I Really Shouldn't Laugh...

 

Have you ever found something funny that you feel you shouldn't, that you feel guilty for finding funny? Probably most people will at some point. Such emotions are called "gallows humour" or "black humour". Doctors and nurses excel at it, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/05/sick-hospital-video.html! However, doctors and nurses are not alone. Perhaps it was my twenty-three year career in hospital portering that led me to think as I do for the subject of this article. When I was in Theatres in the early 2000's a new porter joined the department whom I will not name, nor will I post any links to what happened (Right now I can't find any actually). Porters often have nicknames and his was "Swampy". This is because he was a bit of a hippy and reminded us a bit of the famous road building protester Daniel "Swampy" Hooper. A couple of years after he joined, he and a civilian friend of his did a terrible thing. They broke into the house of an old man who lived alone, somebody they knew. The man was in at the time and they demanded money and valuables from him as well as the PIN for his bank card. When he refused they tied him up and wrapped an electric flex around his neck. They then threatened to pull it tight and strangle him unless he complied. I'm not sure what happened next and several different stories came out in court. Either the old man still refused to surrender or one or both of his two assailants got carried away; either way, the flex did end up getting pulled tight and the victim died. After they had fled the scene and calmed down, Swampy and the civilian must have realized that they would be hunted by the police; therefore they took everything they had stolen from the old man and headed for Amsterdam. You might anticipate that this was some kind of escape attempt, but it wasn't. Once in the Dutch capital, the two men went on a wild three-day bender. They blew every penny they had stolen from the old man on drink, drugs and prostitutes. It appears that they realized that they had no chance of evading the police and it was only a matter of time before they were caught, as indeed they were a few days later. Knowing also that they definitely faced a lengthy prison sentence, they decided to have one last experience of hedonism before the years of austerity behind bars. They are probably still there today. The reason I can't help finding this amusing is that theirs is such a typically hospital portering response to the situation. Obviously this is not a laughing matter, especially for the poor man who was killed and his loved ones, who have my sympathy; hence the shame I feel at laughing. We don't choose our feelings though; and once I became a hospital porter I became one in its entirety. I can never again choose not to be one.

Barry Dies

 

I'm very sorry to report that my wonderful friend Barry Blake-Cox has died. I met Barry when I first started at the hospital. He was a telephonist who later became telephone monitoring officer. He went on to be an X-ray records clerk before leaving the NHS. He was definitely the civilian I was closest to and when he left the hospital we remained in touch. He died in April last year at the age of seventy-two. When I joined the Hospital Portering Service, it's no exaggeration to say he kind of adopted me. He was a much older man who became a father figure to me. We drifted apart in the last decade of his life, mostly due to the other relationships he had. Despite this I always held him in the deepest of affection. Rest in Peace, Barry. Hope to see you again some day.

Popping the Question- The Responses

 

What do you do as a hospital porter when somebody "pops the question". You may wonder what I mean by that. It doesn't mean being asked if you'll marry somebody (like the hell that would ever happen to a porter!), it means something very different. It was a question I was luckily not asked very often. It was usually nurses who did it, occasionally paramedics; rarely doctors. Usually I get a few minutes warning before the bomb drops. A stupid condescending smile will come over their face; and then, when we're alone together: "Ben... Ben. Come on now! How long have you been a porter for now, Ben? You're an intelligent young man and you obviously care. You really shouldn't be wasting your life doing something as worthless as portering. Have you ever thought about going up the ladder; becoming a nurse, an ODP, a surgical tech or a paramedic?" There are a number of responses you can make, the most obvious and impulsive being to shout: "Get out of my sight, you patronizing bitch!" Of course you can't do that on duty. I usually take a deep breath and count to ten, and then reply: "No, I'm too young and adventurous. I want more from life than a boring civilian job can give me. If you're content to tootle (great word that) along in your bland and humdrum existence as a nurse etc, then I'm pleased for you; but I am meant for a higher destiny." If I am feeling more aggressive I generally turn the question round: "Have you ever asked a nurse, paramedic, ODP etc if they've ever thought about becoming a porter?" They will of course answer no. "Why not?" They will then be forced into a corner where they have to admit they consider HPing inferior. I can then say: "Right, well I have a much higher opinion of the Hospital Portering Service then you do. I didn't become a HP because I wanted to be something "better", but didn't have the busfare upstairs! I joined the HP Service because I wanted to be a porter! I'm proud to be a porter! Good day!" and I walk away.
 
I try to resist getting too angry when dealing with people popping the question; this is because people who do it usually do not mean any harm. They are being tactless rather than malicious. They've simply never considered seeing the world the way I do. A response that is challenging and robust, yet calm and polite, could educate them. Hurling abuse at them will just drive them away. There is one exception to this, a man called Jack who popped the question continuously to me. He literally did it every time he saw me. He was a former porter who became an operating department practitioner, a kind of theatre nurse. He was very keen on giving porters what he called "the opportunity" to "better themselves". I don't object to that in practical terms. If a HP wants to quit and pursue a civilian career, that's up to them. The problem is, when Jack said "opportunity" what he actually meant was "mandate". It is a very weird thing to be obsessed with what a fellow grown man decides to do with their own life, but Jack was. I do wonder if he was just being a windup merchant. Either way, his behaviour was bizarre and disrespectful. He once shouted obscenities at me in a crowded pub. He eventually moved to another hospital and we lost touch. I suppose I should have just told him to get lost, but for some reason I never did. Maybe it was because of my little "experiment", see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/02/humiliation-reply-to-stefan-molyneux.html and: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/11/nice-guys-reply-to-stefan-molyneux.html. I will have to return to this subject in a future article, but The Gas Spanner programme linked below gives a few more details. Some people appear to have no ability to introspect. They cannot assess their own actions against any external standard other than popularity and peer approval. Resisting people popping the question is not easy; it is actually far more difficulty than making dignity statements. However, it can be done effectively with enough practice.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-gas-spanner-programme-7.html.

New Lodge

 

I was sent this photograph of a porters' lodge at the JRH and it filled me with sadness. It is so different to the lodges I knew when I first began in portering in 1988. The lodge is the centre of a hospital porter's life on duty. It is the base of operations for work, rest and play in the hospital. As much as I loathe the film Paper Mask, as I said again recently, see: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/08/cabal-on-paper-mask.html, the portrayal of the porters in their lodge is a well crafted nostalgic fantasy, see: https://youtu.be/4BgBoaCQr20?t=84. A typical traditional HP's lodge is about fifteen feet square. It is usually near the hospital's main entrance and often the reception desk is attached to it because porters often man reception. Most hospitals now employ civilian receptionists, but these only work office hours. At other times the porters do it, often the senior or desk porters. It has the porters' lockers around the walls and usually large items of their property stored on top of them, together with a few decades build-up of dust. There are easy chairs in a communal circle with a low coffee table and a television set at the focus. On the table will be drinking mugs and newspapers. On the wall will be a notice board and sometimes a calendar decorated with soft pornographic images. There may well be humourous items pinned up too. By the door is a punch-clock with a rack for the porters' time cards. There is always a kettle with coffee and tea, with usually powdered milk; although some hospitals value their porters enough for them to provide a fridge for milk and even, the ultimate luxury, a microwave oven! The lodge will sometimes consist of two or three separate rooms. Adjoining the main room described above will often be a storeroom full of gas cylinders, sack trucks, stretcher poles and other tools of the trade. The reception desk space can be accessed through a door designed to hide the lodge interior from the general public. I sympathize there; some sights are for a porter's eyes only. Often the reception function is combined with dispatch; the taking of task requests by telephone, and more recently computer, that were distributed to the crew via the senior porter. The lodge is where we greet each other as we hand over a shift and say farewell to our brothers on the subsequent shift. The lodge was where we had fun during quiet periods, especially on nightshift. There was the watching of films, games of cards and general shooting the breeze; and that's just the start. There were arguments too, confessions and the outpouring of emotion. We always said that on the first nightshift, if a porter were having a row with his wife nobody would know about it; but by the third night all of us would. The lodge was a theatre of conversations that would be unthinkable anywhere else. A large hospital might have several lodges and there are also small ones for departmental sections...
 
The porters' lodge I see in the image above is in another universe from that. There is only one chair, presumably for the dispatcher. The place is sterile, bureaucratic and clinical, with nothing human or personal is sight. Flesh and blood is toxic to it. Anything that is not made out of Formica, chipboard, aluminium or plastic looks completely out of place. The cupboards obviously contain our tools and I see files for paperwork, all stored with state-corporate precision. There are the usual anti-covid measures and a large printer for printing out the task slips. This lodge is buried deep within the building, where no sunlight or fresh air can reach. I have to admit, I was there to witness the early stages of this transformation, see the links below. I recall one of the porters who had artistic talent drew some amusing caricatures of his fellow porters as anthropomorphic animals and added the caption on each one: "Which porter is THIS?". He posted photocopies of them on the notice boards in all the hospital's lodges. The head porter... sorry! Portering manager... went round and took them all down. He said they were "not work related" and even disciplined the porter for the misuse of hospital resources! Management became obsessed with eliminating "downtime", which just means porters taking a brief rest between tasks. There has been an element of this snideness since the 1960's at the Churchill, old porters used to tell me; but modern management have picked up this buck and turned it into a form of mania. They honestly seem to believe that if they make our lodge as uncomfortable as possible we will somehow work harder. They thought porters were using the lodges to escape work. Nonsense! If a porter wants to escape work at the JRH there are hundreds of secluded nooks and crannies they can go and hide in and nobody will find them, I guarantee. The lodge is the last place a porter will seek to avoid work. Workload varies throughout the day in a hospital for all staff, both portering and civilian. This is because it is impossible to plan everything ahead and therefore we are not to blame if we are suddenly left at a loose end for half an hour. We should not be made to feel guilty for that! Why shouldn't we put our feet up and have a cup of tea? So long as we are always available on standby as and when required nothing else matters; that is our duty. That was the whole purpose of the lodge in the first place. Why do modern NHS managers not understand this? The destruction of the traditional porters' lodge is one of the starkest indicators of the destruction of the HP's and the health service in general.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-social-club-today.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/02/remember-your-place-in-workplace.html.

Cabal on Paper Mask

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/07/paper-mask-full-movie-online.html.
My good friend and brother porter who goes by the online nom-de-guerre "XCABALX" has written his own review of Paper Mask. The article is in both Polish and English because, like many HP's, Cabal hails from Eastern Europe. His insight into the film is very interesting and he spots many things that I missed. He has also captured a number of screenshots from the movie. Since watching Paper Mask I have also seen Withnail and I and I must admit Paul McGann is very good in that excellent comedy. Therefore he has redeemed himself slightly in my books. Cabal rightly points out the incredulity of the plot. It is not realistic; in fact it is something of a fantasy. Even back in the 90's, in Poland or the UK, it would have been impossible to impersonate a doctor as easily as Matthew Harris did. Today it would be even harder, with the endless electronic ID checks we all have to go through. I have also watched the film The Talented Mr Ripley, which tells the story of a habitual conman who kills a millionaire playboy and impersonates him. There are parallels between the two stories. Simon Harris is every bit as much an antihero. He is not only extremely deceitful; he is heartless, selfish and cowardly. He only expresses genuine emotion when his own hide is jeopardized. The scriptwriter is indeed a doctor, and I have yet to read his novel from which he adapted the film; I do have a copy though. He would have been in a position to research the HP's at his hospital, and didn't do too bad of a technical job; although, as I have said before, I bitterly resent his offensive and patronizing portrayal of us. I also don't like the way the extent of the porters' uniforms at the fictional hospital Harris serves at consists of a filthy grey overcoat pulled over their ordinary jeans and sweatshirts. HP's don't actually look like that (or they shouldn't). One element of the story that is one hundred percent accurate is that literally moments after Matthew/Simon has been unwillingly reunited with Moran, the first thing his old brother porter says is: "So are we going to a pub or what?" Typical HP! As it happens Harris is luring Moran away to murder him. Well done to Cabal for producing this neat bilingual essay on that most hateful of cinematic curses. Source: https://dreamingspireart.wordpress.com/2022/08/11/za-maska-recenzja-filmowa-paper-mask-1990-movie-review/.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2016/12/hospital-porters-in-media.html.

"Head Porter"

 

Sometime in the mid-90's I had a rather unsettling conversation. I used the term head porter to refer to my boss, the person in change of the JRH porters. The person I was talking to, a domestic supervisor, corrected me; it's “portering manager”, she said severely. I had already found out by then that the OxRad administration placed a bafflingly extreme priority on using the right words; and indeed I had another major lesson many years later, see background link below. The terms “head porter” and “portering manager” are actually very similar to “U-boat” and “submarine” or “astronaut” and “cosmonaut”. They are exactly the same thing, yet they are given different names for psycho-political reasons. George Orwell predicted this would happen. Nevertheless, when the terminology changed there was a massive change in the culture of the hospital and therefore the role played in it by the porters. It happened during the Blair New Labour era which was marked by the massive corporatization of the NHS, which I've discussed too many times to suggest a reference. Image became everything. The Trust spent almost a million pounds revamping the public areas of the hospital to make them look like a combination of a hotel and shopping centre. Since then they have spent even more money doing it again! Yet at the same time waiting lists lengthened and post-operative infections soared. New and virulent superbugs emerged out of nowhere, apparently. In truth it was because of a breakdown in the organization's efficiency and professionalism that led to unsanitary levels of hygiene. One year, five thousand people died of these bugs in NHS hospitals less than a decade after I almost lost my job for refusing to call myself an “ODO”. These people are like dodgy car salesmen, painting over the rust. When I started out on a HP career in 1989 the head porter was usually somebody who had been promoted up through the ranks, with a huge amount of experience and expertize is HPing. Portering managers were brought in from outside. We had a whole series of them and they were usually people who had business college degrees. Most of them had no experience at all in healthcare outside administration. During their orientation they would do their standard two weeks in the lodge, but that does not make you a porter. They usually didn't stay for long. This is why I felt so uncomfortable being corrected when I said “head porter”. I knew, partly subconsciously, that it symbolized the rot. You'll be glad to know that I always called my boss the head porter after that, without exception. I still use that terminology to this day.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2017/07/odo.html.

"You're Wasted as a Porter!"

 

At my hospital it seems I had a reputation for being very intelligent. This is not what I said about myself; just what others thought about me. They also were impressed with how dedicated I was towards my job and how caring I was towards the patients. Unfortunately the usual progression from that was something along the lines of: "So why are you wasting your life being a porter?" As if you have to be a heartless, lazy moron to be a hospital porter. (Cue the wag who comments: "but it helps!") That's what they were implying. It is a very difficult situation to deal with; far more so than those which require dignity statements. This is because your antagonist is probably not motivated by any malicious intent. Yes, occasionally you'll come across some emotional vampire who will keep saying "you're wasted as a porter" to wind you up, but this is very rare. Mostly they will truly believe they are giving you an honest compliment out of friendly intentions. They do not realize that the compliment doubles up as an insult, an insult against the hospital portering service. I don't like feeling angry with people who mean me no harm and act out of ignorance instead of spite. Probably the ideal solution is to explain the conundrum in a calm and gracious manner. If you can manage that, then you and your antagonist will part on good terms. Hopefully they will have learned a lesson and no longer be an antagonist. I'm surprised this is the first time I have mentioned this issue during all the years I have been doing the HPWA blog and The Gas Spanner radio project. Oddly enough it was a very recent experience that reminded me, literally just a couple of weeks ago. The lady involved is a good woman who is gentle and respectful, meaning no harm. You'll be pleased to know that I did respond politely.