» When I met the parents

My son was coming through town
on a flying visit so we arranged to meet at the railway station.
I would collect his and his friend's luggage and keep it for them while they bussed off to the next town for lunch with friends.

I politely greeted Son's friend, shook his hand, hugged Son, arranged to meet them later and left.

Son's friend looked terrified. I thought, 'he's in a state. Travel sick perhaps.'
At our later meeting he seemed even more nervous, grabbing his rucksack from the boot and setting off acros the busy road at a gallop. Son was trying hard not to laugh.

Turns out that the 'friend' was Son's new boyfriend, who hadn't long come out, and certainly wasn't up to meeting Mother.

What a shame they didn't tell me. I'd have given him a BIG friendly hug. Welcome to the family, Son!
(Fri 20th May 2005, 20:08, More)

» Jobsworths

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.
(Mon 16th May 2005, 17:52, More)

» Office Christmas Parties

Good and bad.............
Used to work in a mental hospital set in spacious grounds. Xmas started about 4pm on xmas Eve when we shoved all the loonies we could into bed (with an extra dose of sleepies) and started the serious drinking.

Handheld wagons were used to transport goods around the grounds and by midnight they were piled up with bodies soaked in urine and sick. All staff of course.

My last memory of xmas 1975 is of our ward domestic, plastered, dressed in a soiled, tattered Santa suit, waving a bottle as the truck he was spreadeagled across gathered speed down the gentle but long slope towards the mortuary. Legend has it that he crashed through the front door shouting 'Merry Christmas!' but I'd passed out on the snow-covered lawn seconds before so I saw nothing.

Xmas 1976, I was at an armaments factory and morale was low at that noisy, grubby place, so a crowd of us went for a few drinks and came back leathered and wrecked the joint. Funnily enough, nobody lost their jobs. I reckon there was too much management fear thet we'd expose the crappy working conditions.

NHS general wards are crap to work on nowadays at xmas but we have wild nights out. For some reason landlords are understanding about customers fighting and barfing if they're nurses!
(Tue 21st Dec 2004, 20:33, More)

» Scars with history

Teethmarks in the breast, anyone? No pics!
As a young nurse at a particularly brutal mental hospital in the 1970s I misguidedly took pity on a puny boy of about 11.
His arms were tied inside his pullover, crossed over his stomach and secured behind his back. (I promise I'm not making this up.)

He wandered around all day like this, sobbing constantly. I was told that he attacked anyone in range, hence the bizarre knitwear arrangement.

Green as grass, I approached him, said 'Hello little boy, what's your name?' and placed a hand on his shoulder.

He immediately spun round and bit me viciously under the left nipple. The pain was intense - I thought I might faint.
Not wanting to admit my 'accident' to anyone (I'd never have heard the end of it!) I sneaked off to the bog to examine the damage.

A chunk of skin had been bitten off, through my uniform, slip and bra, and there was so much blood that I had to pad the area with bogroll to soak it up.

Luckily I'd been wearing new shoes with much thicker soles and deeper heels than before, making me a little taller, or I definitely would have lost my left nipple.

Fortunately, although I didn't have any treatment it healed well. 30 years on, when I see the scar in the mirror, I still shudder.
(Sat 5th Feb 2005, 19:53, More)

» Scars with history

Self-harm-mimicking scars
are NOT funny. I slid down a stable door, aged about 8, and gashed a wrist, leaving a long, neat scar which apparently identifies me as a 'cutter.'

I also have a moleste blue one across a knee from a blasphemous Sunday-School bunking-off incident. Having excused myself to read comics in the toilet, I then tried to peep through a high window to see if they'd finished yet, pulling a heavy window box down upon myself.
I learned that day how much Jesus hates skivers.
(Sat 5th Feb 2005, 19:34, More)