Health Fist

Did she misspell that? Was it intentional? What the hell is going on and where are my pants? These are all questions you might be asking yourself at this point in time, but I am here to tell you: have no fear. All will be explained in due time.

I’ve recently started working at a company called Health First which, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Brevard County, Fla., is a large corporate non-profit hospital with facilities in Palm Bay, Melbourne, Cape Canaveral and coming in 2011, Viera.

The new digs

My first day at the hospizzle was September 7th and my ninety-day evaluation is coming up the first week in November. My supervisor

says I’m doing fine so I’m not shitting my pants just yet, but we’ll see as the time crawls nearer.

The specific department I work in (and no, I’m not wiping asses or cleaning projectile vomit off of the walls) is called Patient Business Services, or more specifically, Registration. There we register and collect money from patients coming in for outpatient labs, diagnostics, etc. But the real fun, as I’ve heard is the ER. I haven’t been trained on ER yet, but to say that you see some interesting stuff in a gross understatement.

Right now I work the front desk and my level of misanthropy grows more and more every day. The utter stupidity of the general public never ceases to amaze me. That’s not to say that I didn’t already hate people, because believe me, I did. But now it’s been confirmed.

Some days are great and some days it’s like eating a fistful of bees. On the Monday of my third week I actually sat down at my lunch table and started crying. One thing I do have to say, though is that the people I work with are pretty awesome. So that makes it better.

I’m just trying to take it one day at a time right now and adjust myself to working 50 hours a week. The one thing that keeps me going?

Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? Absolutely not. But for right now I’d say I’ve got a pretty sweet gig.

Lough quotes

This is my first quarter with James Lough and I’m learning that he is a very interesting man. For those of you who are unaware, Dr. Lough is the chair of the writing department here at SCAD. He is teaching my Writing for the Arts I class this quarter.

His utterances are often startling and thought-provoking. For that reason, I’ve decided to compile a list of his quotes:

  • “Austrians are just Germans in drag.”
  • “There was a middle-aged, overweight woman in a polyester smock, fingers blackened from gambling, holding margarine tubs full of coins, licking her lips.” – On a woman he’d seen in a casino in Reno
  • “Jim Morrison performs like a snake having sex.”
  • “I was seduced by a parrot.”
  • “Jean stayed on his side. He was as embarrassed as I was. It was kind of cute.”

Many more to come. If you have any of your own Lough quotes, post them here.