When you can't understand...

I used to work at Rhode Island hospital (part of which is pictured here). I was the executive secretary to the Vice President of Facilities Management, the Director of Master Planning, and the Director of Emergency Preparedness.

I hated being a secretary because I felt the job, although important, wasn't valued and I wanted a job where I felt valued and had my 'place'. I did, however, love my job. I loved the atmosphere and all the great work I got to do. My days were varied and at times I had some really fun things to do.

For the VP I got to take notes at lots of fun meetings. Don't think meetings can be fun? How about a meeting at 5 AM on a Saturday that entails a controlled shut down of the hospital power plant in order to test the back up system the power company provides? Yes, it was a Saturday but boy was it fun!

For the Director of Emergency Preparedness I got to be the 'secretary' at the Disaster Drills. I manned the 'control center'. All of the department heads would report to the control center (usually a conference room in the children's hospital) and I got to tell them what to do. I had to be the contact person for the National Guard, state health department and emergency services. It was so much fun to feel valued like that.

I learned more about the problems associated with power outages and emergencies through these two roles. In my state I am never more than 7 minutes away from a hospital - thats pretty impressive. In the event of a power outage a typical ventilator has only 20 minutes of battery power. In the event of a power outage much of the psychiatric wing would be compromised as the door locks are on the main power grid. All very interesting stuff.

For the Director of Master Planning (who I did most of my work for) I would go to meetings to take notes and go to fancy dinners with the corporations donating money. I would show 'VIPs' around the campus and handled lots of very important meeting requests with said VIPs. I loved so much about my job.

The things I didn't like about it included that our office was set up in an odd way so that the finance manager was my supervisor although I didn't do any direct work for her. She was on a power trip and was constantly up my ass. I don't like to use fowl language but she deserves that connection. She made many of my days miserable and on more than one account I would scream "I'm quitting!"

My boss, the director of master planning, was taking a job as an executive at a NY city hospital. I knew things would get bad when she left so I planned to quit shortly afterwards and go back to school full time to finish my degree - which is how I'm a computer programmer now.

I did a lot of work with all the members of the department. My friend Brenda, an architectural drafter and I had the pleasure of being mentors for a high school student who would be an intern at our department for half a year. We had a lot of fun with Steven, the student, and learned alot about ourselves in the process. I actually saw Steven after I finished school and started my current job. He was in his senior year, was accepted to University of Miami for architecture, currently doing an internship at a large architectural firm. I was happy to see him do so well.

Joanne and I worked together as secretaries for the department. We had a ball together, she is so funny! When I left she got my job and all its responsibilities, and she does great.

There were several project managers in our department (and engineers and architects and drafters and carpenters and electricians etc. It was a BIG department). I got along very well with all the project managers. Cindy was the lead project manager and worked very closely with my boss Claudia (director of master planning). We would frequently go to dinners/meetings/celebrations for work, together so I got to know them well. At the present time Cindy is sailing the lower Caribbean on her sail boat. Her husband and herself decided to quit their jobs, sell their house and sail on their boat for the foreseeable future. Her blog is here: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/tashmoo/?show=fulltoc

Yesterday morning one of the project managers, Bob Barton, fell off the APC building (the white building in the above picture). Its a 12-story drop and it took them 4 hours to identify his body as his employee ID badge and wallet were not on him. He had just returned from vacation and Joanne told me that they had lunch together on Tuesday and everything seemed to be good for him. I don't know if they will every know what happened to cause his death.

I can't believe this happened. I would venture back to the facilities building whenever Arianna had an appointment at the hospital to see everyone and Bob was always the first one to come running to say hello and ask how everything was. He was a very genuine guy and I feel so badly for his wife and daughter (who is my age).

I only hope they have collections of mismatched, bright socks in heaven. I used to give him such a hard time about his funky socks, yet it gave him personality. This world needs more personality and unfortunately this one is gone.