Sorry all lol. I truly am bored. Need to work on the old SITH sling but that requires motivation. Hence another thread. ;D

Name something that happened at work you will never forget. It can be job related or just any experience that happened at work.

For me I can name a couple but won't go into a lot of detail on them. The first few times a patient I was close to died was a little hard to get used to.

My first murder scene left me feeling sick and the YouTube video the a$$hole posted to the woman's daughter to justify his actions made me legitimately ill. Suffice to say true evil up close leaves one feeling queasy. Or at least it does for me.

What about you?

Removing a tree that had just been hit by a car with the deceased still inside making the scene safe for the police and emergency workers, definitely aerie.

Oh good you started this off dark. I was worried I was going to be the one to get... sad. I work with old, ill people. The people that come to us are only leaving one way and it ain't by jetpack. People don't get better with us. My job is to watch people deteriorate.

So! I have two experiences of hundreds.

First. We had a man who had very bad dementia caused by years of alcohol abuse. He had pickled his brain essentially. I think this guy would have been awful to be around for most of his life. When I was first on the ward I was being told about this table which had all the current residents' information: diagnoses, can they eat by themselves, do they use a wheelchair etc. etc. and then my supervisor said "This is where any information about family goes" and pointed at the box for this guy I was talking about "You can see here that unfortunately he doesn't have any family... well, he doesn't have any family he's in contact with". Yeah... Is that the thing I won't forget? Well it's part of it. I got to know this guy over the time I was there. He might have been a monster when he was at home and younger, he might have been a lazy drunkard, he might have been the life and soul of the party and the party moved on without him, I don't know for sure, but whoever he was before, he was now a friendly, slightly confused, slightly frightened old man. Whenever he saw me after I had been away for a while, he stretched out his hand for me to shake. One day, he was upset. I asked him what was wrong. He said that his parents were dead. This isn't unusual with older people with memory problems, they can suddenly remember they're parents are dead or work out how old they are and realise they must be dead. It's sad but hey, old people die, I should know. But he didn't stop there. He said the reason he was upset that his parents were dead was because he was now too old and ill to travel and place flowers on their graves.
That got me. I had to take a second to myself after that. There was nothing I could do or say to help him feel better. Nothing.

Number 2. We had another old guy who had "schizophrenia". Why the quotation marks? Well, he had been diagnosed a LONG time ago back in the days were multiple different mental illnesses and behaviour disorders were labelled "schizophrenia" because psychiatry was a crude instrument back then. It was unclear exactly what was going on with him as there was likely a form of dementia in play at the same time. In any case, much of his time was spent staring into space. He couldn't do anything for himself. One day, I was feeding him lunch. I was spooning the food to him, when he suddenly seemed to focus on something floating in the middle of the room. I couldn't see anything. His eyes were transfixed. His entire face changed to a look I can only describe as sheer bliss, wonder and infatuation. Slowly, incredibly slowly, he lifted his arm and reached out a hand to whatever it was. He stretched his fingers as far as he could, he started leaning forward, he started to lift himself from the bed...

And then stopped. He physically couldn't move any further. He was unable to pull himself up and reach... whatever it was. His face changed as soon as he realised he could get no closer. It went from this look of pure bliss to a look of sadness I can only describe as crushing. He had seen something so incredible, something so awe inspiring that he had looked on the brink of tears and now he knew he would never reach whatever it was. He slowly sank back into the bed. I went back to feeding him soup and then tried not to break down later on my own. I can never fully describe what it was like to see this person see the font of all happiness and joy JUST out of reach. It was honestly one of the most emotional scenes I've seen played out in front of me.

Both of these stories have a commonality. An old man, trapped in his bed.

Damn... that was beautifully said. My Mom has been a hospice nurse for over 3 decades. She has many stories like that. Some maybe most wouldn't believe.

My sister is the D.O.N of a nursing home in Dallas. There's a lot of really bad nurses in homes but the good ones are just about the best people you will ever meet. Because that's a job that requires endless amounts of patience and compassion to do right. As well as standing up for patients against lazy co-workers. First responders often get too much credit for what we do here in America. If you're a good nurse in a nursing home your job is every bit as difficult as a First Responders. It's very emotionally taxing.

Funny you should say that... I will be calling my boss in the morning to say that I am near to burning out. There's been a lot of things this year (corona is actually low on the list for me) and one of those things has been how many people have died on our ward so far this year. Weirdly none to corona but it's still been very high. I actually lost count until I checked a few days ago. We've lost 8 people. I expect it to hit 10 before the year is out. It almost certainly will hit 9 before the end of next week. I haven't had more than three days off in a row since spring. I had an incredibly difficult, long, stressful and tiring evening shift... well yesterday now (I should and will be going to sleep after I send this) and I now only have one day off and I'm back for a morning on Saturday followed by another 4 days of work until I get two days off. I can't keep it up. Thank you for the appreciation Morphy. I've only recently realised how tough this job can be on a person.

It’s tough to follow those stories, so I’ll go in a completely different direction. Many years ago when I was only 4 months on the job, I had to go out to the desert in Nevada to test an experimental robot.  I was only asked to go after about 4 other engineers said “no”, and I had no idea what I was doing because I was the new guy.

Well the next thing I know, I’m sitting in the back of a rental SUV holding a controller and trying to drive this robot down a dark “road” at night while staring at a tiny little video display on a laptop. This was over 15 years ago, and the fancy thermal camera on the robot had a resolution of 160x120. I couldn’t really make heads or tails of what I was looking at, but I was supposed to be driving down the road, so I tried my best. I could barely keep the robot on the path. It was pitch black, and everything in the desert looked the same from the view of the camera.   
The people I was working with started to get bored because there was nothing to see while I was driving in the dark.  I was trying really hard to concentrate, but everyone else was standing around just looking up at the stars and chatting loudly about whatever came to mind. It was pretty annoying.

The conversation soon turned to a particularly bright light on the horizon.  They were pretty sure it was a planet, but nobody knew whether it was Mars or Venus.  They started to argue back and forth about it, getting louder and louder as they tried to use logic to figure out the answer without actually having enough information. There was no internet connection out there. This was before iPhones existed, and I don’t even think our phones worked out there at all, so nobody really had enough information to come up with an answer... but that didn’t stop them from arguing about it. Finally, I just yelled out, “It’s Venus!”
Now, I was crammed into the back seat of a car with a computer in my lap. I couldn’t see the sky, and I had no idea what the bright light was, but I said it with so much confidence that they all believed me and it ended the conversation! Somebody muttered “oh, ok” and they all finally shut up. That was the most glorious few seconds of silence I have ever experienced ;D
Unfortunately I couldn’t hold it in for long. I burst out laughing and confessed.

Ya well I've had my ass grabbed on multiple occasions. Look you brought out the big guns NOOC. You had to know this was coming.

Not just by patients. Nurses too. And one wasn't even trying to play it off like a joke or an accident. This was a power move, intimidation at its best. I gave her a side hug and said hi and she without speaking a word slid her hand down my back and gave it a big old squeeze. Never broke eye contact. Now granted this at least made more sense back then since I was actually in pretty good shape at the time. But still. #HeToo

Another lady gave me 5 dollars after. She said it was to buy lunch but we both understood what was going on. I considered offering the other cheek to make it an even $10 but seeing as her blind husband was sitting not 10 feet away from me chatting it up I didn't think that would be appropriate.

No I am not making any of this up.  :-[

a

Ok, one more...
About a year after the Nevada trip, my boss and I went out to the desert in California to scout out a new test location. It was supposed to be a quick trip. We just needed to hike around and look for some specific terrain features, then get some GPS waypoints so we could find them again when we brought the robot with us in a few weeks. We had a rental 4wd SUV, and we met up with some local marines who knew the area. The marines had borrowed a hybrid electric SUV from a 1-star general (this is important).

After hiking around at one site, my boss, who was a salty old Vietnam veteran, decided we should all hop in the hybrid and ride together to another place we wanted to look at. We went several miles before the car completely died. It was late afternoon, and we were not prepared to spend the night out there. 

So there we were, in the middle of the Mojave Desert with the general’s personal vehicle broken down dozens of miles from anything resembling civilization. It was getting dark... and cold. My boss decides that we should split up (Isn’t this how most horror movies start?).  He was going to walk to our rental SUV with the client who was paying for the trip. One of the local marines was going to stay with the general’s vehicle and try to get it running again. I was supposed to go the complete opposite direction with the other local marine, and we were supposed to try to make it down to the highway where we might have a better chance of getting a cell signal.  That’s right... we didn’t just split up, we split 3 ways, and left one guy alone in a broken-down vehicle! 
But it gets better: I had a camelbak backpack with plenty of water, but my boss, the experienced marine veteran, had left his water in the other vehicle... so he took mine and sent me hiking into the desert... the opposite direction from where all our supplies were! 
I didn’t have water, but I wasn’t completely unprepared. Because it was getting dark, I left a trail of chemical lights along the path so we could see how to get back to the broken-down vehicle again in the dark.  (A wrong turn could drive you right off a cliff or into a ditch). My boss hiked to the rental car, came down the highway, and picked us up. Miraculously, the escape plan was working. We just needed to get the one marine who was now taking a nap in the general’s car after failing to diagnose the problem with the vehicle.
We all hopped into the rental SUV and followed my trail of glowing lights to rescue the last guy.  By this time, the sun had set and it was pitch black. With five people in the vehicle, we started back towards the highway.  The “highway” was still in the middle of nowhere, mind you. A car might not drive past for hours, but it was less remote than being on the side of a mountain several miles into the wilderness. 
We were a few hundred yards from the highway (and hopes of a hot meal) when we suddenly heard a loud “BANG” underneath the vehicle. We were backtracking the same dirt road we had just driven, but with the extra weight of one more marine, the undercarriage was just low enough to slam into the top of a rock.  The driver had sped up because the path looked clear, and we were all anxious to get back to town, since we were not planning to be out after dark. 

That night, I  learned that the lowest point on a 2006 Dodge Durango just happens to be the radiator... a radiator that was now spewing coolant all over the desert floor.
The rest of the story is pretty uneventful. We eventually got a cellphone to work and called for help. I actually got to see the stars this time, and we made it back to the hotel around 2AM.
The general’s 4wd hybrid SUV was fine. It was never designed for off-roading. It had run out of gas and the batteries died because we were driving up and down steep hills in rugged terrain. The small engine couldn’t keep the batteries charged under sustained rugged driving conditions, but when we topped off the tank the next day, we drove it right out of there.

I did learn quite a bit about desert survival though. If you’re not prepared, it’s usually not one thing that causes trouble. It’s a whole bunch of little things adding up that’ll get you to start making stupid mistakes... like listening to your boss and letting him walk in the opposite direction with YOUR water!  Good times :)

I like to make fun of him for stealing my water, but my boss actually did a pretty good job getting us out of there overall. He loved his checklists, and even though it was supposed to just be a day hike, we were actually pretty well prepared for contingencies.  For example, I never would have thought to put chem lights in my pack if he hadn’t put it on my checklist. We had plenty of food and water and layered clothing. We would have been ok even if we had spent the night out there. 

a

Back in 2005,  i was in the military.  I had finished bootcamp,  went to my secondary school, out in San Antonio Tx. Waiting for my next deployment papers to submarine school up in Groton CT. Now instead of giving 48 to72 hours to pack up, and be ready. They gave me about18 hours. Then halfway through me getting ready. I get pulled away, and told to report to my superiors. They informed me, i wasnt going alone and to inform the other guy. He ended up only having about 10 hours to get ready. So we are both rushing around getting ready on base.  This means packing up, getting medical records collected, closing down PO boxes. Etc,etc. Now cell phones were still in infancy. Mine was horrible,  but we still had pay phones.  Now we were supposed to dress in civilian clothes, as not to stand out in our military uniforms, due to safety and in case of terrorist attacks.  Because they rank killing military higher then civilians. So we both jump on a plane, we land in Providence RI. There was supposed to be a bus or van waiting for us. Unfortunately it wasn't.  We called the base, couldn't get through to anyone.  We are sitting on our duffel bags,  as we are talking, a Lieutenant an O3, and a Master Chief E9, walk by in full uniform. We actually said hello to them, they acknowledged us, kept walking. We decided to go talk to them since we were all Navy. We explain the situation,  (no van) they say follow us. They popped the trunk of a really, really, really nice Lincoln car.  They tell us to get in, we were an hour and a half from base. They said they were going that way and would drop us off. We all chatted the whole time, the reason they were at the airport,  they had just dropped off an Admiral an O10, and escorted him to the gate and his flight. The vehicle was the Admiral's personal vehicle. :o. Lol. ( side note ) In the Navy, we had to salute certain vehicles of the highest ranking officers.  They usually had some sort of tag to tell you, but we only had to salute while on base, and in uniform.  (Back to the story) while in the car, they drove us onto base, right up to the front door of where we had to report. Around that time, there werre a bunch of classes marching around, they had to all stop and salute this car. We thought it was funny and amazing. Then we get to the parking lot to drop us off, 3 different classes were in tanks in the parking lot.  They started saluting,  and staring due to the windows being tinted super dark. The faces we saw when these 2 young 18yo kids jumped out the rear doors of an Admiral's car, and still dressed in normal civilian clothing was priceless  ;D. Ended up meeting a couple guys from that class, they recognized, and remembered us after about a month being there. Thier reactions from what they told us, was hilarious.

Had a patient last night so high on meth he was in danger of invading US airspace.

He was very large, very hairy, extremely gay and shockingly high. My partner who is a  lesbian found it especially hilarious as I suppose many would.

He had two choices, go to the hospital, get checked out and go home. Or go to jail. Guess which one he chose? When you are so high you think jail sounds like a super awesome fun time you’ve crossed a line.

Who goes into a gas station bathroom for 3 hours to do meth? Apparently this guy. Good times. Still like him more than being woken up at 3 am for a nose bleed. You do you Breaking Bad...you do you.

a

a wrote on Nov 21^st, 2020 at 10:23am:

You have a lot of empathy for people, good to see in someone in your line of work.

Thank you. I guess this is technically a work moment, but I was talking to a careers advisor in college because I was still unsure what I wanted to do. I was explaining how I wanted to do something useful, something that would help people and was worthwhile. She said "You come across as a very empathetic young man". One of the nicest compliments I have ever received and I still remember it today. I'm glad that I can project that aspect of myself across the internet in text form. My dad has a sense of humour drier and darker than a desert night so asked if I had misheard and she actually said "You come across as a very pathetic young man" ;D It sounds super harsh if you don't know my dad. He knows me and knew I would take it as a joke. I thought it was hilarious :D


a wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2020 at 3:25am:

You guys have had eventful working lives. All my most memorable moments looking back have just been sights that struck a chord somewhere. A cave pool glistening like silver when the moon was low. A grotto out of a fairy tale story in the middle of nowhere. A tiny stream in the middle of the bush which had 20 metre vertical banks it had cut over hundreds of years. A couple of other planters who'd just climbed a ridge and stripped to the waist, shiny with sweat and with steam rising so thick off them that you knew how hard they'd been working and anticipating how blissful the freezing air will feel once I make it to the ridgetop.

Those are good moments to remember. It's sometimes the simplest, seemingly everyday things that can have the most meaning.

@Morphy.
      That actually reminds me of a incident i had while working at a convenience store ( named Wawa) back in Nj after i got out of the military. I worked the overnight register, this big, biker, dude. 350lbs, Tattooed,  had swastikas and everything. Very scary looking dude. He was high on Meth as well. He came in that night, picked up a milkshake. (They have self serve) called ( freal brand). Well he walks around with it, goes outside without paying for it. Stops bends down like he is gonna get sick, comes back in. Does that about 3 times. He set the milkshake down behind some groceries on a shelf. The store has a deli counter, with a chip shelf in front. He bends down, starts organizing the chips, gets up walks to the register,  climbed up, and tried to take a nap. My manager wanted me to confront him, but i told him i wasnt the manager. Lol. At the time they had company policy to let people do whatever they want. For safety. So he took a 1 minute nap, gets up and goes back to organizing the chips, for 20 minutes. Mutiple customers had called police. They show up,(we gave all cops and first responders free coffee)  6 cops come in, and stand by the register watching him for 10 minutes, laughing. One of the cop radios went off, and the guy heard it, stood up, and started walking away. Thats when they jumped on him, and pinned him up against the register.  A few hours later a cop came in looking foor the surveillance Video of the whole incident.  He never did pay for his milkshake,  which i found 2 hours later while cleaning. He had told his Mom, he was going out for a milkshake,  and borrowed her car.  ;D.

@Kilisi, i used to live in an extremely overpopulated area, plus being in the military. (As well as homeless, in a ghetto) I have seen some poopy :-X

vetryan15 wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2020 at 3:44am:

He had told his Mom, he was going out for a milkshake,  and borrowed her car.

Well at lest he's not a liar  ;D

a

a wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2020 at 4:08am:

vetryan15 wrote on Nov 23rd, 2020 at 3:46am: @Kilisi, i used to live in an extremely overpopulated area, plus being in the military. (As well as homeless, in a ghetto) I have seen some poopy I've seen some shocking things, but they're not things that stick with me and pop up randomly while I'm just relaxing and enjoying life.

Unfortunately i have PTSD,  not from the military.  But from a few life experiences.  Its a daily battle. Unfortunately i have that problem.

a

a wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2020 at 4:55am:

vetryan15 wrote on Nov 23rd, 2020 at 4:22am: Unfortunately i have PTSD,  not from the military.  But from a few life experiences.  Its a daily battle. Unfortunately i have that problem. I have 5 kids, it's a daily battle as well :-) Bashing things with sling stones is good medicine for all ailments ;)

Totally agred.

vetryan15 wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2020 at 3:44am:

@Morphy.       That actually reminds me of a incident i had while working at a convenience store ( named Wawa) back in Nj after i got out of the military. I worked the overnight register, this big, biker, dude. 350lbs, Tattooed,  had swastikas and everything. Very scary looking dude. He was high on Meth as well. He came in that night, picked up a milkshake. (They have self serve) called ( freal brand). Well he walks around with it, goes outside without paying for it. Stops bends down like he is gonna get sick, comes back in. Does that about 3 times. He set the milkshake down behind some groceries on a shelf. The store has a deli counter, with a chip shelf in front. He bends down, starts organizing the chips, gets up walks to the register,  climbed up, and tried to take a nap. My manager wanted me to confront him, but i told him i wasnt the manager. Lol. At the time they had company policy to let people do whatever they want. For safety. So he took a 1 minute nap, gets up and goes back to organizing the chips, for 20 minutes. Mutiple customers had called police. They show up,(we gave all cops and first responders free coffee)  6 cops come in, and stand by the register watching him for 10 minutes, laughing. One of the cop radios went off, and the guy heard it, stood up, and started walking away. Thats when they jumped on him, and pinned him up against the register.  A few hours later a cop came in looking foor the surveillance Video of the whole incident.  He never did pay for his milkshake,  which i found 2 hours later while cleaning. He had told his Mom, he was going out for a milkshake,  and borrowed her car.  ;D.

Lol the manager wanted you to take care of the 350 pound meth biker. And they say chilvary is dead. Lawl. I would have given the guy a cross between the stink eye and the "are you sh1tting me?" eye and laughed.

a

I did laugh, and told him i would quit right there. The dude was pretty scary. Lol.

@Kilisi. Thats crazy. Usually it takes just enough of respect, and you are good in those types of groups. I use to party with hardcore bikers, i never rode. But my best friend did, we were like brothers. I would tag along. They found out my career at the time  was a veterinarian technician.  They all respected me, and absolutely loved me. So i was good

a

a wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2020 at 8:06am:

I was a bouncer in a skinhead bar in New Zealand. I have no idea what the guys were on but I was called to the door and there were 4 guys fronting the two doormen. So three of us and 4 of them. The leader pulled out a meat cleaver and the other two bouncers turned and ran inside and locked the door, so I was facing these four nuts. I looked back at the door and started laughing, said to the nuts, "can you believe these c@nts?" walked up to the first guy and took the meat cleaver out of his hand put it back in his jacket pocket and told them to go away before my colleagues wet their panties and called the cops then it won't end well for anyone. I bounced there for about 6 months, it took them a while but once the skinheads got over my skin colour and found out that I'd stand between them and harms way without hesitation I was well respected. I'll never forget that moment I got locked out

Nothing memorable??? I think that qualifies my good man. Lol

a

Some years ago I worked in an amusement park over the summer which was probably the best time of my life or so. My position was as a ride operator which basically meant that I received payment from customers, helped them into the carts, gave them safety instructions and helped them out of the cart again when they came back. You get a completely different view of amusement parks when you get to work in one.


I was at work one day. Got early off while the afternoon was still going and I visited a party of my friend's who had just graduated. The next day I woke up and took the train to the inner city to deliver my bike to a shop to get it fixed (the metal frame of the wheel had exploded) and then took the same train back out of the inner city to go to work. That day I, alone, operated a ride that was pretty "kids friendly" so there was no way for people to get hurt while riding it (it was basically a bike on rails). Lets call it "The Crocodile". As an operator you had to, single-handedly, receive payment from customers, put them into the carts, give them safety instructions, and pull them back out again when they came back. This may not seem like much but I'm telling you it was stressful and difficult to coordinate. I had just opened The Crocodile half an hour earlier and everything was doing fine until I all of a sudden felt sick to the bones. I was dizzy, the world seemed to spin, it was like having fever x10. I thought there was some material used in building The Crocodile, like asbestos or something, that made me sick. While fumbling around I never let my duty down though because it was VERY difficult to get replacements during a shift and I continued to receive payment from customers, give them instructions and letting them out of The Crocodile again. Meanwhile I was all the time contemplating how I was going to visit a doctor or physician who was going to give me a medical leave and that I was never going to operate The Crocodile again, the thought of which was probably the only pleasant thing I felt in those hours my condition lasted (operating The Crocodile was absolutely the worst possible duty you could have in that amusement park and I would be happy to be free from it).

Then after 3-4 hours a second operator came to The Crocodile (on some, VERY, lucky days two operators stood at The Crocodile some of the shift). I told her about my condition and whether she could take the rest of the shift alone (she probably wanted that as little as I did) because some of the construction material used on The Crocodile made me ill.

She told me I was probably hungover.

And then all of it made sense. Last night at my friends party I had drunk an entire boxful of cheap rose wine so it made sense that I was currently hung out of my mind.
I didn't think that a hangover could have a delay as I had experienced (about 2-3 hours after waking) but that was probably it because I (unfortunately) never felt sick while operating The Crocodile again. 


It was a very exciting job. I have countless more stories.
Working in an amusement park made me realize just how many ambulances pull up to such things. I think there was an ambulance at the park at least once a day. There was also a local medical unit with their own building. Mind you, it was a medium sized if not small park. Sometimes there was police too.

Another story from The Crocodile would be when an elderly lady got hurt in her heart from treading the pedals. My college (it was a two person shift) closed the ride while I ran down to the local doctors. She ended up fine.
Another time, I have been told, it wasn't my shift, some grandpa was treading the pedals with his grandson but end up dying from a heart attack in the middle of the ride so the carts behind them had to push them through the rest of the ride.  :(

a

a wrote on Nov 25^th, 2020 at 6:52am:

Slyngorm wrote on Nov 23rd, 2020 at 1:04pm: some grandpa was treading the pedals with his grandson but end up dying from a heart attack in the middle of the ride so the carts behind them had to push them through the rest of the ride. Hell of a traumatic experience for the poor grandson

I can only agree.

I think our boss made some sort of deal with poor guy's family because we never ever heard any more about it afterwards.

Most of you know I build, fix and install computers for a living (we'll call it a 'living', despite my bank accounts opinion to the contrary).

So over the last 30 years I've worked in thousands of people's homes and seen a lot of stuff I wish I could forget.

Now one of the things I feel it's my responsibility to do is to check any computer I work on for the signs of paedophilia. If I don't - who can ?

Fortunately I have only ever found one and that actually had nothing to do with the owner. A virus was using a hidden area of the harddrive for storing web accessible files.
That was an interesting conversation. But not the subject of this tale :-)

So it is my habit to look through any files or folders on a machine, particularly those that appear to have been 'hidden'.
You can't hide them from me :-)

And over the years one of the things I have learnt is that I live in an area where there are a lot of 'swingers'.

Now lets be clear on this - 'swingers' are NEVER young or particularly attractive specimens of humanity.
NEVER.

One particularly memorable virus clean involved my looking at pictures of a middle aged couple engaged in vigorous sexual activities with a variety of different people, while simultaneously holding a conversation with the same couple who were sat on their sofa with a tv soap playing on the telly in the background.

It's also a job that tests your professional integrity.

A mate of mine has a sister.
I happen to know that she likes to engage in activities with one or more males while her husband takes photos of such activities. And yes Fire fighters really DO feature quite highly in this type of thing.

In that case I had to point out to the husband that his kids were getting to the age where they would be poking around on the computer and he really ought to offload his 'personal' pictures to a memory stick so the kids didn't find them.

They weren't really hidden.

Porn features a lot in my work.
There's the case where a couple had a computer absolutely riddled with viruses they'd picked up from porn sites.
And despite my beign able to pin down the exact date and time the sites had been visisted - both of them swore blind neither of them had done it.
In those situations you are left with having to say: 'well, whatever you did not do - don't do it again.'

Now I'm a mature adult and I really do not care what two - or more - consenting adults do together.
But you'd be surprised how many insist on lying to me - despite the fact that I can pinpoint exactly when they looked and at what they were looking.

On another occasion A friend of mine believed his son had been using the computer to look at porn.
By process of elimination and timing we actualy concluded that it had been his daughter NOT his son :-)

Often it falls to me to point out the safest sites to look at pron to avoid picking up viruses.
I'm straight - but I've advised more than one person of the safest places to find gay porn.

And sometimes nobody uses the computer for looking at porn - but you don't remember those jobs so much. :-)

I imagine talking to a nice sweet mature couple after you've seen them do the most hardcore sex acts imaginable is quite an interesting experience.

Speaking of weird sex acts I once had a patient that was having special fun time with his significant other and ended up with a plastic fishing worm in his bladder. I'll just let you all fill in the dots on that one. No need to thank me. You are all most welcome.

^^ ;D ;D ;D ;D :o :o  :-? ::) ewww

Remind me to never start a highly lucrative and personally rewarding computer repair business. On the plus side, I’d imagine your sanitary protocols didn’t need to change much after COVID, because you already had to assume all sorts of stuff had been in contact with those computers. I’ll second vet... eeeeeeewwwwwwww!

a

Once back when I was working non-emergency transfer shifts my partner and I were just getting on at the beginning of our 48 shift and we had a patient with a reasonably long transport ahead. The patient was pleasant and courteous and for an older gentleman quite sharp. Or so I thought.

The patient asked if we had a long transport ahead. I said, yes a fairly good one. He asked if he could use the restroom before leaving. I said sure as usually this is the type of thing I would suggest anyways. The rear doors were still open to the outside and I went around to help him down since he was near them anyways.

He promptly stood up, unzipped his pants and urinated all over the ambulance. Putting aside the “When you got to go you got to go” jokes, this was a newly cleaned ambulance ready for a long shift. Piss...just piss as far as the eye can see.

I was driving and my partner was the attending medic. (Woo hoo) So...needless to say he was not thrilled about that.

Just to be clear this is the most desirable of the bodily fluids one might have spread all over your ambulance. You probably thought this was a glass half empty kind of story. No, I can assure you, for me this was a win.

Is amazing sometimes how long you can be talking to someone before realising they have super bad dementia. It's easier for me to notice because I'm in a closed ward so when someone comes up and asks if I can phone their daughter to come and pick them up because they need to go into the centre and catch a train to visit their mother, I already know there's something not quite right before they mention their long dead mother.

I once had one woman, who was also blind, get very angry at me because I wouldn't tell her where her purse was.  She needed it because she was going to the bank to get a loan to buy a summer cottage. The human mind is an amazing thing even when it goes wrong.

Kick wrote on Dec 10^th, 2020 at 2:57am:

Is amazing sometimes how long you can be talking to someone before realising they have super bad dementia. It's easier for me to notice because I'm in a closed ward so when someone comes up and asks if I can phone their daughter to come and pick them up because they need to go into the centre and catch a train to visit their mother, I already know there's something not quite right before they mention their long dead mother. I once had one woman, who was also blind, get very angry at me because I wouldn't tell her where her purse was.  She needed it because she was going to the bank to get a loan to buy a summer cottage. The human mind is an amazing thing even when it goes wrong.

It's funny you ended it that way because that was my exact thought. The mind is so odd. I was wondering if it's pleasant being stuck in a good past memory for the rest of your life. Seems almost ideal if you have to have dementia.

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a wrote on Dec 13^th, 2020 at 7:06am:

Morphy wrote on Dec 12th, 2020 at 9:03am: What a weird time to be alive. Yeah, glad we have no gun problems here. Plenty of senseless killings with machetes and stones but at least you have a chance against those.

Very true. I'm not thrilled getting shot at. Machetes are no joke though.

Hey I can add to the work moments I won't forget and add to this conversation! I was on placement during my studies on a surgical ward and we had a patient that had been attacked by 3 or 4 people. He had been stabbed numerous times and (I still can't believe this happened to this poor guy) he got hit in the knee with an axe. An axe! In Helsinki! Right in the centre! Why was anyone carrying an axe around? Was this a planned attack? An attempted hit? Well...

The patient was walking through a park right in the centre of Helsinki and a guy asked him for a cigarette. He didn't have any so kept walking. The guy that asked came back with some friends... and an axe. Messed up. Seriously messed up. Apparently there was also a racial aspect to the attack just to really endear you that bit more to the attackers...

Ya just the thought of an axe to the knee cap makes me cringe. Racism is silly. I can't imagine going through life like that. I have very, very rarely hated people. Maybe twice in my life. Neither was non-white but my point is it's exhausting. Screw that. I couldn't live like that. Except for you Matt. I still want to drop a gator in your cubicle because f$&@ that guy.

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a wrote on Dec 14^th, 2020 at 12:20am:

Morphy wrote on Dec 13th, 2020 at 3:03pm: Neither was non-white but my point is it's exhausting. It's not worth the effort in my opinion. Hate leads to frustration which in turn leads to all sorts of nastiness none of which is beneficial to your journey through life. Having said that, I pay all my debts good or bad with interest eventually. Time and distance may separate a man from his good deeds or misdeeds, but they weren't forgotten and will be repaid when circumstances permit.

I agree. Hate is a non-starter. It serves no one and nothing. Also a horrible way to live.