Day 2 at Work

It was Day 2. Like yesterday's morning, I held position at the main lobby front desk. Nothing was unusual there, except that there were many patients who look really ill, and visitors, facial expressions of gloom and grief. Some patients who were heading for appointments look really weak, and immediately I could tell whether they are cancer or mental patients. Of course, patients heading for other treatment clinics such as the urology and neuro centres couldn't be recognised by their appearance. Time passes very quickly as I witnessed people moving in and out of the hospital. At sometime close to evening, a group of people rushed in and panicky wrote their particulars and rushed into the elevator. I reckon that one of their loved ones could be sitting on the edge of his life, awaiting their urgent arrival. Many other patients come from other countries such as Indonesia and Myanmar, together with their relatives. Most of them are probably rich people, as coming to Singapore for treatment would cost them dearly without the local rate, government subsidy and the 3Ms (Medisave, Medisheild and Medifund).

Saturdays are boring, said one colleague. Indeed, for the whole day there were only about 300 visitor arrivals at my side. Usually there were more than 1000 per day, per entrance. So during the free time, the few of us chatted 'vigorously' and understood some life's problems and we managed to offer some brilliant solutions to one guy. So for a typical guy's talk, surely relationship problems top off the list. One guy problem was a triangular relationship, and again, we managed to help him solve and he's once again a happy person.

On another occasion, we had another life's experience session with an over 50 year-old security guard. He was a product engineer, had a diploma, degree, and he took about 4 years to reach the top salary of $8000 per month. He used to own everything from a big car, luxury condominium, country club memberships, and flies to other countries. His annual income tax was $12 000 per annum, which led us to suspect how much he had earned in the past. Three years ago, he got retrenched and there goes all his ownerships to what he loved at that time. Surely it was depressing to see these luxury go off, and had all his possessions wiped out overnight. Few months after his retrenchment, he signed up for a job as security guard. He accepted it with pride, saying that life has its ups and downs, its okay to experience life in another way. Wow, I salute him for that. I look up to him. And guess what? He's heading back to school to complete his masters in engineering soon. Kudos to him!! People, just don't give up no matter what happens in life =)

Some time past 8pm, a group of three Bangladeshi workers came in and requested to see a friend who is hospitalised. I know it's the end of the visiting hours (5 - 8pm), but the bloody security guard on duty simply shove them off with a straight no with waving hand gestures. One replied that "we work late everyday, only today we can come see him". I was quickly and entirely softened, and maintained my stand again. I wanted to invite them in, but the security guard insisted with a 'sorry, come back tomorrow'. They looked completely lost, and kept staring at me for an approval. But I knew I can't. So what I did was, I gathered them and led them out of the building to the foyer, removed my face mask and hand signalled to them to enter the hospital through another entrance. They understood me after my three tries of winking and hand side-shoving, they smiled and quickly left to enter from the car park. What made me pissed off was that just a few minutes later, someone what look like a Singaporean chinese couple, was allowed to enter without a noise made by that bloody fucking idiot. I wonder what's the double standard, and the 3rd-level racism for.

Shortly after that, I left work for home. Along the journey, made some new friends, who are part of the 100-strong workforce. Some were professionals in the past before they got retrenched, and end up looking for several temporary jobs to sustain their families. Poor people, they're live examples I should feel for, not just spend money life nobody's business. I'm thrifty nowadays, by the way.

That's all for today! I really feel exhausted but gladly so because I've seen so many things today. Tomorrow I'll not report for work. Come monday, there will come the most interesting part. I'll be stationed at the Emergency Department, a.k.a A&E. I'll be seeing life's worse cases like the aftermath of a traffic accident, howling and crying relatives over just-dead loved ones, among other saddening reality. I don't know how much I'll get affected. But emotions aside, I just have to know that these are realities which I can't avoid. Seeing these more often could lead me to be prepared for the unforseen in future.

Goodnight!