Well, would you look at that, I haven't blogged in over a month. I guess I have been keeping busy. I got a job as a patient transporter at Banner Gateway Medical Center about two weeks ago and I LOVE it. It is a great pleasure to go to work on a weekly/daily basis. What really keeps me coming back though are the people, the patients and most of all the adventure and oddities. In most cases, one might run into at least one humorous situation during a shift.
For instance, when I'm done transporting a patient I have to take the bed, disinfect it and wipe it down with something called a blue rag. Now the blue rag is not a complicated medical tool, it does not have some hidden medical meaning; it is simply a rag that is blue. Now when I am done with the blue rag I have to throw it in a bin (which has a blue trash bag, interestingly enough) that says, "blue rags only" on the top of its lid. Well, today I ran into a predicament. I went to clean a bed with a blue rag and the rag- was not blue. It had been bleached and indeed was a lovely off-white.
Now what?
Well, where do you put the blue rags that someone has geniously bleached white? Is there an aptly named "reject" bin?
I looked.
There is no such thing. So I had to settle for breaking the clearly stated rules of the blue rag bin lid. I walked away feeling like quite the rebel. But what was I to do? Throw it in the trash? Of course not. They wash and reuse such valuable items. So, my friend, find yourself in such a predicament and you might just have to bend the rules a wee bit. I guess it was a blue rag once.
It's like fruit when it gets bruised. You don't throw it in the fruit bin because it's "not fruit anymore". But why not? It was fruit once. Someone who doesn't care about bruises on fruit will walk by and be delighted that you put that bruised peach back in the drawer. So put the reject blue rag in the blue rag bin. That's right, you rebel; do it. Maybe someone should talk to the guy cleaning the rags. Maybe his mother never told him that bleach removes color.
Thus ends the first of many Strange Shift Stories.
Keep your rags straight,
Alex
CCO Transporter
BGMC =)
