Thwarted

Thwarted by recent winds and a general lack of enthusiasm for gardening, I've been staring at our patch of scrub with the forelorn hope it would magically transform itself into a Chelsea Flower Show winner.  The shabby remains of my tomato tent has flapped like Buddhist prayer flags these past months leaving only the zip holding it all together.  And the buffeting we took the other night shook the car so badly, the service clock reset itself from 12,500 to zero, which the receptionist at the garage assured me couldn’t happen.  It did and a service will follow next week just in case a bit's dropped off.

Post garage, I hauled myself back to Job 2.1 with depleted enthusiasm, arriving in the naïve hope that a quiet afternoon would follow, until the phone rang.  The harassed caller confessed to being a local florist  and asked,

“Is there a Mrs Hollybush-Wicklow on your ward?”

“That’s confidential information. Sorry.”

“Is she in your hospital or not?”

“Either way I still can’t give you the information you require.”  Yet she ploughed on regardless.

“But I’ve got these flowers going off and I want to deliver them to the right address.  Would you like the postcode?”

“Not really because we share a postcode with the surrounding mansions and it could be any of those dwellings that require delivery of your flowers.”

 “So is she there or not?"

“Love to help but you could beg me for a week and I still can’t give you confidential information.”

 “How am I going to deliver them then?”  And why was she making this my problem? I muted the handset for a moment while I thought the process through.

“You’ll have to go back to the person who ordered them and ask for more details.”  She gave this enormous sigh indicating thwarted-ness.

“You’ve wasted a lot of my time.  I should report you."  She was starting to get right up my beak.

“If you insist but then we are all bound by NHS governance and confidentiality rules.  Thank you for calling.”  Five minutes later, the phone rang again.

“Hi Raven, it’s Reception. Have you got a Mrs Hollybush-Wicklow on your ward?”

One thing bothering me is that I’ve been thwarted in my attempts to 'work less and earn more.'  My talents as a medical secretary are in real demand and I genuinely enjoy a day’s audio-typing and helping patients get their impingements dealt with.  And fundamentally I’m not bored.  I mentioned this in passing to management and, for some unfathomable reason, I’ve been unable to return to the serenity of the MedSecs office with no hope of rescue in sight.  Not only am I working late hours again but I’m worse off.  Seem familiar?

I was mulling over my bank balance yesterday morning when the toaster turned up its toes in spectacular style and fused all the downstairs appliances minutes before I was due to leave for a funeral. The eternal dilemma – should I be embarrassingly late or defrost the entire contents of the freezer.  Common sense won and so I found myself legging it into church just before the coffin arrived.

On the way home, I browsed the toaster collection in John Lewis and however flushed with cash I’m feeling, there was no way we’re parting with seventy quid.  So I hopped down to Argos and bought what I thought was a bargain.  It came in an enormous box so I had no doubt it would deal with a chunky slice of Gregg’s finest.  When I got the toaster out, there was no need to plug it in because I couldn’t get so much as a pop tart in the slot. I'd bought a Toaster designed for a Wendy House.  Back it went and I exchanged it for a more expensive and bigger box.  Was the toaster any bigger?  No.  And this went on until was on first name terms with their customer service advisor “Wendy" [at Belgrave Gate store in Leicester who is excellent by the way] and happy to give me a full refund because I've been thwarted.  I decided that since the gas bill will be horrific anyway, I’m grilling my bread the old fashioned way.

According to television’s, Paul Hollywood, really good bread should be eaten fresh from the oven and ‘au naturel’ with butter but I may starve long before that happens.  You see Alphonse has come over all 'Pilsbury Dough Boy' and brought flour, yeast and a set of Salter digital scales with a 25 year guarantee, and I’m guessing it’ll be a full quarter century before I get an edible loaf out of him.  Odd though, when I came to putting my 50 year old mechanical scales in the bin, I couldn’t help but shed some emotive tears at their parting.  The internal spring had gone, any accuracy was dubious but they came from my Mum’s kitchen.  She made dubious cakes and solid buns and so I learned to cook in school for self-preservation mainly but everything on the table was filled to the brim with love.  And in the week of her birthday, I've never missed her more.

Tip of the Blog:  Stanforth, our petrol-headed neighbour, has been nurturing a D-Reg Ford Fiesta into life.  His plan is to create a masterpiece from the wreckage and sell it on to some other mug instead of consigning it to the scrap yard.  Sadly on Saturday, when he turned the ignition key for the first time in six months, we were all left in no doubt that he's trying to convert a bag of spanners into a car.  "Bad petrol." he said looking thwarted.  "Bad petrol."

Raven

The Unwinnable War

It's in. Prometheus; our new computer system and I love it.  However, legions on non-geek individuals at Job 2.1 absolutely have resolved to hate it for eternity and there, at the interface where humans meet SAP, is the problem. From the bitter experience of a £60M refit of a Manchester Dairy, I found that when established tradition meets new technology, holes open up in an organisation like a pair of fishnet tights.  Take Sister Ironsides for example who barked at me last week,
"Why haven't you printed off a patient census for tonight?"
"We don't need it."
"We do.  Or how can we see which patients are still here."  At one click of a mouse, I illuminated the screen.
"There they are. All tucked up for the night."
"But you have to print it out."  Wait for it. "It's your job."
"What?  Wasting paper?" Unphased by my reply, she went back on the offensive.
"Well, you didn't print one last night and someone wasn't discharged.  That was your fault."
"It was my day off."  Legend wills it to be my fault because she'd told everyone on four floors of my mistake before I arrived that morning.
And so began The UnwinnableWar between 21st century technology and those who want to carry on doing exactly what they've been failing to achieve in previous decades.  Take one consultant's secretary who'd flatly refused to do her training modules on the new system until she returned from holiday on the go-live day. Imagine her face when she discovered her man's patients hadn't been given time slots and fighting back the crocodile tears, she demanded the assistance of a Super User to administer personal tuition.  After about an hour, she was in real tears and told the SU in the surly manner of a Gatwick baggage handler,
"Don't you dare treat me like a child!"  Sadly, the secretary had underestimated the strength of the SU's character which had been honed on the playing fields of Everton.
"Well stop acting like one."  One nil to the geeks.

One of my earliest childhood memories is sitting on Mum's knee watching Emergency Ward 10 in black and white, on a foot-square tele.  All that starched cotton and heavy breathing put me right off any ideas of being a nurse and to this day, I rejoice in my choices.  And imagine my horror in confronting the Careers Woman in my teens at a special advisory session.  She wore a Crimplene frock which must have itched [I remember Dad using the stuff to clean knitting machines] but so did my school blazer. I was interrogated thus,
"How about nursing?"
"What about it?"
"We're short of nurses and you'd be good at it."  How did she know? I had top grades in all three sciences and wanted to be an astronaut.  Forget maths though, I'm rubbish without a spreadsheet.
"No.  I don't want to clean up after people thank you.  I'd rather be doctor."  She shook her head but the perm didn't move.
"Doctor?"  She had an answer for everything. "You'd have to go away from home for a long time.  Your parents wouldn't like that, would they?"
"You didn't give that old guff to my cousin."
"But he's a boy and academic."  What does that make me then?  "Now how about a nice secretarial course?  We're short of secretaries and you'd be good at it."
And so began my Unwinnable War between the brains I possess and what other people will let me do with them.  And this week, I hiding my knowledge of the SAP system behind a veil of ignorance.

Tip of the Blog:  With thanks to Stargate SG-1 for the title of today's post. I'd heard a god-like person admonish another with the promise of death because they "failed to win the unwinnable war".  Welcome to my world.

Raven

Lost Property ...

Mugs, the pottery type, are always a contentious issue in a public place.  Everyone has their own favourite design; a gift on Mothers' Day or an 'Old Git' mug with a gurning face guaranteed to make the user even more depressed with advancing years.  Some mugs are trendy or coveted by collectors like my Tardis mug with a lid, right now filled with a home-made latte and several sugars. So imagine my horror yesterday when I trotted up to W2 and was handed back my own personal mug which had gone missing.  My treasured Jurassic Park crockery featuring the legend "Something Has Survived" was now chipped and faded by the dishwasher.  The Sister of Darkness stared at me, barking
"We've looked after it for you?"
"Yeah ... on the Staffordshire Potteries Care Pathway I see."
"Anyway.  What do you want?"  Her parents had wasted a lot of money on charm school.
"I've come to return the W1 keys but don't know where they belong overnight." A security issue you understand.
"Well that's a nurses' job. [Do me a favour.] Now I've got to get up, unlock the cupboard, unlock another key press and put them away.  You should know better Raven ... leave it to a nurse next time."
"Rather than help someone who's busier than I am. I think I get the picture."  It wouldn't have been so bad but I'd stayed late to finish discharging paying patients.  Next time, I will leave it for a nurse although I'll get an ear-bashing for that too.

I made good my escape to the car park and spent the next ten minutes trying to find it in the dark.  I was almost at the point of sending up a distress flare when I spied an old Naval chum, Destroyer, sitting in his Nissan Quashcow.  I knew he'd been struggling with his new hip, fitted as an emergency at the local Infirmary but I was amazed to see him at Job2.1.
"Long story Raven." Muttering while gathering his mobile, iPad, Blackberry, laptop and portable breadmaker into his bag; knowing I wouldn't get a word in edgeways I let him ramble.  "My femur's a size 5 apparently but the surgeon hammered a size 6 into the bone and broke it.  Now I've got to recover from one operation before I can come here and have it done again." 
"At least it'll be a different surgeon." I try to console my chums.

"Yeah ... and I won't have to submit another insurance claim for my bank cards."
"Sorry?"
"You bet I was flippin' sorry.  I woke up from an 8 hour operation to find someone had disappeared with my wallet and cash.  I went to buy the nurses some chocolate and all I'd got in my pocket was an Asda receipt."
"Did you try lost property?" I ventured.
"No wallet but they'd got a size 5 hip joint someone had left behind."  I left him loading some glossy reading matter into the bag, and bade him farewell.

Bringing your own magazines into Job2.1 is better for your overall recovery.  Also a Kindle to stimulate the brain.  Access to the web to check out your post-operative chances and catch up on Facebook add to the overall feeling of wellbeing.  But imagine our horror on finding a suspect "Countryside la Vie" magazine tucked under the mattress of a recent patellectomy patient - a knee job to you and me - which requires a whole seven to 14 days without bending said knee making blokes a bit 'Jake the Peg' if you get my drift.  Anyway, some real thought had been put into this because we discovered a porn magazine sellotaped inside it's dull, upper class outer shell.  On inspection of the porn, we found quality naughtiness of a refined nature aimed at the more mature gentleman.  Oh dear me ... he must have spent several days of his recovery time high on Tramadol and as stiff as an orthopaedic crutch.

Tip of the Blog:  At this point, I feel it should be pointed out that my characters are fictional and stories based loosely on fact as it happens. And should you see any similarity between Raven's doings and someone you know in real life, then you have a bigger creative imagination than mine and are now doubt a highly paid writer already. 

Raven

That Look!

When 'The Cat' first arrived, we believed we'd bought a delightful feline companion with clean habits and a happy disposition, until the fateful night he amused our friends by squatting under the dining table begging for Dim Sum prawns.  Previously that day, he'd been haunting birds in next door's garden and had topped up his nutritional, well-balanced diet with Peshwari naan.  After letting out a long stream of noxious gas, he got the biggest prawns and the widest berth. It was then that Alphonse formulated That Look! which loosely translated mean "You Can Really Pick 'em!"  Sadly, he had good cause to use the Raven stare again this week when I came home from Job 2.1 with the glum tidings that "due to an administrative error" we bank-staff had not been paid.

Really, it's not the financial situation that made Alphonse settle me down in front of Corrie with a large whisky but the way we were advised of our misfortune; by global email. The only word missing from the missive was "Tough!"  Anyway, it has to be said that I could have visited any of the nearby ATMs and checked but it shouldn't be necessary.  And when I finally got to my desk, Old Ironsides herself couldn't resist a dig when she quipped,
"What's your problem?  You've only got to wait a week...I've got no overtime." Coming from someone who's in a two-Mercedes relationship and off skiing this weekend, I find that a bit of a bitch but decided to keep my beak shut.  So when I continued with my normal duties, I found others in the hospital who couldn't resist rubbing salt into my festering wound.
"What are you doing here Raven?" remarked Botulism.
"My job ... what's it look like?"  Spoken more along the lines of 'What the flock's it got to do with you?'
"In your shoes, most of us wouldn't have bothered to turn up."
"Lucky me I'm old enough to make my own choices."  I'd started to seethe and, about to spontaneously combust, I escaped upstairs to Bedroom 101; my name for a virtually unused set of womens' facilities where a girl can sit and ponder the state of the universe with or without Prof Brian Cox.

Blocking my path was the management [they get everywhere, don't they?] with a deeply concerned frown stretching from temple to temple.
"Are you okay Raven?"  Enough's enough!
"YES"
"Are you sure?  We can help you out with come petty cash ..."  Too late, the cap came off the volcano.

Now don't panic, he still lives and there was no pecking out of eyes like in Hitchcock's The Birds.  Actually, I'm quite proud of myself because anyone else would have got a banging lecture on Torts and his responsibility as an employer but that would've been wasted.  Instead it all came down to one word, quietly spoken. Trust.

Tip of the Blog:  The other night there was a crash from the bathroom and a royal amount of cursing from Alphonse. When he finally descended, he mumbled something along the lines of
"We'd better go to B&Q."
"What? Now?"

"No but in the morning or I'll lose something valuable if I go to the loo in the dark."  On closer inspection, he'd snapped the toilet seat lid in half, exposing a blade-like piece of plastic quite capable of causing an orchidopexy.  Next day, I found a detailed diagram of our requirements and a twenty quid note on top of my handbag, and he'd skipped to work before I could summon my own version of "That Look!" 

Raven

 

Twin Tips

My absence from the Blog-o-sphere this last fortnight can be easily accounted for.  With an oozy beak, I finally succumbed to that precious slip of paper; the sick note.  Seven glorious days of leisure in the snuggly corner of the nest has set me right back on the road to recovery, although there were those uncharitable souls who accused me of 'milking it.'  There may be a gem of truth in those words but let me reassure you that were I of equine extraction, I would have been reconstituted into a cheap, frozen lasagne by now.

Bored witless after day one, I dedicated myself to catchup tele and hit on a brilliant documentary called "How to write a Mills & Boon" featuring Stella Duffy.  There are some folk in the writing world who pour scorn on M&B and say it's a doddle.  It isn't.  I've tried it.  Unlike the 'Fifty Shades' franchise, M&B need sixty thousand words, expertly written with sparkling dialogue and a loving, romantic story and, even for a dark-fantasy writer like me, the 'Intrigue' spin-off featuring a more alternative approach to romance makes me want to pull my feathers out.  As Stella Duffy found out; there are rules and it's the whole 'rippling muscles' scenario that requires several Cosmopolitans and a number of other cocktails.  Not Lemsip.

But I gave it a go and plumped for a hospital drama.  I make no apologies for the hunky consultant - Dirk Costigan.  An English reincarnation of Gregory House who only specialises in men's doings, and of course he's rude, arrogant, rich, clever and misunderstood - or do I mean dysfunctional in psychiatric parlance?  We've got a psychiatrist on the staff at Job 2.1 but he's generally nuts, particularly when faced with a paper shredder.  Don't ask.

Then there's the nurses.  Slim, gorgeous, an unqualified nurse - Ivana Simonov - who's up there with Florence Nightingale except she has the uncharted body of a sex siren, all wrapped up in a polyester uniform.  Desperately saving money to finish her degree whilst caring for the folks back home, she's always rubbing the Ward Sister up the wrong way but everyone does.  'Old Ironsides' as she's affectionately known is a bitter woman, star-crossed in love, who's passion could melt an ECG machine every time Mr Costigan strides over to her desk and whispers "Get me Mr Smith's sperm results, now!".

I feel an amount of drama must be added before I've got a proper story and the mounting snow gave me an idea - what if they were snowed in the hospital and had to spend the night?  [I told you antibiotics didn't suit me].  So, I filled a notebook with all of this and when I finally returned to the wards, I thought I'd better seek a bit of expert guidance from Staff Nurse Pamello over a cup of tea.  Her face was a picture.
"Is it a comedy?" she chirped.
"No.  I'm seriously writing a Mills & Boon hospital drama." Her next question floored me.
"After the snow ... are they going to be at it in one of our beds?"
"Maybe ..."  More unrestrained laughter and several biscuits followed before she could speak again.
"If we were buried twenty feet under deep snow, I'd rather tunnel out than spend a night in one of our beds unnecessarily!"  Oddly enough, while the weather was bad, those on late-to-early shifts had done precisely that, so I was curious.
"Why?"
"Ghosts Raven.  Ghosts ...."  She'd put the wind right up me and for the rest of my shift, I was looking over my shoulder.

Tip of the Blog 1:  So, should you find yourself wandering hospital corridors late at night, listen out for creaking beds.  It may not be Mrs Bird in Room 54 with a total hip replacement but the spirit of the bed itself enjoying an M&B hospital romance.
Tip of the Blog 2:  Yesterday, I was accused of being 'very direct' during a conversation over a missing piece of paper which had wasted a whole hour.  You see, we had two patients with the same name but of wildly differing sex and age, and several someones had neglected to spot the problem.  So yes, Listeria, I am direct and you are lucky as I've given up swearing for Lent.  Let's see how long I last this year.



Raven

Space Invaders

New jobs are always a bit hit and miss until you get your claws under the table and establish who-does-what-to-whom in the game of ward politics. In fact Job 2.1 has turned out to be a complex puzzle of roles depending on the day of the week, the ward number, who’s in charge of the nurses and how many consultants require their brows mopping.  And like Kryton in Red Dwarf, I wish I had a spare head; one I could slot into place at the end of each day as a reminder of what passes as ‘normal’ in this mad house.

Don’t get me wrong, I know my place and as ‘bank staff’ I’m languishing at the bum end of the pecking order and up against time-served, partly-institutionalised individuals who are determined despite the turn of the 21^st century, to carry on doing everything in the same way it’s always been done.  I’m uber cool with this from a clinical perspective but for a territorial raven like me, the lack of my own desk space makes me want to pull my tail feathers out.

It’s like this – each ward has a nurses’ office with a PC, mainly for the use of the senior nurses or else. Outside of these offices are erected a U-shaped ward clerk’s desk which is home to another PC where appointments are made, lists are compiled and emails are ignored.  But this desk is also the focal point for everyone who wants to discuss everything over the clerk’s head, in a loud voice, as they did with me on Saturday morning.  Minding my own business, I spied a man standing in my desk space and mistaking him for a lost visitor I chirped,
“Hi.  Who have you come to see this morning?”  Insert big smile here - yet his response was unexpectedly rude.
“I’m not a visitor, I’m a Consultant.”  Said in an emphatic tone indicating his ability to remove my spleen without anaesthetic.  “And I want to know how many spaces there are in my clinic on Monday?”  This had me stumped.
“Well I’d love to tell you but I don’t know who you are.  Sorry.”  Only in the NHS do they wear ID tags and I was expected to know this bloke’s name.  Unhappily, I’d encountered him before on a rare Sunday shift guarding the front door and even then he refused to identify himself.
“I’ve just told you I’m a CONSULTANT with patients on this ward – you should know who I am.”  With seven different surgeons arriving before 8.30am, what was I supposed to do on Jane Austen’s 200^th anniversary, get Mr Darcy to introduce us formally?  I wanted to pull this bloke’s plug.
“Listen mate, I know what you are but I now dislike you so much, I don’t care who you are …”  when the Terrifying Sister emerged from her office and greeted him by name. 

Problem solved, except they now occupied my available desk space and were discussing patients, so I had to shrink myself to a sliver and duck under his armpit to get access to my own PC. Forget sitting down, they’d got the chairs and I was in a lose-lose situation – do I elbow him or her out of the way or stand around looking daft until one of them moves?  I went to make tea instead.

Happily, an emergency took them in different directions and I relaxed enough to clear the pile of detritus left by the nurses.  Okay, medical records have to be filed but I’ve got a tidy mind.  Back in the 1990’s when the whole ‘paperless office’ scenario was devised and a clear desk policy seemed like an achievable nirvana, I’d had my fantasy reinforced by a French & Saunders corporate video called The Paper Chase about the benefits of ‘only touching a piece of paper once.’  It works brilliantly but the paper invading my space comes attached to other stuff, which needs to be Mr Sheen’d regularly or you could stick your head to it.  And it happens every single shift – I sit down, clear some space, do a bit of work and get called away.  When I get back from Pharmacy, Pathology or Taxidermy, another pile of 5hite’s arrived and I have to deal with it.  If things don’t improve, I’m going to need a Psychiatrist or an enormous shredder.  Better still, I’d love my own workspace [measuring at least 11 cubic metres to comply with government legislation] large enough for a bit of a flap.

Tip of the Blog:  To entertain myself this week, I’ve adopted the clipped-consonant speaking style of Matthew McFadyen in Ripper Street.  His diction is so beautiful, I’ve forgiven him for the awful US ending of Pride & Prejudice.  And if he called me on the wards, I’ll be minding my P’s and Q’s and pronouncing my T’s correc[t]ly.

Raven

 

Polar Bear Box

Surrounded by health care professionals these recent months, I’m amazed by their total lack of compassion for a head cold, and certainly they have no time for self pity or ‘milking it’ to get extra biscuits from the treats box.

“Stick Vick on it” barked a specialist nursing sister. “Give your chest a good rub.”

And so I found myself rooting around in the medicine cupboard of our Orwellian kitchen for a familiar tub of medicinal grease.  Unfortunately, once I’d scraped the dust off the packaging, I spied the sell by date as 1995 and headed off to Boots.  It worked a treat and by Twelfth Night I’d recovered my strength, feeling well enough to engage in boxing up the trimmings and to entertain myself with my battery-powered TARDIS biscuit barrel.

Deconstructing from the top, I started with the baubles and after a quick flick with a feather duster [chicken not raven], I nestled their ancient glass ornaments back into the box.  With a wry smile, I imagined myself as a Dress Size 8 again, back in the 1980s when I acquired three miniature Santas from Habitat; they’re sturdy little fellas and will probably outlive the two white bookcases and director’s chair acquired at the same time.  Now they share space with three fuchsia angels from Tesco, and a padded house made out of Dr Who’s jacket.

You’d also be right to assume our tree is black but that’s so wrong on every level; it’s green.  Laughingly described as a ‘Swiss Fir’ on the box, the people who manufactured it had only ever seen pictures of conifers and to give it a touch of authenticity this year I’ve been burning a Yankie Spiced Xmas Wreath & Poisoned Apple scented candle, guaranteed to repel all wildlife for a good 10 metres in all directions.  As I dumped the waxy remains, a vague memory surfaced from the 1960s of when Mum let me clip real candles in holders to the tree but never let actually light them.  Wonder why?

My ancient fairy lights were down to 50% of their twinkle capacity and merely strangled the tree rather than illuminating it, so had to be disposed of along with the box of tricks and pulsating light show which gave Alphonse a headache if he stared at them long enough.  And finally, the last trinket in the box is always the Holographic Drum – a stark reminder that it’s my birthday soon and maybe this year I will have those drumming lessons I’ve been promising myself since having a crush on Stewart Copeland of The Police … remember them? You never know, if Plan A fails, I can always accompany Alphonse outside M&S for a bit of pocket money because it may be the only way to afford a new settee.

Other than to replace the awful sofa we have at the moment, there’s one resolution this year.  I had choices of course:

Be a better raven?  Difficult.

Spend less, save more perhaps?  Even more difficult.

Find a fragrance that doesn’t smell like a swamp?  Sorted – YSL Parisienne.

Run a marathon?  Not with my knees.

Winner by a mile and my resolution for 2013

“MAKE THIS YEAR COUNT FOR SOMETHING.”  I’ll keep you posted on progress.

Tip of the Blog:  Have you seen the BBC2 documentary about polar bears this week?  Some devious producer had locked Gordon Buchannan into a fortified glass/steel box while an 8ft female bear attempted to break in and eat him?  Frankly, I was cheering for the bear hoping she would get her teeth into somewhere tender because he spends more time on camera than any of his subjects, and it’s 8loody irritating.  Thankfully, the real stars of the show were Lyra’s two snoring cubs; perhaps they needed a bit of Vicks Vapour Rub to clear their little noses … ahhh.

Raven