I work in a pharmacy that ships out two deliveries (to nursing homes) per day. We call these the first run and the second run. While the first run is being packed up, a couple of people stay in the main pharmacy to answer the phones. Today, it’s [Coworker] and me.

Me: “Pharmacy, how can I help you?”

Caller: “I’m so happy I got you! Thank you so much for being the one who answered! My name is [Caller], and it’s been such a long day. I have no patience for [Coworker]. I love her, but she just talks so slowly and it takes too long. Anyway, I’m glad I got you!”

I’m not sure how to respond because I don’t feel the need to share [Coworker]’s reasons for working at the speed she does, but I’m not going to bad mouth her, either. I wait patiently for the caller to finish saying how the whole conversation takes longer when she gets [Coworker], oblivious to the irony.

Eventually, she gets to the point.

Caller: “So, my name is [Caller] and I’m a nurse at [Facility]. One of my patients has an inhaler that’s not working, and we need it stat.”

I take the patient’s information and check when we sent the inhaler.

Me: “Well, I’m not sure why the inhaler isn’t working, but the patient has refills and is due for a refill anyway. I can put that through for tonight.”

Caller: “I’m going to need it for the first run.”

At this point, it’s 5:30. The cutoff for the first run is 4:00. Anything we get afterward is for the second run. However, it’s a rescue inhaler and we’re not super slammed, so I tell her I can try to push it through for her.

Caller: “So, that will be on the first run?”

Me: “I will try to get it on the first run, but it might end up on the second run.”

Caller: “Wait, so can we get it on the first run?”

Me: “I’ll do my best.”

Caller: “Thank you so much, and what was your name?”

While I was born and raised in the United States, and my accent is very American, my name is not English. It tends to throw people off.

Me: “[My Name].”

Caller: “I’m sorry, what was that?”

Me: “It’s [My Name].”

The pharmacist has been following my side of the conversation, and at this point, she speaks up. The caller can’t hear her.

Pharmacist: “Just hang up so we can take care of it already!”

Caller: “Could you spell that for me?”

Me: “Sure.”

I spell my name out, the caller hangs up, and I run the refill. 

Pharmacist: *Shaking her head* “Bless you, [My Name]. All I can say is bless you.”

Now I’m left with one question. If [Caller] was so happy that I answered the phone, who did she think I was if she didn’t remember my name?

I’m a printer and copier tech, currently taking care of a couple of large hospitals. I go to a surgery department to fix a printer that the user describes as “printing colors weird and now jammed”.

I arrive, power it off, and unplug it. I fix a pretty standard problem that causes jamming — the paper backstop was out of place — and power it back up. Now, to the issue of the colors.

Once it’s powered up, the print jobs that were held up by the jam start churning out. I pick them up and start to study them for color issues. These are pictures that have printed, but I can’t figure out what they are pictures of, so I don’t know what the colors are SUPPOSED to look like.

Me: *To a nurse* “What is this?”

Nurse: “Aww, sugar, that’s a butthole.”

My brain is instantly horrified, and I don’t want to look again.

Me: “Oh, God. Okay, well, does it look okay to you?”

Nurse: “Naw, sweetie. That’s why he’s here.”

What.

WHAT.

Me: “I MEANT THE COLORS!” *Pauses* “Never mind. I’m going to print the fruit.”

I sometimes try to help nurses at my hospital with their computer troubles. I had a nurse come to me extremely upset and unwilling to even let me try to fix her “problem” because I “probably wouldn’t get it anyway.” Her problem was, in her own words:

Nurse: “I have a tendency when stressed out to rest my thumb on the spacebar and not notice.”

This caused obvious problems for her as she needed to type patient status updates, emails, etc. and they all had huge blank spaces in them where she’d just inserted twenty seconds of spacebar presses.

This, to her, was the computer’s fault because:

Nurse: “It should be advanced enough to know that I don’t want all of those spaces in there. Who would want those?”

Twenty minutes later, I finally convinced her that there was no way for the computer to know if she really wants all of the spaces or not because it relied on the user to enter spaces if they wanted spaces and not enter spaces if they didn’t want spaces.

She still thinks it’s the computer’s fault and is now resolved to “work around the computer’s problem, even if it causes delays for her.”

How brave.

As one of the youngest people in our hospital, I am tasked with a considerable amount of IT on all of our administration appliances. I spend a lot of time showing doctors how to use photocopiers!

As we’re a hospital, we’re twenty-four-seven, and I get left a lot of notes about things “not working” when in reality, they haven’t turned said machine on. To alleviate this, I have instructions aimed low — like for a child — around machines we have the most trouble with, including what supplies to use, where to find them, and which buttons to push.

We have a nurse who has been here for over twenty years. While she’s delightful to work with, she is completely absent-minded. We have one laminator for the whole hospital, and it was donated. I come into work one morning to find a note on my desk from this nurse.

Nurse: “Laminator is broken. Please fix ASAP!”

To my absolute horror, the nurse had either disregarded the instructions about the laminator or just made them up! Instead of using the plastic glue sleeves provided (with instructions) she’d found the nearest plastic thing and shoved it in. This turned out to be the plastic covers used for binding reports. The nurse had grabbed two, sandwiched what she needed inside, and put them through the laminator. Of course, this didn’t work and jammed the whole machine, as it got hotter and hotter and accordioned inside the machine.

When she realised that her document hadn’t come out the other side, she found a cleaner to help her. The best idea between the two of them was to do the exact same thing again until the cleaner realised the burning smell wasn’t normal.

It took me six hours to clean out the melted plastic blockage, using as many medical implements I could find, and she complained to my boss later that day that I didn’t have her documents ready for her!

CONTENT WARNING: This story contains content of a medical nature. It is not intended as medical advice.

I was out drinking with friends. Inside got a bit overwhelming, so I went outside for a bit, and there were some drunk ladies dancing in the street.

A younger woman exited the pub next door, but she tripped on the curb and banged her head against the road.

Two of the drunk ladies immediately sobered up and went over to her.

Drunk Lady #1: “We’re nurses.”

They started trying to check where the woman had hit her head. I used my phone as a torch so they could see better; I didn’t really know what else I could do.

The woman’s friends came over, and one of the drunk ladies explained.

Drunk Lady #2: “Head wounds can be really serious. Keep an eye on her for the next twenty-four hours, and make sure she stays awake for the next six.”

After the young woman and her friends went on their way, those drunk ladies were back to their drunken dancing. It was a little hard to believe they’d been so sensible just minutes beforehand.