Being the youngest and newest Admissions Clerk at a Catholic Hospital, I was determined to prove my worthiness as both an efficient and compassionate co-worker.
Regrettably, one such opportunity proved to leave my peers in an alarmed state of disbelief, not to mention myself!
I was admitting an exceptionally polite yet timid teenage boy, named Zach. His particularly well mannered father accompanied him and never spoke a word, allowing his son to conduct the details of his own admission.
As I opened the admission pack to begin the registration process, Zach, enthusiastically pulled a wristband from his shirt pocket. “Here, I saved this from my last admission, so you didn’t have to make me a new one.” Holding the wristband in his outstretched hand, he leaned forward, “And I’ve kept it in a box at home so it wouldn’t get dirty.”
Realizing Zack’s eagerness to lend his support of goodwill, I offered my grateful response of appreciation. “Thank you so much, Zack. That was so thoughtful of you, but unfortunately I can’t use it because the date and room number are different now.”
He immediately recoiled, slumped back into his chair, and hung his blushing face toward the floor. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t think about it, but yeah that makes sense and was pretty dumb of me.”
My heart sank at his obvious dejection, so I fervently went into overdrive, attempting to make him feel as though he had in fact, done me a favor.
I stood up and reached for his old wristband, now crumpled inside both of his closed hands. “Actually, it will help me find your old chart.” However, I got tongue-tied, replaced the ch in chart with the f in file, and blurted out my twisted verbiage.
Once the immobilization from feeling horror-struck passed, I managed to apologize, but wasn’t able to pull it off without an irrepressible giggle.
It was obvious that I found the incident somewhat amusing and was smiling, until I looked around at my co-workers, the patient and his father, and realized that I was the only one smiling!
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This is still great.
I've done the same thing as a nurse I was giving a new mother a shot to help her bleeding subside. i blurted out to this new mother who just had her 6th child, "This medicine will stop you breeding."
The father said, "Cool they can do that with a shot?"
And the doctor just shrieked one word, my name "SHANN!!!"
So I so empathize with you my dear!
Too funny! That is EXACTLY the kind of thing I do all the time. In fact, just today I told my daughter on the phone that we had just gotten our shampoos carpeted. LOL
