Today was my first day at the new job. Actually, it was just the first day of orientation but nonetheless, I had to get up at the ass-crack of dawn and tried to make two cups of coffee enough to leave me functional.
When I got there, I miraculously found the nursing station and asked where the orientation would be held (exactly as I was instructed) and was directed into an empty room. After about ten minutes, I went back to the nursing station and politely asked again where I should be.
"You'll just have to sit and wait for them, someone will show up."
Ten minutes later, I was still sitting alone in the training room, staring out into the hall at the nurse's station when someone walked by and said, "Crizzle? You're in the wrong room!" She laughed and I apologized profusely while she led the way to the ACTUAL training room.
After that, I spent an hour in a room with someone who was supposed to be educating us on...something or other...and the two other orientees talking about how we were all opposed to ass-kissing, eating breakfast and drinking coffee. After that, we were led to another room where we were spoken to about the importance of risk management and subjected to a story that made us all cry. Then, just when I sufficiently wanted to slit my wrists, we got a smoke break. It was completely foreign to me that this new place actually had a smoking area rather than ostracizing the smokers and sending us to the outskirts of the city on our fifteen-minute breaks.
I met a lot of super friendly people who all welcomed me to the team and didn't seem to mind at all that I wasn't wearing pantyhose. (Thank you, Cheesus.)
After the break, we were herded back into the room for a lot of informative (read: boring as hell) videos on various topics ranging from "Life in a Nursing Home" to "The Effects of Alzheimers".
During the video about life in a nursing home, I lost my shit and started crying again (awesome!) but during the Alzheimers one, I actually laughed outloud.
Let me explain. I am not a huge asshole who thinks that Alzheimers is a funny disease. I was laughing at the similarities of the symptoms of the disease and that of a drunken stupor. For instance, one of the symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease is that the patient might say inappropriate things. In the disease, this is because of some sort of synapse something or other, but seriously, think about it. Just the other night, JM got super drunk and ran over the the hot bartender neighbor's house and put a "I think you're pretty" note in his mailbox. She didn't necessarily SAY anything inappropriate but not for lack of trying. I think that if he had been home and/or she could have formed a sentence at the time, she would have said something that could be considered inappropriate. Another symptom is "undressing in public places" (this is the one that made me laugh out loud). It immediately made me think of Rad Neighbor. I might have to warn him about early-onset because he clearly likes to undress in my living room. Still another symptom is repeating ones self. This is a Spliffany move. This reminds me of the day that she said, "You wanna listen to Southern Cross" 658 times in a row without any other words uttered.
While the similarities between Alzheimer's Disease and overt drunkenness are numerous, there are also many differences.
1. Overt drunkenness is really funny to watch whereas Alzheimer's really isn't that amusing.
2. Overt drunkenness is usually remedied by sleep whereas Alzheimer's doesn't go away overnight and is not helped by a greasy cheeseburger.
3. Overt drunkenness may cause you to lose your shoes but at least you will remember what shoes are.
No comments:
Post a Comment