The Tao of Apathy Page 2

  “Crapper,” Dr. Callous sneered. “Get out of here.”

  “T-Talk to you g-guys later.” Crapper stumbled out of the room and hurried down the hall. The thing most unlike Richard Gere, and therefore it kept him from getting laid, was his stutter. But he did not have time to get laid or to chat with the doctors because his job as a director was very important. It was the directors’ job to meet regularly. They took their meetings very seriously and met often and had their meetings catered by the Food Service Department. They often spent hours working out when they were going to meet and where. They spent entire meetings congratulating themselves on meeting so often. Then they would schedule a special meeting to work out a way that they could meet less and devote more time to other things that they would never do. Today the meeting would be to work out how they were going to save their asses.

  Crapper went to the Presidential Executive Suite to follow the hospital’s administrator to the meeting. Jonas Grumby, the hospital’s CEO was in his office deciding on the outcome of brainstorming that his directors will be doing in their meeting. While his employees attended to their daily routine like school bullies repeating the third grade- some floundered in circles in their part of the hospital and others meandered down the hallways; Mr. Grumby conspired against them. Not intentionally (this time), but he was about to begin a reorganization of the hospital that did not need to be an attack on the employees, but would be.

  “Is that Mr. Crapper waiting outside there?” Grumby asked his secretary as she came into his large office. Grumby leaned back in his dark leather chair and smoothed his white hair with his chubby fingers. He combed his hair straight back; it was still full, but slowly moving away from his forehead to the point that his hairline began at his ears. Grumby was tall, about three hundred pounds and prone to wear a captain’s cap.

  “Yes, sir. He looks a little lost.”

  “That’s my little buddy.” Then without moving in his chair, he turned and addressed the new executive not yet assigned to a specific position, but hired by the board of trustees to be trained by Grumby personally. “Mr. Petty, I would like you to come with me to the meeting with the department directors. I know this is your first day, so I don’t even expect you to be able to take everything in. But we have some important decisions to make.”

  “Absolutely,” William Petty said. He sat with his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms behind his head so that his expensive suit fell open and revealed the suspenders he wore just like the lawyers on soap operas. In spite of the smaller chair that he sat in, he looked more like a CEO than Grumby who looked more like the president of a welders’ union. Petty was thirty-seven with short black hair and big dull eyes that he always made eye contact with. “What decisions, Mr. Grumby?”

  “Well, actually, the decisions that the board of trustees have already made.” Grumby leaned forward and folded his hands on top of his desk. “Obamacare is forcing us to change with its possible of less revenue. Research has shown that we believe it will. What I need to do is get the directors to come up with the idea of hiring a consulting firm to stream-line our hospital, and run with it because they are going to have it rammed down their throats anyway.”

  Petty leaned forward. “Do we tell them that they are going to have it rammed down their throats?”

  “They know.”

  Grumby motioned Petty to come closer. “You see, the board of trustees is the governing body of Saint Jude’s, right? They are the direct supervisors of the departmental directors, which are overseen by me. I answer only to the regional president of our parent company, The Sisters of the Sorrowful State. The regional president reports to the board of trustees of whom he is a member.”

  Petty nodded his head. “Ah, so this assures that the trustees are able to keep close tabs on Saint Jude’s.”

  “Uh-huh. Unless something goes wrong,” Petty whispered. “Then the hierarchy assures that the trustees can’t be held accountable.”

  “Wow.”

  “The Board of Trustees consists of three devoted and parsimonious nuns and six very knowledgeable and greedy doctors,” Grumby went on with a wink in his voice. “They have originated an innovative plan that every other hospital has done. When and I mean if Obamacare hobbles us, we need to have already carried out our plan. This consists of having an independent efficiency consulting company study the hospital and make recommendations on how to make us more cost-effective.” Grumby looked from one side of his office to the other. “There are operatives from The Company here in the hospital already.”

  “Really?” Petty looked around the room, too. “I would like to meet them.”

  “So would I. I don’t know who they are, but I guess they are going to help the board use our “re-engineering” to get rid of some ineffective personnel.” The management trainee shot the old CEO a look. Grumby chuckled. “I wonder who will be the first to go.”

  “Would you read back to me what we have been whispering about so far?” Grumby bellowed to his secretary who had been standing next to his desk.

  “Sure,” Betty, his secretary, said. “This hospital provides the best medical care in the Lansing, Michigan area and the board is not happy with that at all. They are paying a company a pile of money to find a need to fire one-third of the staff and they want you to take the credit for that.”

  “Good. Make a copy of your notes for our young trainee here. Yeah, giving me the credit for coming up with this plan is a little peace offering from the board to show that they are not angry with me just because I am opposed it. Okay,” he said, leaning back and turning his chair in Betty’s direction. Betty flipped to a new page in her steno pad and sat down. “I’m going to give the agenda for the meeting. I want you to type this up, Xerox it and hand it to every man at the meeting. Once you get them handed out, collect them again and shred them. Okay. item of business number one- waste. I really don’t have anything to say about that,” Grumby said as an aside to Petty.

  “Second item of business,” he dictated to his secretary, “reducing non-value added employees. Do we need an outside company to determine who the non-value added employees are? dash dash dash-Yes.”

  “Why sir?” Betty asked. “Why do we need an outside company? Why not just get rid of some middle and upper management people like many companies?”

  “That’s why,” Grumby laughed. He was getting angry with her. “To make the decision that it’s not us middle and upper management that need to be let go. We are valuable assets after all. Many of us are so talented that we got promoted by our friends even though we failed at lower positions. Let’s continue shall we, dear? Next item of business—raises. On my personal notes please write: ‘We can’t give raises; the hospital is broke.”

  “What about the three million dollars in profits last year,” Betty blurted out.

  “Except for that, we’re broke, honey. We need that money for a new administration building, which we need to built to get rid of our surplus money. It’s complicated, Heather, and if we weren’t in love with you, I would not bother to explain it, but the federal government doesn’t let non-profit organizations make that much money, so we have to spend it. And if we spend all our money, then we are broke. Besides, I bet you didn’t know that our facilities are cramped to the point of having only one office for each management personnel.” Grumby shook his head. “Raises would be too much fat. In fact, Mr. Petty, our current financial status mandates that we replace some veteran staff with high school students.”

  “Sir,” Betty interrupted, slapping her notebook on his desk. “First of all, stop calling me Heather. That was your last secretary. I’m twice her age and she did not have a relationship with you either unless you call a restraining order a relationship. Second of all, you can’t put some kid in a professional position. And third of all, most loneliness is self-inflicted.”

  “Of course, Heather,” he said as he walked behind her and looked down her blouse. “We are not going to put those kids in professional posit
ions. We will eliminate the professional positions and create internships so that we don’t have to pay them.”

  “I’m sure the independent company will recommend that to us if we tell them to,” Petty interrupted.

  While scowling at Mr. Petty, Betty leaned forward to take away Grumby’s view of her middle-aged breasts. She had been a secretary too long to take time to rebuke Grumby. Instead she pitied him. If he tried anything that was listed on his last secretary’s harassment suit, however, she would deck him.

  “So let’s get on with this. Agenda item number whatever—Infection control.” Grumby wiped his glasses with a handkerchief and looked at himself in his vanity mirror on the cabinet behind his desk. He admired his chin that looked strong in the mirror, although weak on his face. “Yeah that’s the ticket. Infection control.”

  Betty jotted this down and then looked at him with pen raised. “Our goal is to eliminate all personnel that have any contact with patients.”

  She dropped her pen. “Don’t you think that that will impact the patients without anyone to help them? Won’t they just die then?”

  Grumby couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. If he didn’t love her, he would fire her for her irrelevant questions. “It’s just a goal, Heather.”

  “I’m Betty, Jonas. Heather was your last vict- secretary.”

  “Right. Let’s get back to the business at hand, shall we, Heather? You are thinking that the hospital will then be understaffed, right?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “We are not going to be understaffed,” Grumby said, waving his index finger in the air. “Because after we cut the medical staff, we will double the administrative staff to more efficiently direct those left. In fact, and write this down, we will hire more department managers to help in the process now, before we cut the number of departments.” He smiled like a schoolboy that had just made his whole class laugh by farting, but had actually pooped his pants a little and liked it.

  Betty stood up and glared at him. “And what kind of environment is that going to create for the nurses, the LPN, and the techs, not to mention the patients?”

  Grumby came around to the front of his desk and sat on the edge of it so that her breasts were eye level for him. “I don’t understand your questions, Heather.”

  Chapter 3

  Joe took off his jacket in the locker room and put on the crunchy apron he wore yesterday (reusing dirty aprons had been his boss’s cost-saving idea). Joe immediately began to long for his first smoke break. He gave a nod to Bigger who was grabbing two food carts to be loaded up. It was Bigger’s job to take the carts filled with trays up to the different patient units. He did not hand out the trays; he only had to deliver the carts and then pick them up when they were full of dirty dishes after the meal. The elderly ladies that Bigger worked with in the kitchen considered his job the hardest because he had to push the big, heavy carts. Bigger considered his job the hardest because he had to work with elderly ladies.

  Joe passed the bakery and was not surprised to not see the newbie there. The kitchen no longer needed a baker as most pies and cakes were bought and delivered frozen, but Mr. Seuss, the director of Nutritional Services, had hired one anyway. It could work out well because the new guy never showed up for work. Still, Joe swore under his breath. Seuss would make Joe do the grunt jobs that Joe had pushed off on the new baker. Joe grabbed a new paper hat and squeezed it on his head and then went to help Helen make breakfast.

  Helen had made scrambled eggs every day for the last fifteen years barring vacations, every other weekends, and Tuesdays. And on each of those days, she made them wrong. She insisted on setting the heat too high on the griddle and had to scrape burnt egg off the smoking cooking-surface before each new batch of eggs. This put her and everyone behind, especially Joe who had to fry her bacon and sausages before doing his own job. That had been Seuss’s solution to the scrambled eggs dilemma. Why bother trying to change Helen when in ten short years she would either retire or die? Why get into a confrontation with Helen who argued for days when forced to change when Joe would only quietly sulk.

  As the first tray was set on the conveyor belt, Joe grabbed Helen’s first batch of runny and burnt eggs over to the serving line. Ester put silverware on the orange trays and then put the trays on the big conveyor belt that dragged the meal trays past the other ladies waiting at the appointed stations. Margaret was in charge of the drinks that the patients circled on the menu cards- juice, milk, coffee, and/or Ensure milk shakes. Thelma set plates of eggs and greasy meat of choice on the trays. Augusta put fruit and anything else that the patients or their nurse asked for beside the plates and Donna doled out the pastry and bread items.

  This assembly line worked as efficiently as it could. Each person just had to read each menu slip and get her assigned area of the food group. However, Ester put the trays on the conveyor too fast, which pissed off Donna who was always behind on the toast. Everyone would then yell at her as they stood waiting for Helen to bring the scrambled eggs. If the line stopped for a moment, Ester would run to get something done in her office. Then the conveyor began again and Bigger would have to do her job until she came back out. Otherwise, Bigger waited for a cart to get full and then he hauled it to the unit.

  Often he would return from a floor, 2B- The Birth Center (formerly the Maternity Ward) for example, to have a nurse call down for another tray. It would seem that his bringing up the food cart reminded them that they needed a meal tray for a new admittance. The kitchen ladies would make a meal for the new patient and then Bigger would return to the floor to deliver it. The extra trip drove Bigger nuts, but it kept him out of the kitchen where by now Margaret would be feigning a minor stroke.

  During this time, Joe usually opened five- pound cans of vegetables for lunch or pulled food out of the freezer for the day after next. Today, Joe washed potatoes in the sink with steel wool and set them on trays for the supper meal. He scrubbed hard; sweat already soaked into his hat. He looked over to Helen who was still frying eggs. She was his supervisor, a good one that worked slow to make Joe do more work and harped on him for the mistakes she made, but always got him the days he needed off and let him sneak out for smoke breaks. Helen, like many who had worked in the kitchen for decades, never dared to strive for a better paying job that recognized dedication. For example, Taco Bell. Fast food restaurants at least recognized good employees with employee of the month plaques.

  Ester was Bigger’s supervisor. She muttered under her breath, threw things at people that didn’t listen to her, and then cried when people stood up for themselves. But it was she that people could ask anything about preparing food or what a specific diet called for. A patient on a 2500-calorie diabetic diet got things a patient on a 1500-calorie diabetic diet couldn’t have. Sometimes a doctor would order a kind of meal that only Ester knew. She knew where everything in the stockroom was. She knew how to cut a piece of meat so that it was five ounces without a scale. Bigger respected her so much that he often did things wrong so that she would yell at him.

  “Bigger, what did Mr. Seuss tell you about your pants?” Ester growled at him after the breakfast trays were delivered.

  “He said all the worthless dorks in green pants would be fired.”

  “Shouldn’t you be fired then? You need to go to the locker room and change your pants right now.” Bigger ignored her and went to cut up Jell-O cubes.

  Margaret came over and helped him, although one person could manage the cut up Jell-O job. All of the women doted on Bigger and treated him like a grandson. If they saw a rip in his shirt, they would sew it up for him. They asked him about his wife and kids and liked to bake treats for them. Bigger was there to open jars for the ladies and get stuff off the top shelves of the storeroom (in the kitchen, sexism worked well). They told Bigger he had potential and asked how his search for a better career was going. When they heard how badly it was going, they were not disappointed in him. They told Bigger it took time. Working in the
kitchen was misery for Bigger, but suffering is where love makes its home.

  Chapter 4

  Mr. Crapper followed Mr. Grumby and Mr. Petty to the ten o’clock meeting, keeping far enough behind them to make it seem as if he wasn’t following, yet close enough not to give them the heebie-jeebies. Grumby was stopped several times by people wanting to kiss up to him and to be introduced to Mr. Petty’s butt. Crapper had to stop and just stand in the hallway. To keep from looking odd, he stooped over and signed his name to his legal pad. Then, he tore off the sheet and threw it away.

  In the conference room, the directors of the departments blinked their eyes in response to the early hour and downed the free coffee. Crapper slid into the room on the heels of Grumby and Petty and took his seat at the long table. Seated next to him were Dr. Swagger, Chief of Staff; Jim Crow, Director of Human Resources; Walter Seuss, Director of Nutritional Services; Sky Bone, Director of Radiology; Cant Nough, Director of Medical Records; Don Rickles, Director of Complementary Therapies; and James Liberace, Director of Budgeting. On the other side of the table were Pearl Swine, John McIntrye, and Doctor Sidney Freedman, who were the directors of Education, Treasury, and The Interior; along with Dr. Daneeka, Director of Containment, Refuse, And Purification Services (formerly Housekeeping); Lester Boot, Director of the Medical Library; Robert Englund, Director of Sleep Disorders; and Justin Dyalready, Director of Geriatrics. On vacation was Sherm Shylock, Vice President of Charitable Services. Absent as usual were the directors of Nursing, Emergency, and Surgery who were in meetings with their lawyers.