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July 25, 2006
I have you all beat
A post on Chicagoist suggests that being the guy in the big foam ear costume must be the worst summer job ever. That does look pretty terrible, but I can assure you there is a job that is much, much worse.
My dad, bless his sole, must have one day fancied that I would follow in his footsteps and go into the medical field. Instead, there is a reason I am now in law school. After my freshman year of college, he fixed me up with a job at the local hospital, with the very fancy title of "Patient Attendant."
What this meant was, I went up to the patients' room, and wheeled them down to the operating room. Then we'd flip them onto the operating table, and I'd sometimes stand around while the surgeons carved 'em up, and then I would sit there while they came out of anaesthesia, then I'd wheel them back up. When this was going on, they were usually babbling incoherently and groaning.
If I wasn't doing that, I did a number of other things: I made sure there was enough saline solution in the OR, and when the surgeons were done, I had to clean the OR. The worst part about that was mopping up blood, as well as having to pick up little bits of flesh and blood clots from the floor.
The worst, and I mean, worst part about this job was something called "shave prep." Before you had surgery, you had to have whatever part of the body that was getting cut up shaved. Who better to send to do that than the crappy old patient attendant? So, the nurses would give me a little shaving kit, send me into the prep room, and I'd have to shave the patient. Usually it was like an arm or a chest or something, but every so often they'd send me in with a guy who needed to have his groin shaved. You have no idea how hard it was to type that sentence. And no, whatever idea you may have about shaving a groin, it's not like that. I didn't enjoy it, he didn't enjoy it, and I didn't touch any balls. If my pride was destroyed because I had to shave someone's junk, I can only imagine what it must have felt like to be the guy having his junk shaved. Ugh... I shudder at the thought.
And that, friends, is why I had the worst summer job.
Posted by oz115 at July 25, 2006 09:39 AM
Comments
That trauma must have some deep, long-lasting effects. I'm sorry buddy.
-G
Posted by: G at July 25, 2006 11:03 AM
Ahhh...I think that's a little TMI, Oz!
Thanks for the link to the Gazette postings. Can you believe that I actually got married?!? Craziness. I feel old now.
Posted by: Candi at July 25, 2006 10:29 PM