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Hospital Volunteering
Jan. 27th, 2009 06:39 pmI started working as a volunteer at my local hospital today. Can we say "comedy of errors", everyone?
My nextdoor neighbor picked me up early because *eyeroll* she "needed" to have a chiropractic adjustment this morning. Appt is at 9:30. We get there a couple of minutes late. Turned out that didn't matter a whole lot; we were only there for a few mins. So I end up getting to the hospital an hour early with nothing to do but talk to the volunteers in the gift shop,which is great, but I felt like I was keeping them from their work. I didn't think that was a particularly auspicious way to start my day.
Susan, the chick who runs the volunteer program, told me that I'd be working the front admissions desk. Great, fine, that means I don't have to do a whole lot of physical running around, which means my chances of getting lost are effectively zero.
So I get there this morning, have lunch with the rest of the volunteer crew, then I go to the front desk to tell them who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing. They look blank. They've never heard of me. And even if they had, "I have to know the layout of the hospital if I'm supposed to be directing ppl where to go". Which is true, but that's what the map's for. And the map is very nicely detailed, with each specialty's wing clearly labeled, and you can tell by the shape of the drawings how the first floor lines up with second, third, fourth, etc. So it's not that hard to give ppl directions.
Well, the volunteers had a hard time believing that, so they insisted on walking me around the hospital, which is dandy, but here I am doing meal tray runs when I'm supposed to be working the desk. And the various volunteers who were supposed to be "escorting" me kept handing me off to other volunteers. At one point, an eighty year old (yes, you read that right) volunteer nicknamed Shorty tells me he's gonna return a wheelchair, so I should take the meal tray (not an individual tray, the big cart thing that holds a half dozen meal trays at once) back to the cafeteria. So I found the cafeteria without any trouble, but Shorty's nowhere to be found.
At this point, who should appear but Susan. She asks me if I'm lost. I tell her about Shorty, and she responds with "tell him I'm gonna beat him up next time I see him...he should know better than to leave a first-day volunteer alone by herself!" No kidding.
Then I started making the rounds with a female volunteer, who is apparently rather like me in that she has a one-track mind, and she likes to tell stories. Several times she got so wrapped up in the story she was telling me, that we missed an elevator altogether, got off on the wrong floor, etc.
Finally my shift is over and I'm waiting outside for my ride. We're in the car when she gets a call from a close friend of hers. Apparently friend's daughter missed her bus, so we had to swing by her school to pick her up because mom couldn't do it.
So even though I only technically worked a half shift (four hours), my day still started at nine and ended at five. And I'm wiped out. And I'm not even getting paid.
All griping aside, though, it seems like a very nice hospital. They tell me that within a month I should be able to handle working the front desk by myself. I certainly hope so!
My nextdoor neighbor picked me up early because *eyeroll* she "needed" to have a chiropractic adjustment this morning. Appt is at 9:30. We get there a couple of minutes late. Turned out that didn't matter a whole lot; we were only there for a few mins. So I end up getting to the hospital an hour early with nothing to do but talk to the volunteers in the gift shop,which is great, but I felt like I was keeping them from their work. I didn't think that was a particularly auspicious way to start my day.
Susan, the chick who runs the volunteer program, told me that I'd be working the front admissions desk. Great, fine, that means I don't have to do a whole lot of physical running around, which means my chances of getting lost are effectively zero.
So I get there this morning, have lunch with the rest of the volunteer crew, then I go to the front desk to tell them who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing. They look blank. They've never heard of me. And even if they had, "I have to know the layout of the hospital if I'm supposed to be directing ppl where to go". Which is true, but that's what the map's for. And the map is very nicely detailed, with each specialty's wing clearly labeled, and you can tell by the shape of the drawings how the first floor lines up with second, third, fourth, etc. So it's not that hard to give ppl directions.
Well, the volunteers had a hard time believing that, so they insisted on walking me around the hospital, which is dandy, but here I am doing meal tray runs when I'm supposed to be working the desk. And the various volunteers who were supposed to be "escorting" me kept handing me off to other volunteers. At one point, an eighty year old (yes, you read that right) volunteer nicknamed Shorty tells me he's gonna return a wheelchair, so I should take the meal tray (not an individual tray, the big cart thing that holds a half dozen meal trays at once) back to the cafeteria. So I found the cafeteria without any trouble, but Shorty's nowhere to be found.
At this point, who should appear but Susan. She asks me if I'm lost. I tell her about Shorty, and she responds with "tell him I'm gonna beat him up next time I see him...he should know better than to leave a first-day volunteer alone by herself!" No kidding.
Then I started making the rounds with a female volunteer, who is apparently rather like me in that she has a one-track mind, and she likes to tell stories. Several times she got so wrapped up in the story she was telling me, that we missed an elevator altogether, got off on the wrong floor, etc.
Finally my shift is over and I'm waiting outside for my ride. We're in the car when she gets a call from a close friend of hers. Apparently friend's daughter missed her bus, so we had to swing by her school to pick her up because mom couldn't do it.
So even though I only technically worked a half shift (four hours), my day still started at nine and ended at five. And I'm wiped out. And I'm not even getting paid.
All griping aside, though, it seems like a very nice hospital. They tell me that within a month I should be able to handle working the front desk by myself. I certainly hope so!
