A blood test… two actually – and at different pathology labs… ugh…
But it was Friday and my workload was light, so I figured I might as well go sit in line and stare at my phone for a while until the nurse could stick a needle in my arm.
I arrived with 25 minutes left on the clock – they were closing at 1pm – and there was one person in front of me. That person was in and out in less than 3 minutes, but I wasn’t sure the phlebotomist had seen me there, so I went up to stick my head in.
‘Just checking if you have time for one more?…’ I said gently.
Without looking up she told me to go and wait and I’d be called shortly.
‘Ok – sorry…’ I said, ‘wasn’t sure if you had seen me.’
Not a warm reception at all I mused. I felt like a spanked child. Wonder what’s got into her today?
A minute later she called me in. We brusquely moved thru the paperwork while I confirmed that I really was who I said I was. She didn’t look at me once and it felt like a heavily strained interaction. Sometimes you can tell when someone is on the edge and I surmised that for some reason this woman was holding it together with string and duct tape – and the string was almost worn thru…
I didn’t want to pry into her day so I just smiled and answered her questions. Once the paperwork was done she went to gather her needles and collection tubes into the little grey, kidney shaped dish they all seem to have.
The she looked at me, took a breath and said ‘It’s been hell today.’
The needle penetrated my arm. But her words also penetrated. She certainly looked like someone who had been thru hell and now she had told me about it. So the choice now is to ask further or just smile and nod (none of my business really).
‘Oh really?’ It seemed the best ‘ambiguous’ response. I wasn’t sure whether to ask exactly what ‘hell’ looked like.
‘I called my boss in tears and resigned’, she said. That took me back. I had never met Jenny before but it was obvious she was no beginner at this stuff. She was mid 50’s looked and sounded like she was a strong, no nonsense kind of woman. But she was now telling me she was on the phone resigning – in tears.
‘Can I swear?’ she asks. Then before I can consent she simply speaks the words ‘F–k, f–k, f–k…!’
‘That good hey?… So what did happen today then?’ I asked. She didn’t look someone who would easily drop her guard with a complete stranger. She had that professional nurse air about her that wanted to keep to the job at hand, but she was clearly reeling and she had opened the door and invited me in.
So she began to tell me the story of being in a very busy centre as the only person on deck, meaning people have to wait in line – and some people don’t like to wait and instead get nasty and angry and abusive. And some people think blood tests are always a 5 minute thing, but sometimes she has to make phone calls, complete forms, check information and the slots get longer and the waiting customers get gnarlier and gnarlier… She took a breath. All this while blood is draining from my left arm.
‘It was actually only one person who was terrible,’ she clarifies.
‘One’s enough sometimes.’ I said.
It was about here that I had ‘a moment’ where I realised I could get her to ‘wind up the whinging and just take my blood‘, or I could pause, lean in a little and allow her to talk. It actually became a conscious moment of decision – because I too had other things to do too – like lunch. I was on the verge of ‘hangry’.Not pretty.
It literally was only a few minutes of listening and asking a few more questions as Jenny unwound her day and her frustrations with the lack of staff. She was angry at being mistreated – and fairly so. Those ‘please treat our staff with courtesy and respect’ signs we now see in various offices are there for a reason. She felt taken advantage of, being slotted into a very busy room with only her on deck. Andshe didn’t really want to resign – but had just had enough that day.
As she talked she was completing the forms, and trying to get a little piece of cotton wool back on the needle hole in my arm. And as she did I was conscious too that the room was feeling lighter – that her countenance had shifted and that we were both smiling.
I’m not always attuned to these moments – in fact I’d imagine more go thru to the keeper than I will ever know – but it was just a reminder today of how easy it is to simply be a decent human being to someone who has been on the rough end of the stick all day.
People sometimes ask how we ‘sense God’ in our everyday lives and I imagine moments like these are there often, if we are able to live at a pace where the call to interact can get past the busy thoughts, or hangry feelings that so often occupy our brains.
I hesitate to share this as I don’t want to make myself sound more attuned to God than I really am – because truth be told it’s not my sweet spot. But this was just one of those moments where the Spirit got my attention and I was able to take a breath and listen – just for a few minutes. It was quite beautiful.