Saturday, August 29, 2009

Phone hazards

Okay I'm jumping on the occupational hazards bandwagon and contributing some rubbish experiences that I've had.

Actually, most of my blunders are on the phone, when I forget which identity to project myself as - to seniors, I'm Andre; to nurses/lab staff/operators I'm Dr Tan; and to other miscellaneous strangers like people calling from banks etc, I'm just Mr Tan. So the other day, some banking person called me (it was reeaallly irritating because he kept calling me during my morning rounds and kept calling back even after I rejected the first call zzz) and when I finally returned call I unwittingly said "Hi, Dr Tan here, did someone call?" and then blustered trying to clarify my identity. Which was pretty useless anyway because he had no idea who I was until he was like "Oooh you're Mr Tan T**k H**t!" At which point I nearly hung up on him and very pointedly said, "Yes, Andre will do." (The conversation went thereafter on a painful course because he couldn't remember why the fish he called me, and kept insisting there wasn't anything he particularly wanted to clarify. AND THEN he called me again the next day during rounds AGAIN. Idiot.

Okay la, that wasn't really a very good example of an occupational hazard. I pick up phone calls from friends and subconsciously say "Hi, Andre here" as if I were getting a call from some nursing counter. And I often have to stop myself from pressing 9 first when using my handphone to call hospital numbers.

And, I absolutely loathe it when my phone starts ringing in the toilet especially if I'm not the only person in it. Like, I can't pick up my phone because I'm like, doing my business, and yet it's horrendously annoying to let my phone go on ringing. And because I'm the only person with my ringtone, it's like blatantly obvious who I am. I have to let it ring until I am done and have washed my hands (because I'm kind of OCD, well not just kind of) and the phone always rings until the moment I pick it up, then the person decides to hang up. Ok, great. And never bother calling back because the person who called you won't be there 10 seconds later. Or the phone is engaged.

Life's getting to be a bit more of a bitch. Rounding tomorrow, then changing over on Monday to 46B2, land of transit ward madness, on a post-DIM take day (the context is totally unintelligible unless you're from SGH Med, I apologise), with a C who does epic rounds longer than Frodo's journey to Mordor, and with a list that's a bit of a magnum opus to begin with. Oh, the joy. And MRCP Pt 1 coming up next month, with my studying in glorious shambles. So, despite the 6 days of leave I'm taking, still, a tiring month lies ahead. Blah.

Avaris / 8/29/2009 10:39:00 PM

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