(Written in 2007)
I have become a penguin. I have turned into a bird that cannot fly. My legs are covered in black polyester that bunches around my hip area, giving me pouches where pouches do not exist. This is matched by the oversized black polyester vest that hides any hint of my breasts which are also covered by the standardly uncreative pleated tuxedo shirt. The top button is sealed not with a bow tie but with a $5 plastic circular black clip that shouts “I am closing the shirt of someone who could be male or female.” And “I may not be as fancy as a bowtie, but I still give this cheap tuxedo an edge of shiny classiness.” I hate this outfit. More than that, I hate the job that requires me to wear it.
We are called “Dietary Ambassadors” of Hillcrest ( not its real name ) Hospital. We are not ambassadors. We are servers.
We
stand in the middle of the kitchen waiting for the food tray assemblers,
affectionately referred to as the “Food Line Expeditors” to yell out: “The meal
cart is ready to go to zone 3!” This
means I write down the hospital room number on a little chart along with the
time that the food was ordered by the patient through the hospital’s new up and
running system called “Room Service.”
Each patient has a germ free and plastic plated menu in his/her room to
which he/she can refer in order to procure the dietary delights that she craves
after undergoing hip surgery, while in
recovery from a gunshot wound, or during treatment for a variety of diseases
and ailments that give hospitals their spooky reputation. Then I roll my
assigned cart out of the kitchen and down the hallways of the hospital where
signs plaster every wall declaring this institution as having been voted one of
the best places to work in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
Photos of portly nurses happily taking the blood pressure of satisfied
and photogenic patients line the corridors. To fend off boredom, every time I
go by, I try to think of what famous person each patient looks like. One
is a dead ringer for Dame Judy Dench, except she is wearing a hospital gown and
holding an IV line instead of an academy award
Once in zone 3, I open up the velcrowed cloth of the cart to reveal the tray destined for room 3705. A special note on the order slip indicates that the patient is a diabetic. Basically this means that she her body does not effectively transport the sugars from food from her bloodstream to her cells. Therefore, it’s important to watch the types of carbohydrates she eats. I peer at the food items on the tray. Diet Dr. Pepper, two chocolate ice creams and a bag of pretzels. Wow, they sure know how to take care of people in the hospital. I could never get that stuff when I was a kid. Who knew that all I had to do was grow up, become a diabetic and order room service at Hillcrest ( not its real name ) Hospital. I knock on the door of room 3705. “Room Service!” I say cheerily. A weary yet agitated voice responds. “Come in.” I open the door and behold a woman whose body is so large that it actually spreads across the entire bed like a comforter. She is gray and feverish as she extends her hand out to receive the bounty of sugar I am delivering. It’s a difficult tray to relinquish, but I appease my discomfort with the thought “The dietitians must know what they are doing”. “Enjoy your meal,” I mumble, wincing at my word choice “meal” when it seems much more like “ poison”. Enjoy your Strichnine! Have fun chewing on that agent Orange! God bless.
As I make my way to the next zone, I avoid thinking about the crime it feels like I have just committed. I try to make small talk with a fellow “Dietary Ambassador” in training, who is shadowing me for the day. That’s right, I am her personal guide on how to kill people at Hillcrest ( not its real name ) Hospital. She also works as a hairdresser and sports several fiery flashes of orange in her straight long black hair. I don’t mention the poisoning episode as I’m not yet convinced of her allegiances. I hand her a tray of food for room 3709 replete with all the things that a stroke victim might want: A cheeseburger with chips, a chocolate brownie and a Mountain Dew. I almost have a stroke watching her go. When she returns, I make no comments. Instead, I inquire about her salon, muse about hair products, ask her to describe her styling specialties and realize that after 4 minutes, there is nothing left to talk about. We stand side by side rolling the cart down the hall and there is complete and total silence. I cannot think of a single thing to say especially when I just want to scream “ I just gave two icecreams and a bag of pretzels to a 400 pound diabetic woman”! But I don’t say anything. I feel like I have no conversation skills. I thought hair stylists were adept in the art of small talk and meaningless banter. The silence continues until I become so uncomfortable that I feign a cough to at least create sound between us. And then I comment “God, it’s dry in here”. “ Hmmmmm..” she responds. But I realize, it’s not just her. I am an equally actively boring participant in this non-conversation. I have disengaged myself so much from this unwelcome reality that feels like a mafia movie where the least expected suddenly start killing off the weak, that I cannot even recognize my own personality. I have lost all expression and intonation. I am a penguin but without the charm.
Back at the kitchen we prepare more trays of deliciously nutritious food. I load a “heart healthy” meal onto my cart for zone two. Fish and Chips, a rice krispie treat and a Sierra Mist soda. "Heart Healthy." The Inferior Vena Cava is going to be so excited. “We need more Swiss Miss Vanilla Pudding and chocolate milk,” bellows one of the expeditors busily setting up for trays of heart attack stew and stroke casserole. This is not what I signed up for when I applied for a job to gain experience in the food management arena for my masters degree in clinical nutrition. Instead of being a purveyer of health and healing I feel like an accomplice in a murder plot for the sick. I look around to see if maybe I have walked into a Red Robin restaurant or an Applebees instead of a hospital where people come to get well. Nope, it’s Hillcrest, ( not its real name ) all right. I am still in my tuxedo, stained with low sodium tarter sauce from the fish and chips plate, and surrounded by my fellow flightless birds who seem to have no awareness of the edible booby traps they are arranging.
Jeremy, ( not his real name) the head cook, a very large man whose torso slopes down on a diagonal, ending at his protruding belly asks me “Why are you standing around not doing anything?” “I’m waiting for more trays of your terrific food to be ready” I mutter weakly but wonder if he has been able to discern the anti-establishment sentiments in my heart as well as my germ of a plan for a hospital mutiny. I have fantasized opening the food drawers and walk-in freezer and tossing out the trans fatty strawberry shortcake, the high sodium Doritos, and fat-laden bacon packages as if they were all caged birds trapped a pet store. Instead, I busy myself by scooting over to the soda machine to make certain that the diet Pepsi spout isn’t actually spewing out Dr. Pepper by mistake. $13/hour. Is it worth the moral angst? I think about the sample menu that I helped to design in my “Therapeutic Cooking Class” at school for “BOB”, my pretend client who has food allergies, digestive distress, and a damaged gut not to mention a busy schedule. We have given him a healing miso soup with napa cabbage, daikon radish, carrots, onions, organic turkey and Aduki beans as well as a spectrum of nutrient-dense side dishes to help him on his journey to wellness. Jeremy probably wouldn’t even know what to do with Aduki beans. He might look at them, sniff them and casually dismiss them as useless. I imagine the Kitchen staff’s response to my suggestion of BOB’s menu for some of the patients there. “Gross”. “What?” And “What the hell is Napa
We stand in the middle of the kitchen waiting for the food tray assemblers, affectionately referred to as the “Food Line Expeditors” to yell out: “The meal cart is ready to go to zone 3!”. This means I write down the hospital room number on a little chart along with the time that the food was ordered by the patient through the hospital’s new up and running system called “Room Service.” Each patient has a germ free and plastic plated menu in his/her room to which he/she can refer in order to procure the dietary delights that she craves after undergoing hip surgery, while in recovery from a gunshot wound, or during treatment for a variety of diseases and ailments that give hospitals their spooky reputation. Then I roll my assigned cart out of the kitchen and down the hallways of the hospital where signs plaster every wall declaring this institution as having been voted one of the best places to work in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Photos of portly nurses happily taking the blood pressure of satisfied and photogenic patients line the corridors. To fend off boredom, every time I go by, I try to think of what famous person each patient looks like. One is a dead ringer for Dame Judy Dench, except she is wearing a hospital gown and holding an IV line instead of an academy award
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