So, how many of you fellow RTs have to carry a beeper? I bet most of you guys and gals do. Yet, when I worked at the Victorian Hospital up North from Shoreline, they had walkie talkies. I hated the walkie talkie system.
I hate wearing my beeper clipped to my pants. And that little clip that has the screen on it is usually scratched to the point that I can't read the beeper when it is on, so I usually take it off and toss my beeper into my pocket.
When my beeper goes off, I get annoyed. Don't you? Isn't it normal that a beeper annoys the person carrying it when it goes off -- especially when it goes off every 5 minutes all night.
Yep, I grunt and groan and curse that darn beeper. And then when I hear it going off and I can't find it in my pocket, and it keeps beeping and beeping and beeping, I curse some more.
Sometimes I turn off the beeper and turn on the vibrator. That's even worse. It's worse because if I have the beeper in my lab coat, and there's a bunch of stuff in the pocket with the beeper, I don't feel the vibrating. So then I get an angry call, "Where are you?"
I also get those calls when I forget my beeper in the office. It's a normal human thing to forget once in a while. Yet, a doctor once lectured me how it is "unacceptable" not to have my beeper on me.
Yet, still, I continue to forget from time to time.
Once, and only once, a coworker of mine went to the bathroom. When she came out she held the beeper in her hand. "It no longer works," she said. "It fell into the toilet."
"Cool," I said.
Then my beeper went off for the umpteenth time in two hours. I cursed audibly.
Yeah, I do have quite an equanimitous demeanor, but still that beeper annoys the crap out of me.
I often try to get rid of it. "Hey, Mr. Kokx when you go home why don't you take my beeper with you."
"Nope," he said, "I'm retired. I don't work anymore."
I suppose it will be the day I retire that I vow never to carry a beeper again and live up to that promise. Then again, I might still decide to work per deim.
Oh, the joys of a beeper. My advice to anyone seeking employment is to stay away from any career that forces you to wear a beeper.
