The Emerald Rose

         It’s a sad commentary when you see this type of question being asked seriously!

         As you all must know by now I volunteer in the Emergency Room of our local hospital on Wednesday evenings from 4 to 8. We are tasked with “holding down the fort” and getting folks to fill in the basic form before we hand them off to the “admissions” folks. They are the ones with the magic computer that says if this particular person ever “stiffed” the hospital on a bill they owed, or has been in any of the other hospital systems all over our panhandle area.

        If all goes well then I hear the laser printer next to me kick on and out pops the always present plastic wristlet and about 2 dozen address style labels with the patients name, date of birth, etc, AND a couple of other pages of  “administrative stuff”(read as essential paperwork to insure every ounce of anything including kleenex is billed to the proper patient). I get to put the bracelet on them, and guide them over to a waiting area, then deliver all the paperwork to a basket on the door outside the “Triage Nurse’s Office”. DONE!!

        After that the triage nurse gets them, evaluates them, and takes over. Then if anyone shows up asking for the patient I check to see that they can go in to the ER and see them, give them a “Visitors Pass”, and guide them to the appropriate room. Not rocket science, but I also get to make the initial call if I believe the conditions of a patient coming in warrant immediate attention and “go to the head of the line” privileges. You know things like turning blue, having a hard time breathing or standing up, passing out, or simply bleeding like hell all over the floor.

         Suffice it to say I see a lot of folks come through since we are a HUGE vacation and transient area, and our local population swells by about five hundred percent from mid-March (spring break) to the first of August (back to school rug rats!). Trust me sitting in the ER is MUCH SAFER than being on the roads around here then, but that’s another blog.

       Now back up a paragraph or two. If I get the bracelets off the laser printer, but no paperwork I have to go back over to the admitting office, about fifteen feet away, and they hand me the paperwork and ask me to take it “out back”. That is a highly sophisticated code word system for me to give it to a clerk located deep in the bowels of the ER at a computer, in the middle of the Doctor’s and Nurse’s stations. That clerk is also an admitting person, BUT the paperwork needs more “in-depth” review, usually it’s a no insurance patient, or an out of state client of whom there is doubt about seeing again, or getting paid, after “services rendered”.

       That would be part of life, but what I also see are less than successful local folks with no money, no jobs, and that “no hope” look in the eyes as well. Some even come in as a group. One evening we had three generations of a family in at the same time. The Father, the daughter, and the grandson, none were really critical but I guess they all decided it was time for the “regular check up”,…point is they had no insurance, no money, and just the usual sniffles, upset stomach, and “woman’s problems” (sure hope they didn’t figure we offered group discounts!) 

        But as you go through life , and if you have been fortunate enough to “grow” yourself you wind up seeing a different life evolve around you. From going to the movies as a kid, to getting a DVD player and watching them at home, to going to the Theatre and watching live performances, etc.

      You also do the same thing in other aspects of life as well, from regular white bread to whole wheat, to 15 grain multi-grain, to the newest “homemade” designer bake shop.

      From Pabst Blue Ribbon beer to White Belgian Ale, etc. etc.

      But there are many who never get beyond the ground hamburger level, and even the cheapest cuts of that as well. But the sadder commentary are those who must go backwards. The cheap cut of “leftover parts” used to create the low end hamburg is not the bottom of the feeding chain, literally. Cat food is cheaper than hamburger, and as John Wayne said so eloquently, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” But why do we let it happen?

      No I’m not a flaming liberal, looking to take care of everyone, feed and cloth everyone, and provide free healthcare, free food etc. But give a man, (and I use the term “man” euphemistically) an “OPPORTUNITY to achieve.

     Let’s start at the bottom of the food chain and give the “opportunity” to work and earn a respectful living. Stop looking for every flaw in humanity as an excuse to deny people work. AS you all know I’ve had my troubles in life, have and am working hard to keep my head above water, better my position in life, take care of my family, and in simple words trying to achieve a modicum of personal self respect, WITHOUT sucking off the system. Just give me opportunity, but today’s world is now eliminating opportunity faster than the speed of light!

     The use of personal credit reports, background checks, and other examples of “impenetrable” concertina wire surrounds the job market. TALK to people, don’t let Experion, Trans-Union, and whomever  the other Credit places think for you. There are always circumstances, unwritten reasons, and a multitude of other things which create the almighty computer output,…but that does not tell the story, only the “sound byte” of a life. When you look deeper, as I have always tried to do, there are always other things a “prudent man” is forced to consider.

     In todays Mega-companies not only is that decision out of most of the “managers” hands and at the mercy of a bureaucratic idiot in HR (Human Resources, is that an oxymoron or not) who writes “policy” based on mostly horse-shit, and controls hundreds of lives of people or “Human Resources” they haven’t time to even provide the courtesy of a return phone call.

     Look at the vicious circle, you need money to live, you need money to eat, you need money for everything, but when you have none, no real prospect of getting any because of a “Corporate Policy” that creates “cat food syndrome”, and then when it gets more desperate the Jean Valjean results, from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, a stolen loaf of bread to feed a family provides a felony conviction, prison or chain gang, and effectively cuts off every future avenue left to a man to redeem his own self respect by hard work, sacrifice, and determination.

    The answer is simple, drug testing is ok with me, two interviews are fine with me, but NO phone interviews. I believe that phone interviews are developed by “shrinks” paid big bucks to prepare questions to insure people don’t get to work if they don’t say the “x” number of key words and key phrases. What’s wrong with “Look, I need a job, I need to work, and I will work hard at whatever you want me to, just let me show you,…please.” That’s all the “key words”, deep seated psychological motivational trends, and “gut feel” I need to see to hire a man, so why have “role plays”, key question interviews where the interviewer hasn’t a clue what it is about and just does as he’s told, ask the question written on the paper, writes down the answer and faxes it to corporate, where the mantra is, “We’ll decide who you need to hire”.

     And would someone blow up those horrendous computer “Job Kiosks” which take tons of time to use and fill in, and are routinely “purged” every 30 days to “insure your privacy”.

     Man we are one screwed up country now, and if I wanted to make big bucks I’d buy a cat food company, because the way we are racing into socialism their sales will be huge, in spite of their shop lifting losses they will build in sufficient cost/profit price structuring to insure a “good”profit and return to the shareholders until a Chinese conglomerate buys them out and automates everything. But at least then the out of work cat food employees will know the best type of catfood, with the highest protein levels to eat for them and their families and the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest will once again prove true. 

 -30-

   “A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.”                                             — Napoleon Bonaparte