Closed communities

1/11/12

Yesterday I went to my first job as a substitute school secretary.  Today was mainly spent in the waiting room of the cardiac unit of St. Vincent Hospital.  The two days were eerily similar to my recent experience working at the mall, in that I was a participant in a system that was entire unto itself.  I spent the day surrounded by a community of people with specific and clear roles.  The outside world floats in, to be absorbed into the space, previous identities irrelevant to the role that was being played inside this system.  Routines are mysterious, tools ditto:  one fumbles about trying to make sense of the simplest things.

The school was the more disconcerting, because less familiar, system.  My training was over a month old, and all I remembered was the name of the program I had to use:  eSIS.  I was fortunate, in that I was subbing for the part-time person, and the principal secretary was there with all her know-how and school savvy.  While I waited for the tech people to call me back with passwords, I searched my notes for clues and watched L handle the constant stream of kids, teachers, and parents.

She knew all their names!

Late-comers were offered breakfast and a place to eat it, and then shooed off to class.   Two students came in with attendance sheets, which were placed in front of me, but everyone else went to L, who dealt with bumped heads (we were out of ice) and broken belts and problem students ("just sit there and wait for Mr. F.")  One girl delivered a "pretend letter," which was the teacher's version of a time out.  L had her chose a book to read until she was calm and ready to return to class, but the girl was already very calm.  "You're ready to make good choices now?"  "Yes."  "Okay."   I guess I'll never know what that was all about.

The principal was in and out, doing observations.  Nurse Bill was there for one of his two days.  Several kids sat in a row, facing the front counter, waiting for him.  One had possible pink-eye, the others just looked pale and tired.  Nurse Bill was also the resident Spanish-speaker, which came into play several times.   I don't know how they managed in his absence.

Various bells rang at various intervals, but no one in the office seemed to be tuned into them:  they were for teachers and students.   The phone rang incessantly.  L was dealing with a frozen computer program, so I answered several times.  I found myself reiterating, "I'm a sub, I don't recognize that name, can you repeat it?"

After 15 minutes of waiting for tech support, I called the substitute office and got...a sub.  So, I left a message and finally remembered how to get into my PPS e-mail.  Aha!  My password info was there.  I logged into eSIS and pulled up the training module and muddled my way through the attendance procedures.  Then I sorted mail and filled the boxes.  And my 4 hours were over, just like that.  I walked out into the lovely bright noon sun, and it was like leaving a matinee.  The show was over, and I was back in the real world.  When I had arrived, the sun was barely up, busses lined the street, and streams of kids were being herded into the building.  Now, the street was empty, I could hear the distant shouts of kids at play, and my day was half over.  I was discombobulated, and it took awhile to re-acclimate.

Today was a repetition of that sense of alienation.  The hospital is an even more closed system than a school, with lounges, cafeterias, magazines, games, and a battery of procedures and jargon.  The elevators ding, the intercom sounds at various intervals, making mysterious announcements or searching for errant staff.  There are exterior areas for visitors, and interior areas for patients, and closed areas for staff.  The doors are carefully labelled to keep you in your place, but they are only randomly monitored, and not all desks are manned.  There are littoral zones, where visitors and staff converge and the roles are less clear.  There are even tiny suites for family members of critically ill patients.  I remember when Dad was in the ICU at Iowa City.  When I wasn't in his room, I was sleeping in a monastic cell, wandering the halls, finding a Chihuly sculpture.  Occasionally I would overhear discussions that reminded me there was an outside world, but I wasn't watching TV or using a computer.  I was just there.

Today was less stressful.  G was not in the ICU.  I was not in charge of administering this system or explaining it to others.  I was there for W, and I already knew the ropes.  As a visitor, once you enter a hospital building, you begin creating a home for yourself.  You are going to be part of this system for awhile, and you want to blend comfortably.  You have your knitting, books, phone, computer.  You introduce yourself to the volunteer at the desk.

I've decided that hospital volunteers are cloned.  They have middle-European accents, coiffed silver-gray hair, glasses, and skirt outfits with pastel cardigans.  They are very conscientious in their duties, collecting names, offering pillows and blankets, finding people.  This particular volunteer knew just where W was.  She had staked a claim to the chairs and table by the window.  The cardiac care waiting room is on the 2nd floor, and as I sat down, I noticed coins and a package of Orbis mints on the concrete ledge outside the window.  This was a modular, hermetically-sealed building, and there was no way the coins could have been tossed out a window or dropped from above.  The only possibility was that they were tossed up from below, close to 2 stories.  Later I counted the coins:  they totaled $8.54. 

W had been there since 7 am, and it was now close to 10. Soon after our arrival the intern came with the good news that the procedure went well and once G woke up, we could leave.

I was there until 4:30.