

I went to pay. The line was long and the old lady with the onion rings and the cane finally made it through a few spaces behind me. The cashier looked past both of us with dead eyes. I wanted to apologize to her, the old lady. I wanted to apologize on behalf of my hospital, to tell her that this is NOT who we are, that I would call the manager in charge of the woman at the grill and tell her about this horrible person’s horrible attitude. I wanted her to know that people here are not heartless, that whether you want onion rings or a new liver (with or without onions or immunosuppressants), WE ARE NOT LIKE THAT.

I think that most of the people who work here are great. I think that most of them really care. I think, and wanted to yell at the top of my lungs right then, that the soulless keeper of the onion rings was an anomaly among us. I wanted to defend us and what I know we stand for!

And yet… I did nothing. Maybe I’d have been braver with my badge on, kitted out in the scrubs of a medical professional, more suited to represent the values of a fine hospital than what I was there: a messy-haired girl in track pants and flip-flops.

Maybe.

I got my ranch dressing and I left, badge in my bag, ashamed.

Just another customer putting up with it.

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*And in what kind of messed-up world do we live when someone like this has a job and millions of people who HAVE SOULS are trying to find honest work and can’t?

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