The Long, Long Hallway

This is what I am looking at for hours a day, a long corridor. Actually, there are several corridors, but they all look like this one. I'm spending my days walking back and forth and around and around. It is like a giant maze and I'm feeling cranky.

I'm wondering if the brilliant building designers were trying to get the nurses to walk more and become slimmer and more fit. Or perhaps they are trying to get rid of the older, lame nurses before they can retire and collect on their pensions.

Anyway, besides aching joints and feet, our biggest problem is finding each other. The old hospital was old and cramped, but it was efficient. We could find each other by yelling. Now, our biggest source of frustration is communicating with each other.

They gave us pocket pagers, but we are having problems with them. They did not come with written instructions. All they gave us is an old, retired nurse who goes around trying to teach us the system. I don't know if we are all stupid or if the old nurse doesn't know how to explain things or if the pagers are defective, but the pagers go off all the time for no good reason.

In theory, we could use the pagers to find each other, but we need a list of everyone's pager number. I think someone is working on that. I'm slowly collecting phone numbers and typing them onto a list so that I can at least reach people near phones. I guess that we should be grateful that at least we still have telephones, although it is frustrating that our phone number charts are gone. How do you call someone if you don't know their number?

It is also frustrating that no one will answer the phone and I can't really blame them. The caller almost always wants someone other than you and that means trying to find them. We are tired and if picking up the phone means having to walk several blocks looking for someone, we would rather just let it ring.

To get our medications, we have switched to Pyxis, which is a computerized drug dispensing system. It is okay and actually easier to get narcotics from than the old system. The problem is that the pharmacists are having problems with the new system. They will probably adjust, but in the meantime, we are giving medications hours late because the pharmacists can't keep up. Some of the pharmacists are trying not to cry.

We also have no Internet access in the new hospital. Can you believe the nerve? How am I supposed to go an entire shift without checking my e-mail? That alone is giving me the D.T.'s.

On the plus side, the rooms are almost all private, big and modern. Everything looks clean, even if it's really not. The patients like their rooms and are happier and I no longer have to hear comments about how this place looks like "County."

The communication problems should be solvable and if they will just let me use my skateboard at work, I will do fine. If not, I would settle for a bicycle with a basket.