I work as a nurse on a very busy, understaffed acute medical ward. I come home 99% of the time totally stressed and exhausted. I am also (I'm told to say by my husband), a musician. We find time to travel around various folk clubs and sessions and occasional gigs, often involving travelling of over 2 hours. I drive as my husband doesn't. We are beginning to be well thought of and extremely welcome. For example, on Sunday we went to a folk club 30 miles away we occasionally manage to get to. The MC was extremely apologetic that he couldn't find time to put us on again. We also found our names had been put down for a Xmas concert on Saturday in a theatre setting. The organiser had been trying to contact us and was surprised we didn't have a web site. Just as well we went to that club that night! Fortunately we will be able to play, athough I do still get very nervous and haven't played in that type of setting since I was a teenager (a long time ago)! They have also put us on as the last act before the professional act!
Everywhere we play we get very good feedback. People say "thank you"! People ask where we are playing next and we're asked if we have any CDs (hopefully early next year!).
My point is this. Why do I get more thanks and appreciation for playing music than I do as a nurse? Of course musicians should be appreciated and thanked, but all I seem to get from patients and visitors is complaints, stress and the feeling that you haven't done enough quickly enough.
On Friday I have an early shift and in the evening we are going to see a friend (a drummer) who has been having health problems and is unable to play just now. On Saturday I have another early shift and have to rush back and travel 30 miles for the concert on Saturday through the football traffic and the road works (a couple of weeks ago this took 2 hours!). On Sunday (luckily), I have a late shift, but have to be up early for the early on Monday! Monday night is our local folk club Xmas bash, which we've been learning a couple of new tunes for. Good thing I'm off on Tuesday! Over that period I'm going to take note of comments, thank-yous etc and I'm pretty sure that there will be more for music than nursing!
We are fast approaching the week of Christmas - a time (supposedly) of good will and family reunions. It is also the week we get many admisssions. Many of these are genuine, but we also have an element of "what shall we do with Granny this year". Lets get her admitted to hospital. We'll be able to go out and enjoy ourselves then! Maybe go to a gig! Maybe they will be the kind of people thanking you for your music over this festive season while their relative is in hospital. Being taken care of by overworked nurses to whom they give very little thanks at all.
I repeat that I believe musicians should be thanked, but remember others too!
Maybe people get a bit disconnected with what goes on - ie they see nursing as a "service they pay for" and don't think beyond that to the individuals who do the service? And also, maybe the way hospitals are organised, there's very little personal contact, more a series of people (that's my experience anyway) so the actual patient gets little in the way of truly personal care in the sense that it can be idenfitied / associated with one individual. My last experience in hospital was of being a "parcel" in a game of pass the parcel - somone comes and peers at you and then someone else takes over, and so on. Not saying this is right, as of course nurses work extremely hard and it must be amazing to care given the ignorance you must encounter. I'm probably expressing part of that now - but I think the system makes patients behave like that.
Why not leave nursing? Seriously, I don't know, perhaps all jobs outstay their welcome? You only live once!
ps I know someone quite senior in an NHS trust who seriously is starting to believe that far from helping people, she is perpetuating a system that allows people to "dump" patients in her wards where sometimes, home would be the best place for them to recover.
Thanks Mark! Next year we plan to get the CD done, move to Scotland and hopefully begin to make more of a living from music if possible. We'll never now if we don't give it a go!
aw c'mon, your trash collector's not likely to save your life. besides, at least in canada, nurses get a real raw deal despite their very, very hard work. my mother has been working 12hr nights since before i was born and to top it off she's a single mom who had to run all her own errands during the day and look after her two kids. i really don't understand how a person can function on as little sleep as she gets. it would be nice if people were at least respectful of the service she provides, instead of condescending doctors and rude, angry family members of patients (although i do realise why people with family in an intensive care unit might have their backs up a bit, and of course not everyone *is* rude).but, on top of this, the hospitals here are really understaffed, which means that my mother, as a senoir staff member, often ends up taking on patients enough for two or three nurses in one shift. plus there's the back pains that a person who is about 120 pounds gets from trying to move patients that are sometimes twice or three times their size, a thing which must be done in the course of caring for a patient. and lets not forget that our nurses are exposed to terrible diseases.... my mother was one of the first people to come down with SARS in toronto (she almost died from this and it took her a long time to recover, my kid brother was quarantined for a month because of repeated exposure to the virus, couldn't go to school, etc.)... after caring for a patient that she was specifically instructed NOT to quarantine because they were allegedly harmless. at other times, my mom has had to take really terrible drugs to hopefully protect her from HIV after being accidentlly showered with bodily fluids from an AIDS patient. i could of course go on...
anyway sorry for going on a rant... i just really don't think it's fair to write off an educated, hardworking, vital sector of the population so easily, KFG.
but i don't mean to undermine the efforts of garbage collectors either... i've seen the results of a garbage strike (and now i feel i must add that nurses are, btw, not allowed to strike for better wages, etc. eee... sorry... i'll stop going on now)
I really didn't intend to write them off! I was more thinking that it's something inherent in the way hospitals are organised, and also in terms of the way people (patients) think of the nurses as a "service" rather than as human beings.
This is difficult territory as they engage with people in far more intimate ways - so I guess it's healthy for nurses to maintain a distance too.
My point about leaving (and Fi, thanks for taking it so well! is because I'm doing the same thing - albeit from a well-paid job. I just think we might as well go for stuff that's truly "us" rather than working for a faceless organisation.
Now then, as an X nurse myself I fully understand what Fi is saying, because I've had similar unappreciated experiences in hospitals as well, but not just from patients and relatives, from staff colleuges as well. For the record, if anyones interested, I was "hounded" out of the proffesion by senior members of staff . . but thats another story.
Despite all this there were many occasions were I remember vividly the heartfelt praise and thankyou's I got from patients and relatives for the care I had given, and this made up (to some extent ) for all the negative aspects of the work.
We were'nt always busy, some of the time there wasn't much to do.
I agree its great when you go out to a session and when youv'e finished playing to be clapped and cheered, yeh It's nice to feel aprecciated, but I didn't expect and round of applause from my patients when I turned up on the ward to do a shift!
The thing that slightly annoys me at gigs is when you NEED a guinness at the bar and CAN'T play until you get one. It'd be great if the punters would let you get it - the sooner I get my pint, the sooner the music starts!!
I don't mind not getting the applause, it's being deprived of the essential Guinness that worries me.
Exactly the point of this disscussion, if you were more appreciated you wouldn't have to go to the bar for your guinness . . . it would be delivered to your table and for free !
The last time my husband was in hospital I felt sorry for the fact that the nurses were understaffed and doing their best - but there was no one else to complain to. My husband was admitted as an emergency but didn't get to see a doctor for 8 hours. He was dehydrated but nurses couldn't put a drip up until the doctor had seen him.
On two occasions he didn't get a meal served to him. The bathroom facilities were disgusting with mould, broken fittings etc How anyone is supposed to sleep in hospital I haven't worked out as there is noise and light all the time.
When a relative is admitted as an emergency you tend to be under a fair amount of stress and I know I was a bit short with a couple of the nurses because the requested samples hadn't been taken away to the lab due to confusion in a staff shift change..
However, we have always thanked nurses when we've left and usually left a box of biscuits or chocolates. They do the best they can in the system they work in.
Reaction to musicians can be varied - usually people come up and thank you if they've enjoyed themselves - most people don't say anything if they haven't enjoyed themselves but I remember one interesting night when we did a pub gig and set up in front of the dart board - only to have the darts team come in and moan about not being able to use the dartboard - I thought they were going throw the darts at us!!
I try to remember to thank people who do things for me.
This includes the dustman (garbage/trash collector) - really.
It also included the nurses who tended me when I was in hospital.
If you need to complain, it is worth explaining to the person you have to speak to if it is the case that you are complaining about the system through them, rather than complaining about them personally or individually. Most intelligent humans are able to understand the difference, if only you take the trouble to make it clear.
typically if you're sick enough to see a nurse, you are only thinking of yourself...not to say that is fair, but it is human nature...
I try not to see a Dr or a nurse...I try to take a more proactive healthy choice in living...and it usually works, but if I have to see you, I will say thanks in advance as if I am that bad off, I will only be thinking about what my crappy health insurance will not cover.
I was once flying home to San Francisco on Christmas Eve. I worked retail, and I'd worked from 7 am to 9 pm that day on a triple shift trying to cover the floor, which was unbelievably stuffed with last minute shoppers desperate to get the shopping done before the next day. Yelling, annoyed, angry people all day long, as well as more happy sorts. I was exhausted, and ever so glad to get on the plane and just sit.
Halfway through the two hour flight, as I was sitting drowsing and thinking that I was SO glad that the plane was being flown to my home so I could get there for the holiday with my family, the flight attendant came by and asked if there was anything she could get for us.
I had my glasses off and couldn't see her as more than a blur, but impulsively blurted out that I worked retail, and if she and the rest of the crew weren't working on Christmas Eve, I wouldn't be able to see my family for the holidays, so I wanted to say thank you.
She stood there for so long that I fumbled for my glasses and put them back on my nose to find her staring at me with her mouth open.
She finally said, "I've been flying for United for 13 years. In those 13 years, I've worked every single Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. You are the first person who has EVER thanked me. You're the ONLY person who has ever thanked me."
I don't know who was more astonished, her or me.
Shortly afterwards, all four of the attendants came back and presented me with a bottle of champagne. When I left the plane, the three flight deck crew thanked me for thanking them. By that time, I was feeling both bemused and humbled.
The lesson i came away with was that it's amazing how much "thank you" can mean in the most banal of circumstances, and we never may know how we affect someone else with either a simple thank you or the failure to give one.
BTW, Fi, the nurses and doctors who cared for my father at the ICU in Kaiser Permanente's facility in SF were fantastic, both for his bypass surgery and then when he died of lung cancer. They got our thanks every single day he was there, as well as my sister's chocolates and baked goodies.
Thanks for all your comments! I can understand how you were 'hounded' out of the profession Stewpot, as I too have had similar experiences in a previous nursing job. And you're right, boxes of chololates, although very nice, are no match for a sincere 'thank-you'. I can also identify with Gretchen's comments regarding her mother. I had just started my 4 year training in a new city when my first husband and the father of my 2 boys (then aged 5 and 6) lost his life at sea. I treasure the 'thank-yous' I do get and feel that words speak the best.
Maybe we should all try and remember those people who we wouldn't normally (including bin men!), especially at this time of year.
Gretchen laid it out for you--that is the reality of the nursing profession--long hours, the bodily fluid du jour, maintaining a professional air while watching young person unfairly dying of something awful, 12 hour nights (followed by mandatory meetings in daytime on your own time), crazy work schedules so that you are NEVER fully rested, being treated as a servant by the patient and an idiot by the doctor, covering twice the number of patients that you could possibly give real comfort to, shall I go on? Having to carry out orders you know are the worst possible thing for the patient (because you have a hundred times the patient contact experience than the doctor), being hit on by nearly every doctor and a third of the patients, and being sick three times as much as your friends because of exposure to every known pestilence .
I am not in that profession, but my sister-in law, brother-in-law, daughter-in-law, niece, several aunts and a number of friends are. (Guess what they talk about at get-togethers?)
I hope that next time you encounter one, even if you don't thank them, try to understand that they are likely sleep-deprived, harried, and mentally preoccupied with the latest horror that they had to deal with.
All that being said, for my part I have lately become much more respectful of anyone performing musically, since my first tenetative strokes a few months ago on the first musical instrument I have ever held in my 60+ years. This board has enlightened me greatly about the skills and experience required to play anything even passably.
Wow - I'm humbled by all this stuff. (and, I arrived slighly late to join the band last night as I had to travel in from a work meeting - and a guinness got handed to me - so Stewpot's thoughts came true!!).
But I'm especially touched by all the stories about thanks (or the lack of) - quite the most uplifting stuff I've seen this year.
Erm, just scrolled down, so I don't know if it has been said up till now. Fi - your day job is to save lives.
your night job is to make lives worth living.
the first is clever knowledge plus blood sweat toil and tears.
the second is inspired, and is your decision to vent this part of you to the world. That's why people respond so.
Thought for the Day
Thought for the Day
I work as a nurse on a very busy, understaffed acute medical ward. I come home 99% of the time totally stressed and exhausted. I am also (I'm told to say by my husband), a musician. We find time to travel around various folk clubs and sessions and occasional gigs, often involving travelling of over 2 hours. I drive as my husband doesn't. We are beginning to be well thought of and extremely welcome. For example, on Sunday we went to a folk club 30 miles away we occasionally manage to get to. The MC was extremely apologetic that he couldn't find time to put us on again. We also found our names had been put down for a Xmas concert on Saturday in a theatre setting. The organiser had been trying to contact us and was surprised we didn't have a web site. Just as well we went to that club that night! Fortunately we will be able to play, athough I do still get very nervous and haven't played in that type of setting since I was a teenager (a long time ago)! They have also put us on as the last act before the professional act!
Everywhere we play we get very good feedback. People say "thank you"! People ask where we are playing next and we're asked if we have any CDs (hopefully early next year!).
My point is this. Why do I get more thanks and appreciation for playing music than I do as a nurse? Of course musicians should be appreciated and thanked, but all I seem to get from patients and visitors is complaints, stress and the feeling that you haven't done enough quickly enough.
On Friday I have an early shift and in the evening we are going to see a friend (a drummer) who has been having health problems and is unable to play just now. On Saturday I have another early shift and have to rush back and travel 30 miles for the concert on Saturday through the football traffic and the road works (a couple of weeks ago this took 2 hours!). On Sunday (luckily), I have a late shift, but have to be up early for the early on Monday! Monday night is our local folk club Xmas bash, which we've been learning a couple of new tunes for. Good thing I'm off on Tuesday! Over that period I'm going to take note of comments, thank-yous etc and I'm pretty sure that there will be more for music than nursing!
We are fast approaching the week of Christmas - a time (supposedly) of good will and family reunions. It is also the week we get many admisssions. Many of these are genuine, but we also have an element of "what shall we do with Granny this year". Lets get her admitted to hospital. We'll be able to go out and enjoy ourselves then! Maybe go to a gig! Maybe they will be the kind of people thanking you for your music over this festive season while their relative is in hospital. Being taken care of by overworked nurses to whom they give very little thanks at all.
I repeat that I believe musicians should be thanked, but remember others too!
Thank you.
Fi
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by madmusicians
Re: Thought for the Day
Weeeeeell, when was the last time you thanked your trash collector?
KFG
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by KFG
Re: Thought for the Day
Actually it will be on Friday- they come round the same time as I leave for work!
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by madmusicians
Re: Thought for the Day
Maybe people get a bit disconnected with what goes on - ie they see nursing as a "service they pay for" and don't think beyond that to the individuals who do the service? And also, maybe the way hospitals are organised, there's very little personal contact, more a series of people (that's my experience anyway) so the actual patient gets little in the way of truly personal care in the sense that it can be idenfitied / associated with one individual. My last experience in hospital was of being a "parcel" in a game of pass the parcel - somone comes and peers at you and then someone else takes over, and so on. Not saying this is right, as of course nurses work extremely hard and it must be amazing to care given the ignorance you must encounter. I'm probably expressing part of that now - but I think the system makes patients behave like that.
Why not leave nursing? Seriously, I don't know, perhaps all jobs outstay their welcome? You only live once!
PS It can be pretty thankless being in any job!!
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Thought for the Day
ps I know someone quite senior in an NHS trust who seriously is starting to believe that far from helping people, she is perpetuating a system that allows people to "dump" patients in her wards where sometimes, home would be the best place for them to recover.
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Thought for the Day
Thanks Mark! Next year we plan to get the CD done, move to Scotland and hopefully begin to make more of a living from music if possible. We'll never now if we don't give it a go!
Fi
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by madmusicians
Re: Thought for the Day
aw c'mon, your trash collector's not likely to save your life. besides, at least in canada, nurses get a real raw deal despite their very, very hard work. my mother has been working 12hr nights since before i was born and to top it off she's a single mom who had to run all her own errands during the day and look after her two kids. i really don't understand how a person can function on as little sleep as she gets. it would be nice if people were at least respectful of the service she provides, instead of condescending doctors and rude, angry family members of patients (although i do realise why people with family in an intensive care unit might have their backs up a bit, and of course not everyone *is* rude).but, on top of this, the hospitals here are really understaffed, which means that my mother, as a senoir staff member, often ends up taking on patients enough for two or three nurses in one shift. plus there's the back pains that a person who is about 120 pounds gets from trying to move patients that are sometimes twice or three times their size, a thing which must be done in the course of caring for a patient. and lets not forget that our nurses are exposed to terrible diseases.... my mother was one of the first people to come down with SARS in toronto (she almost died from this and it took her a long time to recover, my kid brother was quarantined for a month because of repeated exposure to the virus, couldn't go to school, etc.)... after caring for a patient that she was specifically instructed NOT to quarantine because they were allegedly harmless. at other times, my mom has had to take really terrible drugs to hopefully protect her from HIV after being accidentlly showered with bodily fluids from an AIDS patient. i could of course go on...
anyway sorry for going on a rant... i just really don't think it's fair to write off an educated, hardworking, vital sector of the population so easily, KFG.
but i don't mean to undermine the efforts of garbage collectors either... i've seen the results of a garbage strike (and now i feel i must add that nurses are, btw, not allowed to strike for better wages, etc. eee... sorry... i'll stop going on now)
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by gretchen
Re: Thought for the Day
Hmm - the bit where Kenny wrote off an educated hardworking vital sector of the population easily seems to have got deleted.
All that's left is a pertinent comment on the lack of respect that most people have for most other people whose services they take for granted.
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Thought for the Day
Hi gretchen,
I really didn't intend to write them off! I was more thinking that it's something inherent in the way hospitals are organised, and also in terms of the way people (patients) think of the nurses as a "service" rather than as human beings.
This is difficult territory as they engage with people in far more intimate ways - so I guess it's healthy for nurses to maintain a distance too.
My point about leaving (and Fi, thanks for taking it so well! is because I'm doing the same thing - albeit from a well-paid job. I just think we might as well go for stuff that's truly "us" rather than working for a faceless organisation.
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Thought for the Day
Now then, as an X nurse myself I fully understand what Fi is saying, because I've had similar unappreciated experiences in hospitals as well, but not just from patients and relatives, from staff colleuges as well. For the record, if anyones interested, I was "hounded" out of the proffesion by senior members of staff . . but thats another story.
Despite all this there were many occasions were I remember vividly the heartfelt praise and thankyou's I got from patients and relatives for the care I had given, and this made up (to some extent ) for all the negative aspects of the work.
We were'nt always busy, some of the time there wasn't much to do.
I agree its great when you go out to a session and when youv'e finished playing to be clapped and cheered, yeh It's nice to feel aprecciated, but I didn't expect and round of applause from my patients when I turned up on the ward to do a shift!
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Justintime
Re: Thought for the Day
The thing that slightly annoys me at gigs is when you NEED a guinness at the bar and CAN'T play until you get one. It'd be great if the punters would let you get it - the sooner I get my pint, the sooner the music starts!!
I don't mind not getting the applause, it's being deprived of the essential Guinness that worries me.
Sad or what?!
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Thought for the Day
Exactly the point of this disscussion, if you were more appreciated you wouldn't have to go to the bar for your guinness . . . it would be delivered to your table and for free !
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Justintime
Re: Thought for the Day
The last time my husband was in hospital I felt sorry for the fact that the nurses were understaffed and doing their best - but there was no one else to complain to. My husband was admitted as an emergency but didn't get to see a doctor for 8 hours. He was dehydrated but nurses couldn't put a drip up until the doctor had seen him.
On two occasions he didn't get a meal served to him. The bathroom facilities were disgusting with mould, broken fittings etc How anyone is supposed to sleep in hospital I haven't worked out as there is noise and light all the time.
When a relative is admitted as an emergency you tend to be under a fair amount of stress and I know I was a bit short with a couple of the nurses because the requested samples hadn't been taken away to the lab due to confusion in a staff shift change..
However, we have always thanked nurses when we've left and usually left a box of biscuits or chocolates. They do the best they can in the system they work in.
Reaction to musicians can be varied - usually people come up and thank you if they've enjoyed themselves - most people don't say anything if they haven't enjoyed themselves but I remember one interesting night when we did a pub gig and set up in front of the dart board - only to have the darts team come in and moan about not being able to use the dartboard - I thought they were going throw the darts at us!!
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Tarrantella
Re: Thought for the Day
Boxes of chocolates are great . . but a "sincere" thank you is all thats needed.
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Justintime
Re: Thought for the Day
I try to remember to thank people who do things for me.
This includes the dustman (garbage/trash collector) - really.
It also included the nurses who tended me when I was in hospital.
If you need to complain, it is worth explaining to the person you have to speak to if it is the case that you are complaining about the system through them, rather than complaining about them personally or individually. Most intelligent humans are able to understand the difference, if only you take the trouble to make it clear.
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Thought for the Day
I have a world of respect for nurses but I've yet to see one thank a sick person for their continued business....
(little smiling face here)
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by hurleystick
Re: Thought for the Day
typically if you're sick enough to see a nurse, you are only thinking of yourself...not to say that is fair, but it is human nature...
I try not to see a Dr or a nurse...I try to take a more proactive healthy choice in living...and it usually works, but if I have to see you, I will say thanks in advance as if I am that bad off, I will only be thinking about what my crappy health insurance will not cover.
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Sunnybear
Re: Thought for the Day
I was once flying home to San Francisco on Christmas Eve. I worked retail, and I'd worked from 7 am to 9 pm that day on a triple shift trying to cover the floor, which was unbelievably stuffed with last minute shoppers desperate to get the shopping done before the next day. Yelling, annoyed, angry people all day long, as well as more happy sorts. I was exhausted, and ever so glad to get on the plane and just sit.
Halfway through the two hour flight, as I was sitting drowsing and thinking that I was SO glad that the plane was being flown to my home so I could get there for the holiday with my family, the flight attendant came by and asked if there was anything she could get for us.
I had my glasses off and couldn't see her as more than a blur, but impulsively blurted out that I worked retail, and if she and the rest of the crew weren't working on Christmas Eve, I wouldn't be able to see my family for the holidays, so I wanted to say thank you.
She stood there for so long that I fumbled for my glasses and put them back on my nose to find her staring at me with her mouth open.
She finally said, "I've been flying for United for 13 years. In those 13 years, I've worked every single Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. You are the first person who has EVER thanked me. You're the ONLY person who has ever thanked me."
I don't know who was more astonished, her or me.
Shortly afterwards, all four of the attendants came back and presented me with a bottle of champagne. When I left the plane, the three flight deck crew thanked me for thanking them. By that time, I was feeling both bemused and humbled.
The lesson i came away with was that it's amazing how much "thank you" can mean in the most banal of circumstances, and we never may know how we affect someone else with either a simple thank you or the failure to give one.
BTW, Fi, the nurses and doctors who cared for my father at the ICU in Kaiser Permanente's facility in SF were fantastic, both for his bypass surgery and then when he died of lung cancer. They got our thanks every single day he was there, as well as my sister's chocolates and baked goodies.
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Thought for the Day
Thanks for all your comments! I can understand how you were 'hounded' out of the profession Stewpot, as I too have had similar experiences in a previous nursing job. And you're right, boxes of chololates, although very nice, are no match for a sincere 'thank-you'. I can also identify with Gretchen's comments regarding her mother. I had just started my 4 year training in a new city when my first husband and the father of my 2 boys (then aged 5 and 6) lost his life at sea. I treasure the 'thank-yous' I do get and feel that words speak the best.
Maybe we should all try and remember those people who we wouldn't normally (including bin men!), especially at this time of year.
Fi
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by madmusicians
Re: Thought for the Day
How can you stand all the grumpy patients? (Quick question)
Hope you have a great holiday.
F.B.
# Posted on December 14th 2005 by akoz
Re: Thought for the Day
Gretchen laid it out for you--that is the reality of the nursing profession--long hours, the bodily fluid du jour, maintaining a professional air while watching young person unfairly dying of something awful, 12 hour nights (followed by mandatory meetings in daytime on your own time), crazy work schedules so that you are NEVER fully rested, being treated as a servant by the patient and an idiot by the doctor, covering twice the number of patients that you could possibly give real comfort to, shall I go on? Having to carry out orders you know are the worst possible thing for the patient (because you have a hundred times the patient contact experience than the doctor), being hit on by nearly every doctor and a third of the patients, and being sick three times as much as your friends because of exposure to every known pestilence .
I am not in that profession, but my sister-in law, brother-in-law, daughter-in-law, niece, several aunts and a number of friends are. (Guess what they talk about at get-togethers?)
I hope that next time you encounter one, even if you don't thank them, try to understand that they are likely sleep-deprived, harried, and mentally preoccupied with the latest horror that they had to deal with.
All that being said, for my part I have lately become much more respectful of anyone performing musically, since my first tenetative strokes a few months ago on the first musical instrument I have ever held in my 60+ years. This board has enlightened me greatly about the skills and experience required to play anything even passably.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by mmelec
Re: Thought for the Day
Wow - I'm humbled by all this stuff. (and, I arrived slighly late to join the band last night as I had to travel in from a work meeting - and a guinness got handed to me - so Stewpot's thoughts came true!!).
But I'm especially touched by all the stories about thanks (or the lack of) - quite the most uplifting stuff I've seen this year.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Thought for the Day
Erm, just scrolled down, so I don't know if it has been said up till now. Fi - your day job is to save lives.
your night job is to make lives worth living.
the first is clever knowledge plus blood sweat toil and tears.
the second is inspired, and is your decision to vent this part of you to the world. That's why people respond so.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Key Maniac Lad