The Sr. Managers here take turns being what is called the AOC (Administrator On Call). What this means is that you carry a beeper 24/7 and are responsible for essentially running the hospital after hours and on weekends. Generally, the pager tends to go off at 3:00 in the morning with irate patients wanting to lodge a complaint with "the President of the Hospital" - "Now!". My job is to make sure they never get that far and resolve the problems. Often times, they can be very serious calls - abductions, child abuse, VIP patients - anything that might land on the news, or "escalate". There is a lot of fodder in this experience for blogging, and I'll get to some of them, but this one story brought to mind an incident that occurred a few years ago.
One of the reasons I kind of like being AOC (aside from sleepless nights and stress), is the fact that it lets me work in areas of the institution and deal with people I normally have very little contact with. I had gotten called in to the hospital on Saturday afternoon to deal with a problem (no heat in the NICU. Neonatal intensive care - cold babies are not a good thing - they have to be kept VERY warm.), and since I was there, I paged a colleague who was working that day to see if he wanted to grab a cup of coffee. He happens to work in the Psychiatry Dept. as a therapist. "Sure" he says, I'm just finishing up a group therapy session. Why don't you stop by?"
Well, given the clientele we tend to attract here at the Baltimore Knife and Gun Club, crazy homeless people tend to be our stock in trade. So I go waltzing over to Psych and ask for my friend. "Oh - he's just finishing up in the conference room - pop your head around and let him know you're here". Imagine my surprise to see him holding court (literally), at a table of about 20 homeless women.....All dressed in a variety of formal gowns and looking as if they were off to meet the Queen (or their high school prom). A lot of the dresses didn't fit well. Zippers that didn't quite meet at the end, sleeves that were way too tight, and let's not even talk about some of the necklines and cleavage shall we? There are things left best to the imagination (my eyes! My eyes!).
Apparently, a bridal shop had gone out of business and had donated boxes of excess inventory to the shelter we run, and the ladies got their pick.
And you know what? Their entire attitudes were changed. They sat taller, with an air of self confidence and elegance that might not have been justified, but was very, very real nonetheless. They were proud.
I asked my friend how he held a session and kept a straight face given some of the outlandish getups (the footwear was unbelievable). His response was that the dignity and self respect that the women got from being able to wear these dresses - even if they were really just costumes, was better than any counseling or drug therapy he could prescribe. You just never know.
But there are some 'ho's on the mean streets of Baltimore wearing serious designer prom gowns.
As Queen Alexandra is meant to have said "The consciousness of being really well dressed gives me a peace of mind that surpasses the peace of God" And as this story makes clear that applies to most of us.
As Queen Alexandra is meant to have said "The consciousness of being really well dressed gives me a peace of mind that surpasses the peace of God" And as this story makes clear that applies to most of us.
C