The Summer of 2015

It has to be faced.  The summer of 2015 is racing away like Guy Martin on his favourite motorbike.  Rapidly disappearing into the distance are this season's weddings, barbecue invitations are winding down, my tomatoes are massed in clumps of green gobstoppers which will never ripen, and I picked this week to put my talons up in the garden, just as our neighbours have started on a massive DIY project.  By the noise and dust, I think they may be moving into the attic; theirs or ours, I'm not sure.  And against all the reasons of common decency, they were still at it at 2.30 am on Monday morning.  I was woken by a pounding noise on their front door, created by a bloke in socks and boxers who shouted some very influential words.
"It's half past two in the morning and if you don't stop hammering, I'm coming back with an axe."  Unsure of how the axe would add silence to my world, I pulled a pillow over my head to muffle any further shouting and within minutes, the air was still and all noise had evaporated, leaving The Nest in blissful peace once more.  How long this will last is uncertain.

It has been an uncertain few weeks at work too, mainly as we are gearing up for a massive inspection which requires 100% effort on everyone's part.  No-one is immune.  All sellotape and animal pictures have been removed.  I've been to meetings to tell me about other compulsory meetings, read at least a thousand irrelevant emails, completed my on-line training in my own time and concentrated very hard on staying employed.  We've also hired new staff, mainly to replace those lost souls who didn't pass muster.  I'm genuinely unsure how this testing was done but thankfully, no-one approached my desk with a latex glove and a mean look in their eye.  Down in the medical records bunker, the ratio of staff is nine women to one man.  And that man - Bob - is the frankly-bloody-irritating-post-graduate-son-of-a-consultant who is as lazy as a sloth.  He is leaving and is training his own replacement, which can only end in tears.

The new kid "A" had applied on line for a job in Theatres, genuinely wanting to spend his summer of 2015 hauling around bins full of toxic waste and portering beds.  He hoped, he said, it would give him some moral fibre and help in his transition to life as a medical student.  Except his mandatory checks hadn't come through in time and no-one had found the balls to tell him this nugget of information.  On his first day, he was shoved through the doors of medical records to start on the mountains of filing; surely the lad's equivalent of being fed to a pride of lions.  His first words were classic.
"Why am I here?"  I shrugged.  "A" consulted an A4 sheet of instructions.
"I'm looking for Donna ... erm."  His voice trailed off as he looked around at the blank faces of nine women, all old enough to be his granny.  "I'm on Candid Camera aren't I?" he whined.
"We don't allow cameras in here but I wish I'd got mine." Helga piped up from the desk at the back wall. "Your face is a picture of pain."
In the nick of time, "A" was rescued by Bob.  He gave him a manly handshake and introduced him to us Grannies.  After a brief tour of the hospital and its facilities, he started him first on basic filing thus.
"This goes here, that goes there, the pile never goes down.  That's it for the next six weeks."
"What has this got to do with my job in Theatres?" Sensing "A" was on the verge of tears, Bob made him a soothing cup of tea and told him to 'think of the money'.  Something I'm doing as I start the hunt for a new job too.

I love the medical secretary stuff.  No, really, I do.  But now my younger, slimmer, more ambitious colleague has quit to 'go private', the muppets in charge have decided to fill the gap left in our workload with a clinical Psychiatrist.  Nothing too taxing there, but this one specialises in abuse cases and I'm uncertain again about my future.  Surely, I should be allowed to choose to work on distressing cases, shouldn't I?  Apparently not.

Tip of the Beak:  A brilliant antidote to life is comedy, and this week's film of choice is The Man from UNCLE.  Ignore the reviews, just go and see it and have some fun like the old days, it'll do you good.  I remember UNCLE et al the first time around, especially with my teenage hormones leaping into the red zone at the sight of David McCallum's white nylon polo and flat fronted trousers, topped by his blond bob, all in total contrast to Robert Vaughan and those double-breasted blazers with brass buttons.  Sadly, I didn't quite get the same hormone rush on Monday afternoon.  Instead, the small-minded bloke in front of us complained to the management that we were making too much noise and had dared to talk through the adverts.  He needs to get out more, even if it is into an uncertain world.

Raven