Monday, October 31, 2005
One of the First
Last call of the day is a nursing home transfer. Guy has one leg and sores all over his body. He says he is a former EMT in the city – one of the first.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Power Outage
Several hours earlier a car wiped out a telephone pole, bisecting it, and blowing out the powerlines exploding transformers all the way down the street, leaving half the town without power.
It is still dark when we get called for a lift assist. An old man in a wheelchair meets us at the door with a powerful flashlight in his hand. "She's in here," he says, turning and wheeling into the living room as we follow. There in the dark with just the flashlight now shinning on her face, we see an elderly woman in a big lounge chair with her feet elevated. "I'm stuck," she says. She holds the motorized switch and show us nothing happens when she pushes it. "The electricity is out."
"She needs help getting out. I can't help her," the man in the wheelchair says.
"I have to go to the bathroom," the woman adds. "I can't wait any longer."
We lift her out, and get her standing up against her walker. "Excuse me," she says, making a slow but direct line for the bathroom.
You think about all the people stranded in elevators when the power goes out, but you never think about all the old people stuck with their feet up in their electric lounge chairs.
When she comes back from the bathroom, we help her get set in a smaller chair.
"My heroes," she says. "Thank you, gentlemen."
It is still dark when we get called for a lift assist. An old man in a wheelchair meets us at the door with a powerful flashlight in his hand. "She's in here," he says, turning and wheeling into the living room as we follow. There in the dark with just the flashlight now shinning on her face, we see an elderly woman in a big lounge chair with her feet elevated. "I'm stuck," she says. She holds the motorized switch and show us nothing happens when she pushes it. "The electricity is out."
"She needs help getting out. I can't help her," the man in the wheelchair says.
"I have to go to the bathroom," the woman adds. "I can't wait any longer."
We lift her out, and get her standing up against her walker. "Excuse me," she says, making a slow but direct line for the bathroom.
You think about all the people stranded in elevators when the power goes out, but you never think about all the old people stuck with their feet up in their electric lounge chairs.
When she comes back from the bathroom, we help her get set in a smaller chair.
"My heroes," she says. "Thank you, gentlemen."
Saturday, October 22, 2005
I'll Be at Your Side
What I like best about this job are the moments you observe between people, moments that show the bonds that life creates, that show the love in people's hearts, particuarly the love of a parent for a child.
***
We are sent for a two year old who has fallen through a glass table and is bleeding severely. We get there and the fire department has already wrapped it. They say it is a good sized gash. The boy is in his mother's arms and is wailing away. The bleeding appears to have stopped. We transport the mother, boy and his three year old brother. The mother is Indian. She holds the crying boy, and she says, "Numba two baby, you give me so much trouble, but don't worry, mother loves numba two baby, no matter what trouble you give me. " And she kisses him. I watch as she smiles, admiring her screaming child.
***
We are sent for a violent psych, who turns out to be a ten-year old boy who has taken a golf club to a stop sign, then chased several of his neighbors with the now broken shaft. When we arrive he is in the back of a police car. His mother stands by the open backseat door, talking to the police officer about how they can't get the boy's medications right, while looking with concern at her son. I introduce myself to her, then she in turn, introduces me to her son. The boy is crying, sniffling. I ask him how he's doing. "I'd rather not talk about it," he says. "He's had a hard day," his mother says. I can see the sadness and tiredness in her eyes, but there is no anger there, no hint of a breaking point.
***
We are sent for an overdose. It's not an overdose, but a mother who wants her son to get clean. He's been smoking angel dust and acting like a fool," she says. The man has a big smile as he watches his hands move slowly in front of his eyes. Stoned. As we lead him out of the house, his mother kisses him and said, "I love you, you stupid cabron, you come back here like this again, I'll kill you." She squeezes his hand as he goes by.
***
These moments all happened in the last week -- small moments -- that if you didn't look for them you might not see them at all.
***
When I get home one night this week I find in the mail a bootleg CD I bought at EBay of the Springsteen Hartford Concert. I set it on the CD player and listen to it as I lay in bed after I turn out the light. The sound quality is excellent. I am struck by the lyrics to "Jesus Was an Only Son."
Jesus was an only son
As he walked up Calvary Hill
His mother Mary walking beside him
In the path where his blood spilled
Jesus was an only son
In the hills of Nazareth
As he lay reading the Psalms of David
At his mother's feet
A mother prays, "Sleep tight, my child, sleep well
For I'll be at your side
That no shadow, no darkness, no tolling bell,
Shall pierce your dreams this night"
In the garden at Gethsemane
He prayed for the life he'd never live,
He beseeched his Heavenly Father to remove
The cup of death from his lips
Now there's a loss that can never be replaced,
A destination that can never be reached
A light you'll never find in another's face,
A sea whose distance cannot be breached
Well Jesus kissed his mother's hands
Whispered, "Mother, still your tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared."
***
I am not a religious man. I believe that when you are dead you are dead. I want to be as good a person as I can be while I am here. Not that I am, but I want to always try.
Sometimes our patients can help show us the way.
***
Years ago I read a great short story by Andre Dubus called "A Father's Story." It is about a priest who finds out his daughter has killed a man in a hit and run accident, and when the police come late in the story and ask him if he knows anything, in anguish, he lies to them. The story ends where he talks to God, and he tells God if it had been one of his sons, he could have turned him in because his sons are strong and he could bear watching them suffer, but his daughter... He asks God if Jesus was God's daughter rather than his son, would he have been able to send her to her death. Very powerful story. A story about a parent's limitless love.
Andre Dubus: Selected Stories
***
We are sent for a two year old who has fallen through a glass table and is bleeding severely. We get there and the fire department has already wrapped it. They say it is a good sized gash. The boy is in his mother's arms and is wailing away. The bleeding appears to have stopped. We transport the mother, boy and his three year old brother. The mother is Indian. She holds the crying boy, and she says, "Numba two baby, you give me so much trouble, but don't worry, mother loves numba two baby, no matter what trouble you give me. " And she kisses him. I watch as she smiles, admiring her screaming child.
***
We are sent for a violent psych, who turns out to be a ten-year old boy who has taken a golf club to a stop sign, then chased several of his neighbors with the now broken shaft. When we arrive he is in the back of a police car. His mother stands by the open backseat door, talking to the police officer about how they can't get the boy's medications right, while looking with concern at her son. I introduce myself to her, then she in turn, introduces me to her son. The boy is crying, sniffling. I ask him how he's doing. "I'd rather not talk about it," he says. "He's had a hard day," his mother says. I can see the sadness and tiredness in her eyes, but there is no anger there, no hint of a breaking point.
***
We are sent for an overdose. It's not an overdose, but a mother who wants her son to get clean. He's been smoking angel dust and acting like a fool," she says. The man has a big smile as he watches his hands move slowly in front of his eyes. Stoned. As we lead him out of the house, his mother kisses him and said, "I love you, you stupid cabron, you come back here like this again, I'll kill you." She squeezes his hand as he goes by.
***
These moments all happened in the last week -- small moments -- that if you didn't look for them you might not see them at all.
***
When I get home one night this week I find in the mail a bootleg CD I bought at EBay of the Springsteen Hartford Concert. I set it on the CD player and listen to it as I lay in bed after I turn out the light. The sound quality is excellent. I am struck by the lyrics to "Jesus Was an Only Son."
Jesus was an only son
As he walked up Calvary Hill
His mother Mary walking beside him
In the path where his blood spilled
Jesus was an only son
In the hills of Nazareth
As he lay reading the Psalms of David
At his mother's feet
A mother prays, "Sleep tight, my child, sleep well
For I'll be at your side
That no shadow, no darkness, no tolling bell,
Shall pierce your dreams this night"
In the garden at Gethsemane
He prayed for the life he'd never live,
He beseeched his Heavenly Father to remove
The cup of death from his lips
Now there's a loss that can never be replaced,
A destination that can never be reached
A light you'll never find in another's face,
A sea whose distance cannot be breached
Well Jesus kissed his mother's hands
Whispered, "Mother, still your tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared."
-Jesus Was an Only Son
Bruce Springsteen
***
I am not a religious man. I believe that when you are dead you are dead. I want to be as good a person as I can be while I am here. Not that I am, but I want to always try.
Sometimes our patients can help show us the way.
***
Years ago I read a great short story by Andre Dubus called "A Father's Story." It is about a priest who finds out his daughter has killed a man in a hit and run accident, and when the police come late in the story and ask him if he knows anything, in anguish, he lies to them. The story ends where he talks to God, and he tells God if it had been one of his sons, he could have turned him in because his sons are strong and he could bear watching them suffer, but his daughter... He asks God if Jesus was God's daughter rather than his son, would he have been able to send her to her death. Very powerful story. A story about a parent's limitless love.
Andre Dubus: Selected Stories
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Company Man/Union Man
One of my partners used to call me a company man because I used to clear as soon as possible from calls. We'd be in the EMS writing up the run report and the dispatcher would scream. Can anyone clear? I'm holding two calls. Priority One. I'd clear, then she'd bang us with a transfer the company was late on. Fell for it again, he'd say, company man.
I like having pride in my work and my workplace -- not that I always do. The world is not perfect, and the world of EMS even less so. Like everyone I go through periods of agitation about where I work. It is no secret that paramedics and EMTs are among the lowest paid jobs for the work we do, for what is asked of us. That fact has caused many good people to leave the field. Yet here I remain.
***
A couple months ago I was approached by two friends and asked if I could help out with the union contract negotiations. It's ugly this time, one of them said. You won't believe what they are asking us to take.
All my life I have taken on things I shouldn't. I get excited about something then overload myself. Years ago I was asked if I could help out with the fight againt budget cuts at the state EMS office. The next thing I knew I was leading a rally on the capitol (And popping Tums for the first time in my life). Later I was asked to help out with another EMS project and before I knew it I was going to meetings all over the state and serving on several committees, spending all my time writing drafts of proposals. I cut back some on that, but the residual of it is I am on the regional medical and educational committees and am actively involved in projects from rewriting the protocols, designing a protocol exam, and developing a lights and sirens policy.
The one area I have always stayed away from, however, has been getting actively involved in the union. Now, let me say, I am a union man. I believe in unions, I am a proud card carrying union member. I know the words to Joe Hill, as well as many Woody Guthrie songs. But I know that serving on the union is a quagmire that I have not wanted to get stuck in. For years I have watched union leaders get assailed by their fellow employees. It is a thankless job. For no pay and for many hours and days of their time, they get shit from everyone.
I remember calling up one union president and giving him hell years ago because their proposal was going to make me pay more for health insurance because my start date was January 3, where if my start date was December 31 I would be grandfathered in. We almost met in a parking lot to fight it out. Another time I called him up to give him hell about the company forcing me to take a post in the same suburban town where I now work willingly because at the time I was the paramedic with the least seniority of those with the seniority eligible to be posted there and no one else wanted to go(this was back in the day when there were very few medics, transfers for medics were few and far between and we all loved being in the city). He was just trying to do his job, but I didn't like the way he was doing it. Not that he got a dime for it. All the time he was in meetings defending employees, he wasn't getting paid while I was working overtime at time and a half.
Everytime a contract has come up, the union team has been blasted. How come you let them have this provision? How come our wages aren't more? The last contract was terrible. The older employees like me, who had to pay nothing for our health insurance (our one perk that made our low pay palatable), were sold out so the new employees and part-timers would pay less for health insurance. The contract passed on a strict party line vote with the most senior 1/3 voting it down, and everyone else voting for it.)
While I was not happy with the union or the way the union leadership did their job, I could not deny the fact that if instead of spending all their time trying to negotiate a contract or defending no matter how badly their fellow members rights, if they were working as I was instead of doing unpaid union business, all the money they would have gotten would have more than equalled any conceivable munificent raise that might have won through their persistence.
Working for the union means the company hates you, your fellow employees hate you, and you hate yourself because you think you are stupid for even trying to do such a thankless job.
So when they asked me to help out, I told them thanks, but no thanks, I was, ah, busy, yeah(that's the ticket), I was busy with other things. Sorry.
Too busy, working overtime. Too busy making money. Ca-ching.
***
Early word on the contract is not good. The company is trying to shove a new health care plan down our throats. They are offering a pittance for a raise. I have never seen people so upset. The way they are interpreting the health insurance is all it will take is one bad illness in your family and and any savings you have will be wiped out. You'll be bankrupt. A debtor for life. There is no protection at all for catastrophe. I read through the material, and I don't quite see it that way, but when I point out my interpretation, they say, that could be, but the company doesn't have the answers for us. It seems the plan is as confusing to the company negotiators as it is to us. They have promised answers for us, but not delievered. For the first time I hear the "s" word mentioned.
***
Speaking of company men, I know of only one other medic beside me-- there may be more -- who laid down the $2500 a few months back to buy into the company. We own only a measly piece, but we we joke about the "riffraft" in the union who are taking a hardline with the company in the current labor negotiations, trying to eat into our dividends. Nevertheless we the company's initial proposal comes up for a vote, we join with our brothers and sisters (union talk) and vote down the proposal, which is defeated 125-3. In the past, the union has been relatively weak in the face of the company's negotiators, but this year they have formed a stronger front. Pay is pay, but health insurance is a person's family and it illicits a much stronger response. I know health costs are skyrocketing, but people need to be assured that if they get sick or someone in their family is sick, they won't be wiped out.
***
The negotiating resumes and in the first meeting the health insurance questions seem to be getting answered, and people seem to be saying, maybe the plan, which the company has now apparently modified, is not as unreasonable as initially thought. There are many other issues on the table that need to be resolved, but we are hopeful a public confrontation can be avoided. There is nothing wrong with hardball play at contract time -- that's good business (both for the union and the company). In the end I hope both sides can settle on something that works for everyone. While I am a company man, if ever forced to chose, I have to stand on the side of the people who work the streets.
***
Like others I contemplate the worst case scenario. What would I do? I am a union man so that much is clear. I will have to find other work elsewhere. I can start over as a medic at another company if they will hire me, but I will not have the prime suburban shift I have no, nor the ability to work unlimited overtime. How will I be able to meet my mortgage and other obligations? I may have to sell my house.
But it is not that dire. I will be taking an honorable stand, honoring my commitment to my fellow workers, proving the mettle I am made of. And, I think, maybe as one door closes, another may open. Maybe this is what I need to escape the shackles of this job I love. I would now be free to move anywhere in the country. I could go to law school, get a nursing degree, join the Peace Corps, see the world, live in a one room shack somewhere in America and finish my novels and write other, greater ones. Maybe that is what I need. The truth is I am unafraid of the future. What will be will be.
***
While at the hospital I see one of our newer medics. I think she has been a medic maybe 2 or 3 years, after being an EMT for several before that. A nice, smart, well- meaning middle-aged woman -- who cares about being good at her job. She tells me she is going to go part-time (I guess she's going back to her old sales job part-time), and she seems sort of beatup. I don't know whether it is the job, the union negotiations(where she has been actively involved and by many accounts gave an impassioned Norma Rae speech to the company negotiators), or all the routine crap that each profession and workplace has, and which sometimes can be onerous in this one, but she seems tired and disspirited. It makes me sad. You hate to see people who care leave, even if it is just to go part-time.
***
The next negotiating session will be Sunday night. I say I will attend.
***
I'm beat as I have worked the last seven days straight, including twelve hours that day and almost twenty hours the previous day. I am planning to stay for two or three hours at most, just to say I was there. I'm not planning on speaking. I just want to sit in the room.
There are maybe fifteen or sixteen of us, including three people from the union. The management team has six people. They come in the room and give their response to the union's last proposal, then they leave the room, and for the next two hours we talk over all the points. Then we make a counter offer, which we present when they come back in the room, then they leave, we wait and they return with counteroffer. The evening goes like this.
The union members who have been at most of the sessions and who have done the most work are very passionate. I know them well. I used to work with one of the women, another is a good friend. You don't want either of them in your face. Another woman is the closet human to a pit bull I have seen. One of the guys is a long standing medic. I have watched him for years. He is a great medic and a passionate man. I remember one night when he brought in a child whose throat had been slashed -- he intubated the boy by sticking an Et tube right into the boy's open throat. I remembered the pent up rage he let out when he came out of the hospital that night. These are good people -- many with serious illnesses in their immediate families -- cancer, crippling diseases, major operations. I respect all of them.
I would not make a good negotiator. I would come in with a reasonable proposal from the start. Then I would shrug and said okay when I got a counteroffer. If that's the best you can do, I guess we'll have to take it. I don't know if I would have the combination of rage and steel to insist on what I feel I deserve.
I know several of the company team. Nice people. They have their bottom lines too -- their jobs to do.
The people from the union local are also impressive to me. They have been through other negotiations and can offer counsel. They are straight talking and tough. They say they will back us. At the same time they are not offering us pie in the sky versions of reality. The lead union man makes a good point -- the contract we will get is only as strong as we are as a union. We had a good vote, but if it comes to it, will we all stand together?
There is a point when it looks like people are angry and they want to tell the company to shove it. I am reluctant to speak because I have not been there for all the meetings, I have not had to put it out on the line like they have. I haven't had to eat any shit.
I say my peace. I compliment them on what they have achieved -- on their hard work. I respect what they have achieved -- the modifications the company has already made in its proposal in response to their arguements. I tell them that no matter what the outcome, I will stand with. If it means striking, even though it is something I do not want to do, I will strike. But I also tell them, I think the modified contract offer isn't so bad that everyone else will walk on it. When really pressed, I don't know how many will stand with us. Health care is expensive. Its not like all the money is going into the company's coffers. The company is going to be paying 75% of the insurance costs. I agree with what one of my fellow employees has said that if we can get enough to cover the increased cost of the health insurance in the first year, and then a reasonable raise in the next two years, then well, its not such a bad contract all things considered. Are we as a union strong enough to hold our membership together to get what we ought to be paid? (The truth is I don't know if you can make that much). Or should we just look at this as a start. Maybe the next time around, we -- all of us those in the room, and those who are not here -- those working the road, those at home, those who fear losing their jobs and those who don't, can be stronger -- strong enough and committed enough for a tougher battle.
We make what we feel is a reasonable counteroffer. The company comes back with theirs. Some give and take, and by two AM the outline of a deal is reached -- it just needs to be written up. We eat the new health insurance plan (although modified to keep out-of-poket maximims lower than initially offered) and accept a new method of accruing paid time off, along with an attendence policy, but in return we get a decent pay raise and some other extra money for training and longevity.
I am impressed with what I have seen. There was give and take, compromise was made on both sides. Unlike what I have heard about previous meetings, everyone was for the most part civil. I feel a decent contract was agreed upon – a contract which acknowledged the economic times we are in and the rising cost of heath care, and also acknowledged within constraints of the bottom line -- our worth as employees.
So provided our entire membership approves the contract -- there will be no job action and we'll all be working here at least another three years.
I think that is a good thing.
***
I'm at work. I get a page: We need units to clear, holding priority ones. I quickly finish my paperwork (flush), find my partner and tell him we can clear. When we do, they bang us with a transfer.
Company man, I hear my partner say.
***
"There's a better world a-coming
Don't you see, don't you see..."
-Woddy Guthrie
I like having pride in my work and my workplace -- not that I always do. The world is not perfect, and the world of EMS even less so. Like everyone I go through periods of agitation about where I work. It is no secret that paramedics and EMTs are among the lowest paid jobs for the work we do, for what is asked of us. That fact has caused many good people to leave the field. Yet here I remain.
***
A couple months ago I was approached by two friends and asked if I could help out with the union contract negotiations. It's ugly this time, one of them said. You won't believe what they are asking us to take.
All my life I have taken on things I shouldn't. I get excited about something then overload myself. Years ago I was asked if I could help out with the fight againt budget cuts at the state EMS office. The next thing I knew I was leading a rally on the capitol (And popping Tums for the first time in my life). Later I was asked to help out with another EMS project and before I knew it I was going to meetings all over the state and serving on several committees, spending all my time writing drafts of proposals. I cut back some on that, but the residual of it is I am on the regional medical and educational committees and am actively involved in projects from rewriting the protocols, designing a protocol exam, and developing a lights and sirens policy.
The one area I have always stayed away from, however, has been getting actively involved in the union. Now, let me say, I am a union man. I believe in unions, I am a proud card carrying union member. I know the words to Joe Hill, as well as many Woody Guthrie songs. But I know that serving on the union is a quagmire that I have not wanted to get stuck in. For years I have watched union leaders get assailed by their fellow employees. It is a thankless job. For no pay and for many hours and days of their time, they get shit from everyone.
I remember calling up one union president and giving him hell years ago because their proposal was going to make me pay more for health insurance because my start date was January 3, where if my start date was December 31 I would be grandfathered in. We almost met in a parking lot to fight it out. Another time I called him up to give him hell about the company forcing me to take a post in the same suburban town where I now work willingly because at the time I was the paramedic with the least seniority of those with the seniority eligible to be posted there and no one else wanted to go(this was back in the day when there were very few medics, transfers for medics were few and far between and we all loved being in the city). He was just trying to do his job, but I didn't like the way he was doing it. Not that he got a dime for it. All the time he was in meetings defending employees, he wasn't getting paid while I was working overtime at time and a half.
Everytime a contract has come up, the union team has been blasted. How come you let them have this provision? How come our wages aren't more? The last contract was terrible. The older employees like me, who had to pay nothing for our health insurance (our one perk that made our low pay palatable), were sold out so the new employees and part-timers would pay less for health insurance. The contract passed on a strict party line vote with the most senior 1/3 voting it down, and everyone else voting for it.)
While I was not happy with the union or the way the union leadership did their job, I could not deny the fact that if instead of spending all their time trying to negotiate a contract or defending no matter how badly their fellow members rights, if they were working as I was instead of doing unpaid union business, all the money they would have gotten would have more than equalled any conceivable munificent raise that might have won through their persistence.
Working for the union means the company hates you, your fellow employees hate you, and you hate yourself because you think you are stupid for even trying to do such a thankless job.
So when they asked me to help out, I told them thanks, but no thanks, I was, ah, busy, yeah(that's the ticket), I was busy with other things. Sorry.
Too busy, working overtime. Too busy making money. Ca-ching.
***
Early word on the contract is not good. The company is trying to shove a new health care plan down our throats. They are offering a pittance for a raise. I have never seen people so upset. The way they are interpreting the health insurance is all it will take is one bad illness in your family and and any savings you have will be wiped out. You'll be bankrupt. A debtor for life. There is no protection at all for catastrophe. I read through the material, and I don't quite see it that way, but when I point out my interpretation, they say, that could be, but the company doesn't have the answers for us. It seems the plan is as confusing to the company negotiators as it is to us. They have promised answers for us, but not delievered. For the first time I hear the "s" word mentioned.
***
Speaking of company men, I know of only one other medic beside me-- there may be more -- who laid down the $2500 a few months back to buy into the company. We own only a measly piece, but we we joke about the "riffraft" in the union who are taking a hardline with the company in the current labor negotiations, trying to eat into our dividends. Nevertheless we the company's initial proposal comes up for a vote, we join with our brothers and sisters (union talk) and vote down the proposal, which is defeated 125-3. In the past, the union has been relatively weak in the face of the company's negotiators, but this year they have formed a stronger front. Pay is pay, but health insurance is a person's family and it illicits a much stronger response. I know health costs are skyrocketing, but people need to be assured that if they get sick or someone in their family is sick, they won't be wiped out.
***
The negotiating resumes and in the first meeting the health insurance questions seem to be getting answered, and people seem to be saying, maybe the plan, which the company has now apparently modified, is not as unreasonable as initially thought. There are many other issues on the table that need to be resolved, but we are hopeful a public confrontation can be avoided. There is nothing wrong with hardball play at contract time -- that's good business (both for the union and the company). In the end I hope both sides can settle on something that works for everyone. While I am a company man, if ever forced to chose, I have to stand on the side of the people who work the streets.
***
Like others I contemplate the worst case scenario. What would I do? I am a union man so that much is clear. I will have to find other work elsewhere. I can start over as a medic at another company if they will hire me, but I will not have the prime suburban shift I have no, nor the ability to work unlimited overtime. How will I be able to meet my mortgage and other obligations? I may have to sell my house.
But it is not that dire. I will be taking an honorable stand, honoring my commitment to my fellow workers, proving the mettle I am made of. And, I think, maybe as one door closes, another may open. Maybe this is what I need to escape the shackles of this job I love. I would now be free to move anywhere in the country. I could go to law school, get a nursing degree, join the Peace Corps, see the world, live in a one room shack somewhere in America and finish my novels and write other, greater ones. Maybe that is what I need. The truth is I am unafraid of the future. What will be will be.
***
While at the hospital I see one of our newer medics. I think she has been a medic maybe 2 or 3 years, after being an EMT for several before that. A nice, smart, well- meaning middle-aged woman -- who cares about being good at her job. She tells me she is going to go part-time (I guess she's going back to her old sales job part-time), and she seems sort of beatup. I don't know whether it is the job, the union negotiations(where she has been actively involved and by many accounts gave an impassioned Norma Rae speech to the company negotiators), or all the routine crap that each profession and workplace has, and which sometimes can be onerous in this one, but she seems tired and disspirited. It makes me sad. You hate to see people who care leave, even if it is just to go part-time.
***
The next negotiating session will be Sunday night. I say I will attend.
***
I'm beat as I have worked the last seven days straight, including twelve hours that day and almost twenty hours the previous day. I am planning to stay for two or three hours at most, just to say I was there. I'm not planning on speaking. I just want to sit in the room.
There are maybe fifteen or sixteen of us, including three people from the union. The management team has six people. They come in the room and give their response to the union's last proposal, then they leave the room, and for the next two hours we talk over all the points. Then we make a counter offer, which we present when they come back in the room, then they leave, we wait and they return with counteroffer. The evening goes like this.
The union members who have been at most of the sessions and who have done the most work are very passionate. I know them well. I used to work with one of the women, another is a good friend. You don't want either of them in your face. Another woman is the closet human to a pit bull I have seen. One of the guys is a long standing medic. I have watched him for years. He is a great medic and a passionate man. I remember one night when he brought in a child whose throat had been slashed -- he intubated the boy by sticking an Et tube right into the boy's open throat. I remembered the pent up rage he let out when he came out of the hospital that night. These are good people -- many with serious illnesses in their immediate families -- cancer, crippling diseases, major operations. I respect all of them.
I would not make a good negotiator. I would come in with a reasonable proposal from the start. Then I would shrug and said okay when I got a counteroffer. If that's the best you can do, I guess we'll have to take it. I don't know if I would have the combination of rage and steel to insist on what I feel I deserve.
I know several of the company team. Nice people. They have their bottom lines too -- their jobs to do.
The people from the union local are also impressive to me. They have been through other negotiations and can offer counsel. They are straight talking and tough. They say they will back us. At the same time they are not offering us pie in the sky versions of reality. The lead union man makes a good point -- the contract we will get is only as strong as we are as a union. We had a good vote, but if it comes to it, will we all stand together?
There is a point when it looks like people are angry and they want to tell the company to shove it. I am reluctant to speak because I have not been there for all the meetings, I have not had to put it out on the line like they have. I haven't had to eat any shit.
I say my peace. I compliment them on what they have achieved -- on their hard work. I respect what they have achieved -- the modifications the company has already made in its proposal in response to their arguements. I tell them that no matter what the outcome, I will stand with. If it means striking, even though it is something I do not want to do, I will strike. But I also tell them, I think the modified contract offer isn't so bad that everyone else will walk on it. When really pressed, I don't know how many will stand with us. Health care is expensive. Its not like all the money is going into the company's coffers. The company is going to be paying 75% of the insurance costs. I agree with what one of my fellow employees has said that if we can get enough to cover the increased cost of the health insurance in the first year, and then a reasonable raise in the next two years, then well, its not such a bad contract all things considered. Are we as a union strong enough to hold our membership together to get what we ought to be paid? (The truth is I don't know if you can make that much). Or should we just look at this as a start. Maybe the next time around, we -- all of us those in the room, and those who are not here -- those working the road, those at home, those who fear losing their jobs and those who don't, can be stronger -- strong enough and committed enough for a tougher battle.
We make what we feel is a reasonable counteroffer. The company comes back with theirs. Some give and take, and by two AM the outline of a deal is reached -- it just needs to be written up. We eat the new health insurance plan (although modified to keep out-of-poket maximims lower than initially offered) and accept a new method of accruing paid time off, along with an attendence policy, but in return we get a decent pay raise and some other extra money for training and longevity.
I am impressed with what I have seen. There was give and take, compromise was made on both sides. Unlike what I have heard about previous meetings, everyone was for the most part civil. I feel a decent contract was agreed upon – a contract which acknowledged the economic times we are in and the rising cost of heath care, and also acknowledged within constraints of the bottom line -- our worth as employees.
So provided our entire membership approves the contract -- there will be no job action and we'll all be working here at least another three years.
I think that is a good thing.
***
I'm at work. I get a page: We need units to clear, holding priority ones. I quickly finish my paperwork (flush), find my partner and tell him we can clear. When we do, they bang us with a transfer.
Company man, I hear my partner say.
***
"There's a better world a-coming
Don't you see, don't you see..."
-Woddy Guthrie
Friday, October 14, 2005
Farewell Tour
My old partner has finally gotten his transfer to Florida. He moved to this area from New York fifteen years ago when he first met the woman who would become his wife. Now that they have divorced, he says he has no reason to stay up here. He loves Florida and the sun – he is a nudist, and has always hoped to live out his golden years in the Sunshine state. He’s a few years short of Medicare eligibility, so his plan is to work for our company’s Florida division for a few years until he is eligible for insurance, then he can stop punching the clock and hauling stretchers.
We were regular partners for several years – and had many an adventure together -- and have often found many occasions to work overtime together. Since he doesn’t have a regular partner in his current shift, I have been filling it in recent weeks.
He tells one of the triage nurses today he is going to Florida, and I crack that he’s finally gotten into the Golden Acres Manor. “A Bed, a roof over my head and three squares a day,” he says.
From the look on her face, for a moment the nurse seems to think he is serious – that maybe he really is ready for the Manor. My partner picks up on her reaction and disturbed, says, “I’m only kidding.”
***
We are sent to a nursing home to pick up a dialysis patient. They dispatch another unit to give us a lift assist. It’s a big patient. We get there first. “Let’s go in and do it,” I say. “We don’t need any help.”
I’ve picked this guy up before, but that was when I was working with a smaller partner. My old partner and I can handle it. In the old days we never needed a lift assist and we don’t need one now. We walk down the hall to the guy’s room. We look in. My partner looks at me. “He’s as big as a house,” he says.
I’m looking at the patient now too. Damn, he looks bigger than I remember. He looks to be about 500 pounds. “Yeah, maybe we should wait,” I say.
“In our younger days we would have done him,” he says.
“No doubt,” I say.
“No sense in getting hurt.”
***
His last day arrives. I’m glad we are working together, but I admit I am depressed. These last two weeks have been sort of a farewell tour. People who see him and know he is going, give him hugs or handshakes and wish him well. He says he has no reason to stay, but he is an institution around here. Nearly everyone knows him -- in the hospitals, the ambulance companies, police and fire. He has a large extended family here, even if it is only a family when he is at work.
"I'll be losing a lot of great friends," he says.
"We'll all be here. You know you can come back anytime."
"I hope I'm doing the right thing."
"You'll do fine."
In a week he’ll be unhitching his trailer and setting it to stay at his campground. The monthly park fee is reasonable and clothes, of course, are optional. Even though he will be making four or five dollars less an hour, his expenses shouldn't be too bad, he says.
I do worry about him. He is very set in his ways, and it may be hard at sixty-two to fit in with a different way. He will be the new kid at the ambulance company down there and have to be on best behavior.
Last night we were driving down a dark street. A car was parked to the side of the road and a man leaned into the window. He was hard to see, and while my partner didn't come close to hitting him, he was a little startled, so he jammed on the air horn and swore at the man. As we continued down the street, I prayed a bullet wouldn't zip through the ambulance and go through my back, then out my chest, leaving me a few moments to realize I had been shot and was about to die because my partner had finally pissed off the wrong pedestrian. But the bullet did not come.
***
Today there is a young EMT at one of the hospitals -- a cute girl maybe 21, who has heard about my partner and me, but has never met us. When she hears my partner has been working in the city fifteen years, she tells him she was in kindergarten when he started.
Later outside in the ambulance, one of my partner's first partners sees him and comes over. He is a cop now -- ten years on the force and now a detective. They commiserate about ex-wives, and then the cop says he has remarried, has two kids, owns his home outright along with both his cars, and is looking forward to retiring with a big pension in ten years when he is 47.
Waiting in triage, my partner and I were fooling around with the automatic blood pressure cuffs. My reading was 114/74. My partner's was 177/98. He was bothered by that. Later back at the same hospital, we take our pressures again. I am 112/70. He is down to 138/92. I can see the relief in his face.
***
After work tonight, he brings all his uniforms in to operations and hands them to the guy who checks the run forms to see if we have filled out the billing properly and gotten all the necessary signatures. That guy was on the road for years himself, until he hurt his hip too badly to work. They shake hands and wish each other well. My partner also hands in his fob and ID. There is no supervisor there to say goodbye. We shake hands and I wish him well, and we say what a great time it has been, and what a good man you are. We hold the handshake a little longer than you normally might. Then he punches out and leaves.
***
Every morning we worked together, my partner would insist on checking the oil, then grumble about how many quarts the car was down. "Guess what?" he said on the last morning. "It's my last day. I'm not checking the fucking oil."
We were regular partners for several years – and had many an adventure together -- and have often found many occasions to work overtime together. Since he doesn’t have a regular partner in his current shift, I have been filling it in recent weeks.
He tells one of the triage nurses today he is going to Florida, and I crack that he’s finally gotten into the Golden Acres Manor. “A Bed, a roof over my head and three squares a day,” he says.
From the look on her face, for a moment the nurse seems to think he is serious – that maybe he really is ready for the Manor. My partner picks up on her reaction and disturbed, says, “I’m only kidding.”
***
We are sent to a nursing home to pick up a dialysis patient. They dispatch another unit to give us a lift assist. It’s a big patient. We get there first. “Let’s go in and do it,” I say. “We don’t need any help.”
I’ve picked this guy up before, but that was when I was working with a smaller partner. My old partner and I can handle it. In the old days we never needed a lift assist and we don’t need one now. We walk down the hall to the guy’s room. We look in. My partner looks at me. “He’s as big as a house,” he says.
I’m looking at the patient now too. Damn, he looks bigger than I remember. He looks to be about 500 pounds. “Yeah, maybe we should wait,” I say.
“In our younger days we would have done him,” he says.
“No doubt,” I say.
“No sense in getting hurt.”
***
His last day arrives. I’m glad we are working together, but I admit I am depressed. These last two weeks have been sort of a farewell tour. People who see him and know he is going, give him hugs or handshakes and wish him well. He says he has no reason to stay, but he is an institution around here. Nearly everyone knows him -- in the hospitals, the ambulance companies, police and fire. He has a large extended family here, even if it is only a family when he is at work.
"I'll be losing a lot of great friends," he says.
"We'll all be here. You know you can come back anytime."
"I hope I'm doing the right thing."
"You'll do fine."
In a week he’ll be unhitching his trailer and setting it to stay at his campground. The monthly park fee is reasonable and clothes, of course, are optional. Even though he will be making four or five dollars less an hour, his expenses shouldn't be too bad, he says.
I do worry about him. He is very set in his ways, and it may be hard at sixty-two to fit in with a different way. He will be the new kid at the ambulance company down there and have to be on best behavior.
Last night we were driving down a dark street. A car was parked to the side of the road and a man leaned into the window. He was hard to see, and while my partner didn't come close to hitting him, he was a little startled, so he jammed on the air horn and swore at the man. As we continued down the street, I prayed a bullet wouldn't zip through the ambulance and go through my back, then out my chest, leaving me a few moments to realize I had been shot and was about to die because my partner had finally pissed off the wrong pedestrian. But the bullet did not come.
***
Today there is a young EMT at one of the hospitals -- a cute girl maybe 21, who has heard about my partner and me, but has never met us. When she hears my partner has been working in the city fifteen years, she tells him she was in kindergarten when he started.
Later outside in the ambulance, one of my partner's first partners sees him and comes over. He is a cop now -- ten years on the force and now a detective. They commiserate about ex-wives, and then the cop says he has remarried, has two kids, owns his home outright along with both his cars, and is looking forward to retiring with a big pension in ten years when he is 47.
Waiting in triage, my partner and I were fooling around with the automatic blood pressure cuffs. My reading was 114/74. My partner's was 177/98. He was bothered by that. Later back at the same hospital, we take our pressures again. I am 112/70. He is down to 138/92. I can see the relief in his face.
***
After work tonight, he brings all his uniforms in to operations and hands them to the guy who checks the run forms to see if we have filled out the billing properly and gotten all the necessary signatures. That guy was on the road for years himself, until he hurt his hip too badly to work. They shake hands and wish each other well. My partner also hands in his fob and ID. There is no supervisor there to say goodbye. We shake hands and I wish him well, and we say what a great time it has been, and what a good man you are. We hold the handshake a little longer than you normally might. Then he punches out and leaves.
***
Every morning we worked together, my partner would insist on checking the oil, then grumble about how many quarts the car was down. "Guess what?" he said on the last morning. "It's my last day. I'm not checking the fucking oil."
Thursday, October 06, 2005
My Patch
Nothing for eight hours, then we get a call for an unresponsive. When we arrive, a man meets us at the door and he says, “They are not certain if she is breathing.” We enter the house and I see an officer standing in a bedroom doorway. I can hear the mechanical voice, “No shock advised.” I step into the room and see a woman on the bed, who looks like a corpse. I am surprised when I touch her that she is warm. Because of the kifosis of her spine, her head hangs suspended in the air. We get her down on the carpet. She is asystole. My preceptee has trouble with the tube, and after two tries gives me the blade. I look in and can only see the epiglottis. It is a difficult tube, but I have been anticipating this. I have been thinking what I would do when I encountered this situation again. I take a moment and collect myself, then extend my arm more and turn my wrist . The bottom of the chords are in view and I pass the tube. While the preceptee gets a line and start pushing drugs, I am already saying this is going to be twenty minutes and out, but we soon have some activity on the monitor. I am thinking it is just the epi and she will soon brady down, but the rate picks up. Soon she is cranking away at 170. On the capnography, my reading has gone from a 5 up to a 32.
At the hospital, the doctor asks why we have worked this person – this is futile. She seems to me more upset with the situation than with us. I don’t disagree with her -- it is futile to hope that we can bring this woman back to any kind of cognizant life -- but we have our protocols. The lady may be fixed and dilated, but she now has a heartbeat. My patch says the same thing it does everyday PARAMEDIC. It doesn’t say GOD. We had to bring her in.
I feel bad my preceptee didn’t get the tube – I explain it was a hard one – but I will admit to feeling good I got it. I had been frustrated lately. Even older paramedics can have confidence problems. The woman is still alive when we leave.
At the hospital, the doctor asks why we have worked this person – this is futile. She seems to me more upset with the situation than with us. I don’t disagree with her -- it is futile to hope that we can bring this woman back to any kind of cognizant life -- but we have our protocols. The lady may be fixed and dilated, but she now has a heartbeat. My patch says the same thing it does everyday PARAMEDIC. It doesn’t say GOD. We had to bring her in.
I feel bad my preceptee didn’t get the tube – I explain it was a hard one – but I will admit to feeling good I got it. I had been frustrated lately. Even older paramedics can have confidence problems. The woman is still alive when we leave.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
My Boy
We get called for a drunk. We find a fifty seven year old man holding the fence in front of a house. An old woman comes out and says it’s her son and she wants us to take him to the hospital. She won’t let him in the house drunk as he is. He doesn’t want to go with us. “Lisen, lisen, lisen,” he slurs. "I ain’t going. I ain’t going.”
We can’t get him on the stretcher and his mother won’t take him into the house and he is going to fall if he let’s go of the fence. We threaten to call the police, and he says, “Go ahead, go on ahead. I ain’t scared. I ain’t scared. I ain’t going.”
We call the cops and tell them we need assistance with a drunk. He takes off then, staggering down the street. He is weaving all over the sidewalk. I am certain he is either going to stagger out into traffic or fall flat on his face. We follow him down the block where he veers into another yard and sits down on the steps. He says it is his other mother’s house. His mother who has followed us up the street, says he only has but one mama and she is his mama.
The cops come and the lead cop, looks at the man and declares, “Hey, this isn’t a drunk. Look at his pupils. They’re pinpoint.”
“He’s drunk,” I say.
“What are you using?” he demands.
“Huh?” the drunk says. “You talking to me?”
“Yeah, what are you using? You using illegal drugs?”
“Drugs? Now what kind of shit is that. What kind of shit is that. I don’t use no drugs. Looka these arms. I’m clean. What kind of shit is that?”
“Your pupils are pinpoint. See I used to work on an ambulance. I did that before this job. What are you using?”
One of the other cops looks at me. “It’s a drunk,” I say.
“Because I’m a black man, you saying I use drugs. What kind of shit is that? What kind of shit is that? Lisen, lisen, lisen. My mama taught me better than that?”
“Your momma?”
“He don’t use drugs,” the mama says. “He drink, but he don’t use drugs.”
Long story short, it takes fifteen minutes to get the guy on the stretcher, only after everyone has apologized to him for accusing him of possibly using drugs. “What kind of shit is that?” he says, as we finally plop him down on the stretcher. “I ain’t never use drugs. What kind of shit?”
“My boy don’t use drugs,” his mama says to the cop as he walks back to his cruiser.
We can’t get him on the stretcher and his mother won’t take him into the house and he is going to fall if he let’s go of the fence. We threaten to call the police, and he says, “Go ahead, go on ahead. I ain’t scared. I ain’t scared. I ain’t going.”
We call the cops and tell them we need assistance with a drunk. He takes off then, staggering down the street. He is weaving all over the sidewalk. I am certain he is either going to stagger out into traffic or fall flat on his face. We follow him down the block where he veers into another yard and sits down on the steps. He says it is his other mother’s house. His mother who has followed us up the street, says he only has but one mama and she is his mama.
The cops come and the lead cop, looks at the man and declares, “Hey, this isn’t a drunk. Look at his pupils. They’re pinpoint.”
“He’s drunk,” I say.
“What are you using?” he demands.
“Huh?” the drunk says. “You talking to me?”
“Yeah, what are you using? You using illegal drugs?”
“Drugs? Now what kind of shit is that. What kind of shit is that. I don’t use no drugs. Looka these arms. I’m clean. What kind of shit is that?”
“Your pupils are pinpoint. See I used to work on an ambulance. I did that before this job. What are you using?”
One of the other cops looks at me. “It’s a drunk,” I say.
“Because I’m a black man, you saying I use drugs. What kind of shit is that? What kind of shit is that? Lisen, lisen, lisen. My mama taught me better than that?”
“Your momma?”
“He don’t use drugs,” the mama says. “He drink, but he don’t use drugs.”
Long story short, it takes fifteen minutes to get the guy on the stretcher, only after everyone has apologized to him for accusing him of possibly using drugs. “What kind of shit is that?” he says, as we finally plop him down on the stretcher. “I ain’t never use drugs. What kind of shit?”
“My boy don’t use drugs,” his mama says to the cop as he walks back to his cruiser.
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