wimp

I am tired. I have been at the hospital for 33.5 hours the past 3 days not including a mandatory 30 minute break each day. I filled in for a sick catering associate for the past two days. I got mad at myself when my pride got in the way of serving others. It really is a sad job. Most of the people don't say thank you and the nurses are quite churlish. I guess I wasn't too surprised because that's the way the world works. They look down on people who deliver food and think their time is more important or their patient is more important. I just did things in the order that they were given to me and I got everything done, but it felt like nobody was satisfied. I felt like I tried so hard and did everything as efficiently as I could, I tried to communicate with everyone and cater to everyone... and by the end of the day, I was wiped out.

Today the ca was back so I was back to preparation of luncheons and other projects. I am still working on food costing and it takes forever. I am hoping I can finish it by this weekend and then get all the other paperwork out of the way. I was on the hot food line for lunch and was asked to bring up a bowl of soup to a patient. I did. When I got to the room I knew the patient by name because I had served her meals the day before so I said hello and handed the soup to her daughter. Immediately her daughter glared at me and demanded to know where the crackers were in a loud voice (aka a yell). I was confused and said, "what crackers?" (all I was told was to "can you bring this soup up to this room for me, I have to go to a meeting.") She said, "the crackers I asked for three times already" ... as if I knew what she was talking about. I said, "I'm sorry, I don't know, what kind of crackers would you like." She rolled her eyes at me as if I was an idiot and said, "saltines, I asked for them already." I apologized for not knowing and told her I was just delivering the soup for someone else and I would get her crackers. She angrily put the soup down on the table in front of her sick mother and peered at the soup as if it was poisoned and asked in a shouting voice if it was old. I told her I watched the girl get it out of the pot right before she handed it to me and assured her it was from today (I didn't really understand why there was a question because it was perfectly good soup and was still hot). I retreated from the room telling the lady I would be back with her crackers.

I walked out of the room and was mobbed by three nurses asking if I had brought crackers, if I asked about food preferences, and if I had done something else. I stared at them for a second and tried to explain that the other girl was back and I had no idea what they were talking about because I was serving in the kitchen on the lunch line and I was getting crackers. As I was walking to the kitchen on the floor, I just couldn't hold back my wimpy tears and one of the nurses saw and apologized for everyone shouting at me and came with me to get the crackers (as if it was really that difficult, I don't know why they didn't just get her some crackers in the first place, they were about 20 ft from the patient's room). I told her I was just tired and I had gotten yelled at and I had no idea what was going on - it was all so overwhelming, I was just trying to help someone out. I couldn't believe I let it get to me, I had done nothing wrong but was blamed for everything. I felt so misunderstood.

I tried to sympathize with the lady and told myself she was probably sad that her mother was ill and was taking her anger out on me. I prayed for the lady and her mother and went down to the kitchen and back to the lunch line. Twenty minutes later I saw someone walk in so I smiled and asked, "how can I help you?" as I always do before I realized it was the lady who yelled at me. I was kind of shocked for some odd reason, and I couldn't figure out why. I served the angry lady again.

I am reminded daily of how finite I am. I feel so weak and tired. I try to help everyone around me. I need God to help me. Only He can change these people's hearts. I feel selfish for thinking other people are selfish, for getting tired of being yelled at and blamed for things I could not help. I decided I would try my best not to yell at people or be angry and remember to say "thank you" if I ever am a patient at a hospital. Praying and focusing on God always helps. I felt a lot better after I put the food on the line away and got back into the kitchen. I started to sing and thanked God for another learning opportunity and prayed for the people in the hospital - the patients, their families, and the workers.

On another note: I am such a Californian. I had another one of those "wow, I'm definitely from California" moments yesterday. I got off a little after 7pm and walk out to my car. I dumped my backpack and bag in the back and got inside and saw all the drops on my windshield. I didn't know when it had stopped raining so I figured it was probably recent... so I thought, I'll turn on my windshield wipers and clear off my window. I did. The rain drops didn't move. That was the moment. The drops were frozen onto my window and I couldn't see out of my car because of all the frozen globs of ice on my window. Awesome.