don't want to die living in a highrise

Working in the hospital again may not mean big money, but it sure puts me back in alchohol swabs. Man, did I miss those little individually packaged for convenience squares of antiseptic heaven.

Last night, after a great last training shift, I said my goodbyes to my coworkers and my many thanks and sat down at the front desk [always a mistake as you're a sitting duck] and checked my schedule. One of the staff docs came rushing over to me and asked me to transfer an unstable patient from another unit, by ambulance, to another hospital.

"I'm not sure I'm the person for the job."

"Why?"

"Well, first of all I'm leaving after 13 hours of work, and second, I'm still officially on orientation until my next shift."

"Well you won't have to do anything-"

Just then the nurse in charge walked up to us.

"What's up?"

Staff doc repeated his request. Charge nurse reiterated the reasons I wasn't going to be going. I kind of wanted to go, but to be honest, I had plans after work, I'd had a great run of shifts and wanted to end my orientation on a good note, and I figure there will be plenty of time to do interesting things. I've also learned, although it sounds jaded [maybe it is], that sometimes doing the extra—going the extra mile, which I tend to always do—only buys you a boatload of pain.

So I walked out into the unusually crisp summer evening, took a deep breath and smiled, put my ipod on, and walked to the subway to the sounds of the new Metric CD. Love it.