Good Idea Fairies

 

I've been reading a military autobiography in order to review it for the HPANWO Voice blog, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/01/no-easy-day.html. I was surprised at the author's descriptions of the camaraderie and culture within his special forces community because they sounded very like that within hospital portering. This is despite the huge difference between the roles and social standing of the two professions. I think this is partly because the special forces and HPing worlds are both exclusive male domains. I know the HPing world is not all men, but only about 5% of HP's are women. Feminists naturally denounce this with condescending terms like "male bonding" and "bromance". There is another similarity I noticed, possibly making this something universal within government service. What happens is, for example, the frontline staff who have to do the job every day and have developed a lot of experience and practical knowledge, work out a new method of doing something. They usually manage to get this idea cleared at the head porter/unit command level because those people share the day-to-day level with the frontliners, if they're good appointees. However, before this plan can be introduced, somebody higher up comes along and shoves their oar in. This is usually a younger member of staff who is rich in academic qualifications, but has little or no experience. In fact an NHS administrator can be promoted to the level of trust director with nothing more than their single week of student work experience with the porters. This admin officer will make some suggestion that is totally useless, extravagant or impractical and then the frontliners have to waste a lot of time and energy trying to explain why this is a bad idea to somebody who has far less understanding, but far more decision-making power. The book's author calls these people "good idea fairies". We called them "boy wonders"; although they were as often as not female, in which case we had far ruder terms for them. These overqualified underworked fools are clearly just trying to justify their own existence and, of course, their very high salary, with manufactured obstacles and therefore false solutions. They are sometimes more than just annoying though; their stupidity can kill, for example see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2014/01/man-falls-to-his-death-at-jr.html. I'm not sure what the solution is. The boy wonders and good idea fairies are a product of the fundamental bureaucracy of the state. Maybe some kind of anarchist utopia is possible where hospital porters and special forces will be free of these millstones, but that scenario lies beyond my imagination.

Happy Christmas 2023

 

A very merry Christmas to all my brother and sister hospital porters, serving or retired, our civilian allies and everybody else who reads the HPWA or listens to The Gas Spanner. Hope you all have a wonderful day; especially if you are on duty, giving up your time to keep everybody else safe while they enjoy their Christmas... And remember! It's just 154 days to St Theo's Day!

Telephone Dignity Statements

 

This kind of dignity statement is a variation of third party one, see background links below, but it is actually much easier because your stooge is not present. The way to carry out this dignity statement is purely opportunistic; it's not really possible to plan it beforehand. Also not all porters have the role where they are in the right position because they don't often talk on the telephone in front of civilian staff. Primarily it's the providence of the departmental porter rather than somebody from the lodge. If you happen to take a phone call or make one in a public place, for instance at a nurses station, and somebody happens to turn up who would make an appropriate dignity statement target; then if it feels right, as always, this is what you do. During the conversation on the phone, slip in words like: "Yes, but we are porters with a lot of porters' pride and dignity which nobody can take away from us. A lot of them try, but they fail and it drives them nuts..." As with the dignity statement where your stooge is present, do not look at your target. Only ever keep your gaze in the position you normally do when addressing somebody on the phone. If the call is a video communication, keep your eyes on the stooge where his or her image appears on the monitor screen. Even after the stooge has ended the call and you have not yet made a dignity statement; if you are holding the receiver and those around you don't know the call is over, you can pretend you are still on the call and deliver the dignity statement followed by: "...Anyway. Thanks for the call. Bye bye." and put down the phone. ("Stooge" is a term I use for the third party in a third party dignity statement.) After your call is over, act normally. Return to your normal duties by walking away, keeping your eyes averted from your target. If you are lucky you might catch his or her richly-deserved wince of humiliation in your peripheral vision.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2013/07/physical-dignity-statements.html.
And: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-gas-spanner-programme-2.html.

Wokies Hate HP's!

 

This is a topic I more normally cover on the other HPANWO sites, but in this case it is relevant to hospital portering. I've hesitated to tell this story before because I suppose I feel a little embarrassed about my own behaviour during this encounter. A few years ago, due to social circumstances I will not reveal, I found myself in a group of people in a cafe sitting opposite a woman who would today be called a "wokie", "wokeist" or "woke person". In those days that terminology didn't exist and her kinds of people were known as "SJW's- social justice warriors". It was immediately very obvious by her appearance and style of speech what her beliefs were and so I braced myself. Conversations with SJW's can only go in one direction. When the usual subject of professions came up I said: "I'm a hospital porter". (Of course, I was technically an ex-hospital porter, but I tend not to divulge that part to strangers; it requires too much explanation.) When I told her this I saw her flinch and look away, as I expected. She was already being very frosty with me because I'm a white male and had not yet made the usual mandatory virtue signalling noises, but to know that I'm a working class white male deepened her antipathy even further. There's a common myth that snobbery is something the upper classes feel for the lower classes; the lord of the manor for his butler. This is false. Firstly, there is such a thing as inverted snobbery, in which the lower classes hate those above them; but that is too big a subject to explore in detail here. However, the worst and most common kind of snobbery is experienced by the working class, but it doesn't come from the top; it comes from the middle. Leftwing middle class people are the ones who really hate the working class; or to be precise, the white working class. During this conversation I was aware that I had to watch my words very carefully so as to prevent her locating the entry point she was desperately searching for, but it didn't work. Eventually and inevitably she found the excuse to say to me: "Yes, but you're a privileged white male!" I groaned inwardly. There are so many responses to that chestnut. What she was hoping for was for me to wince and bow my head with shame as the white male guilt washed over me and memories of slavery, rape and the Holocaust passed through my self-hating soul. Alternatively I could retort and try to justify my existence, allowing her to dismiss my concerns as "white fragility!" I could also have brought up false rape allegations, diversity hiring, South African farm murders etc; which she would have discarded with the same scorn and lack of compassion. I could explain how absurd it was for her to think I had any privilege when she was manifestly much wealthier than I was; but she would say: "but I'm a 'Woman!' which means I'm a victim of sexism which you are not!". Alternatively I could remain silent or say "no comment" which is probably the best defence when dealing with people like her. Despite this, my diplomacy armour failed at that point and I chose to wind her up.
 
This was not something I planned; it just occurred to me spontaneously. "So," I began. "What do you mean by 'white male privilege'? Are you saying that my demographic enjoys a higher standard of living because our exploitation of women and non-white people?"
    "Yes!" she hissed with a glare.
    "Then why would I want it to end?"
    She gasped. "What!?"
    I repeated my question, but she was speechless. I continued: "In an equitable world, white males would have to get in line with everybody else. We would no longer experience the life of luxury we currently do. So, why would I want an equitable world? I enjoy my pampered existence."
    My interlocutor was dumbfounded. Her face was a portrait! Just like "Miss Stuck Up Little Bitch Nurse" when I strike back at her with a well delivered Dignity Statement. She was not used to this response. Of course wokies always accuse white men of secretly wanting white male privilege to continue for the reasons I stated, no matter how much they protest; but they are accustomed only to dealing with white males who "try to deny it!" What she couldn't cope with was a white male who openly admits it and is unapologetic.
    I can't quite remember the next few exchanges verbatim, but it was along the lines of her saying that white male privilege was immoral and it made other people suffer, and me replying with comments supporting moral nihilism and social Darwinism. Finally she stood up and stormed off with the words: "You are truly evil scum!"
    I chuckled and yelled after her: "Yeah, winners tend to be!"
    I felt ashamed of myself. Those who know me will realize straight away that I didn't actually mean what I said to her, for example see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/11/nice-guys-reply-to-stefan-molyneux.html. The thing is, I find people like her exhausting and infuriating. I avoid their company whenever possible, which luckily is almost all the time in my personal social circles. I know for a fact that had I tried to be honest and reasonable with her she would not have returned my good faith, a bit like this other example: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/07/payback.html. Get used to the fact that I'm not a saint and I have my limits.
See here for more background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/political-correctness-portal.html.

HP's and Psychos

 

I've always taken a keen interest in ponerology, the study of psychopathy, see background links below, and it is a well-known fact that certain personality types are drawn to certain occupations. According to the psychologist and clinical ponerologist Prof. Kevin Dutton, psychopaths gravitate towards certain career paths and he has compiled a list of the top ten. Number one, no surprise, is finance. However I was surprised to see that number two is medicine. Doctors, especially surgeons, have among them a far high proportion of psychopaths than the average of six percent; or higher, depending on the source. You might think: "But doctors need to care to do their jobs!" No they don't; in fact a doctor who doesn't care has a huge advantage over those who do because they don't experience the emotional trauma that comes from witnessing the everlasting parade of pain, death and dismemberment doctors have to deal with. That kind of character is skilfully reproduced in the fictional film Malice, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqeC3BPYTmE. I then wondered if there are any professions that naturally repel psychopaths. My first instinct was to assume that the professions empaths are drawn to repel psychos because of the contradiction, such as community caring jobs and charity work; but this does not necessarily follow. A psycho who is a sexual predator might get involved in a children's charity or nursery school because it would allow them easy access to victims; a perfect example being the Oxfam Haiti scandal, see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43112200. Psychos lack an understanding of many concepts which to non-psychos are obvious; not just the empathy but a sense of time, regret for the past or fear of the future. This is why genuine psychos never apologize to their victims nor do they fear punishment by the law or revenge from their victims' loved ones. One thing psychopaths have an acute awareness of is social status. They crave dominance over others and in a social situation this means eminence within the group. For this reason a psycho will find any job which has low conventional status unbearable... You can probably guess where I'm going with this. Yes, hospital portering is a natural filter to weed out psychopaths. There is literally nothing for them here. I can think of a perfect example, a porter I served with in the early '90's. He was, I believe, a clinical psychopath. He exhibited all the red flags. He was obsessed with leaving portering and joining security. The John Radcliffe has always had its own separate security corps, whereas in smaller hospitals this is very often a portering discipline. Nevertheless JRH porters are often required to assist security in various roles; I did so myself many times. This psycho porter volunteered for every security assist task he could get, sometimes bolting from the lodge the moment the attack alarm went off before anybody else could get to their feet.
 
This psycho porter was never given a job in hospital security; I think they saw through him. His zeal was a bit overplayed, in my view. However, obviously he could not remain in hospital portering. He used to seethe with agonized frustration and suppressed rage at situations where I found a solution through the dignity statement. He eventually managed to get onto a security team at a shopping centre. The last I heard about him he had become a prison warder... makes sense. So, that's another advantage of being a HP; you exist in a naturally psychopath-free bubble. Psychos rarely join HPing and those that do don't last very long. One more reason to love being a HP.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/12/nhs-nurses-destroy-patients-doll.html.
And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2013/12/channel-4s-psychopath-night.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-empath-test_11.html.

Acute Care Vehicles 2- Second Generation

 

I consider the second generation of acute care vehicles a golden age of engineering; this was from the late 1990's to the mid 2000's. The hero of this boom was undoubtedly Egerton, a company based in Poland. There were three general bed designs that made up the backbone of the JRH fleet. I can't remember their official names, but we nicknamed them the "blue" and "grey" because of their colours. The blue Egerton was a pleasure to handle. It was by far the most manoeuvrable bed I have ever used. It had a folding handle at the foot for the sit-up mechanism and a separate squeeze handle for the pitch. Level was raised and lowered by a pair of smooth pedals at the side which needed very little pressure to operate. The top level was about five feet which added to the vehicle's portability. The grey Egerton came in three models. There was one with a lift-and-pull headboard that was mostly used to replace the original fleet maternity beds. The second design was more like the blue, but had slightly different controls. The pitch was altered by two black squeeze handles at the foot. It was also slightly heavier. The third variant was basically the grey with electric posture controls. I have always considered electric power an extravagance and a typical example of over-engineering for its own sake. Early electric vehicles had to be plugged in whenever they were in use and had backup manual handles and pedals. They can also actuate by accident when, for example, somebody leans against the control paddle. They grey had no manual backup. It had a battery which very quickly ran flat because staff usually didn't bother to plug it in, sometimes because the ward bed-spaces didn't have enough electric sockets. Another problem was that very few staff used the proper storage hook for the flex and plug. Some developed a bad habit of wrapping it around the rear corner fenders. This not only made it easy for it to fall off, but when the bed was raised it sometimes ripped the flex out of its fitting. (One theatre porter in particular was very irritating because he would do this on purpose when I told him about the wrong method just to wind me up; because that's the kind of person he was.) The second generation was not all a bed of roses though, if you'll excuse the pun. I'm thinking of the Hill Rom. Only a handful of these awful contraptions ever made it into the John Radcliffe fleet, but I used to groan whenever I had to use one. They had a feeble plastic footboard that usually broke and without it, as I said in the background link below, it was like a car without a steering wheel. We often kept a secret store of spare footboards in the lodge and a Hill Rom one was like gold dust. It also had a nasty static sting problem, sometimes producing an audible crack and visible spark... Good job anaesthetics no longer use ether! There was one bed that was a real bummer; it lost one of its footboard mountings meaning it could only be used without a footboard. Whenever I saw it unoccupied I used to wheel it to the "cage", a store in the industrial block for vehicles needing repair. I stuck a note on it explaining that it was not safe to use, but the maintenance team always returned it to service without replacing the mounting. I was tempted to sabotage that bed quietly in secret so they had to take it off the wards. All the second generation beds have a centralized footbrake; the blue Egertons' were the best; they were easy to apply, like the level pedals, and the lever was unobtrusive. The Egerton's were also the first full-size beds to have a function previously reserved for trolleys; optional steering lock. By raising the brake pedal to a third position, usually at the top, the foot wheels would lock into a north-south position rather than the usual free caster. This made the bed very easy to manoeuvre and it could even be pushed with a single porter, but only when empty. We hardly ever used to wheel lock with a patient, but then we were never alone with a bed patient anyway.

The second generation also provided one of the best wheelchairs ever, the Bristol Maid. This was a nifty rear wheel steered chair with an excellent sliding footplate and retractable telescopic arms. Its small size made it ideal for cramped passages in corridors, wards and departments. It had a unique storage compartment at the back for patient notes folders, but I learned quickly not to use it because it was too easy to lose the notes, something that would get you into terrible trouble. If you get one of these chairs I recommend asking the patients if they can hold them, if they are able, or put them behind their back.

The second generation was the first to deliver what I regard as specially designed bariatric beds. Bariatric is a politically correct way of saying "very big and fat". These were sometimes based on standard designs but were bigger and stronger. There were some other models specialized for bariatric cases from the wheels up. Along with bariatric beds we were given equivalent wheelchairs, operating tables and even mortuary slabs. Together with these innovations were far better intensive care beds with inflatable soft mattresses to reduce pressure sores for patients who were stuck in them a long time. The largest and heaviest of these we called "the Beast" and it needed at least three porters to move it. I wondered where technology would take us in the future, to better or worse machines. The answer was both.

See here for background: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/09/acute-care-vehicles-1-original-fleet.html.

Being Human

 

Being Human is a TV series by the BBC and it's one of the few by the Beeb in recent years I would say is any good. It is described as a "supernatural comedy drama"; but, although it has its droll moments, it's not very funny. Actually it's pretty grim. It follows the lives of three young urbanites who superficially appear to be ordinary people, but they are not. They're not even human, they're only trying to be like humans; hence the title. One is called Mitchell and he is a vampire, the second is called George who is a werewolf and the third is Annie, the ghost of a woman who was murdered. All three of them face different challenges. Mitchell is trying to get by eating normal food and giving up his lust for human blood. George is trying to manage his condition by hiding himself away every full moon; and Annie is haunting the man who killed her, her ex-boyfriend. Despite being completely different denizens of the undead, George and Mitchell share a very important common destiny; they are both HP's. My two brother porters, if I can call a werewolf and a vampire my brothers... Of course I can, they're HP's for goodness sake!... Anyway, George and Mitchell serve in the same hospital and appear to be in the same section, but they deal with the challenges of the profession differently. George maintains a light-hearted attitude and he has a part-time job teaching English as a foreign language. However, Mitchell is bitter and exhibits a lot of self-pity. In one scene where his partner is mourning the death of her goldfish, he says to her: "I wade through blood and shit from dawn till dusk for the minimum wage, so don't whinge to me about some bloody goldfish!" As I've explained before, that might be true, but the victimhood mentality is not helpful. It breeds an inner darkness and cynicism that becomes a goal in itself; almost an addiction. HP's can easily fall into that trap and we must avoid it at all costs. George manages to find a girlfriend of his own at one point. Of course this means he has to make up some excuse to explain why he goes away on his own once a lunar month. At one point he tells her: "I have to go off on a training course." She replies: "Training? You're only a hospital porter, George!" I'd dump her on the spot if she said that to me! There are some pretty horrific scenes and storylines in the series, making it more of a horror than a comedy. At one point, the protagonists are kidnapped by a religious cult who do sadistic experiments on them. Despite this, and its sometimes patronizing anti-HP-ism, it is very well done in terms of writing, acting and plot; so it's worth watching. Since the original BBC seasons it has been picked up by an American network that have produced their own version, as Americans tend to. See here for the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWjZ2QU999o.