03 May, 2004 - 11:46 a.m.

Do you want to know what I did last night at work? Of course you do. It always makes you feel better when someone else is stupider than yourself.

There was a significant puddle of vomit deposited on the floor between the waiting room and the department. So I put a towel over it and paged the cleaners.

There needs to be some background information before I go on. A few months ago, a cleaner was paged to clean a puddle of vomit, and the first question she asked was "Is it chunky?...It's not my job to clean chunky vomit." Now, I don't know where this rule came from, and if it meant that it was the nurses' job to firstly remove the chunks, and then page the cleaners, or if, should the vomit be chunky, we were not to bother the cleaners at all, and all hope was lost.

We arranged a compromise, and threw towels over puddles of vomit, which the cleaners then used to help with such chunks.

Anyway. Last night. Paged the cleaners. Phone rang, I answered.

"Yes, you just paged me?"

"Hi, yes. Sorry, but we have a big puddle of vomit in the doorway to the department that needs to be cleaned."

"You what?"

"Don't worry, it's not too chunky" (Laughing).

"Excuse me?"

By this stage I'm getting a little suspicious, and on a whim, I said "This is the cleaner, isn't it?"

Because this is the world of Lara, not only was it NOT the cleaner, it was

a) the surgical consultant

b) who I woke up because he was on a night duty and hadn't started work yet.

There, now. Don't you all feel a little better about yourselves today?

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