Blood
on the floor looks bad.
Working as a hospital care assistant and looking after a dying patient, I noticed a large patch of dried blood on the floor next to her bed. Horrified, I went to clean it up. The staff nurse stopped me. 'We don't mop up, that's the domestic's job.'

So I fetched the domestic, who said, 'It's body fluids. That's a nursing staff job.'
When I asked for a mop to use to clean it up I was told 'No, you're not using mine for that.'

I went back to the sister and explained the problem, and she said 'No, you're not mopping up, we're far too busy.'
I spent longer arguing about it than it would have taken to clean it up myself.

When the dying lady's family turned up, I heard them discuss the shocking stain. One said, 'How disgusting, as if they couldn't make the effort to clean that up.' Another said, 'This place is filthy and nobody cares.' The worst was the granddaughter, who looked with horror from the stain to her gran and back again and said nothing.

And guess who was loudly ordered to clean it up, when they formally complained, as if it'd been my fault all along. Bastards.
(A kind of wild justice, Mon 16 May 2005, 17:52, Reply)