Plan ahead

Google image

I don't get the mentality (or, more precisely, lack thereof...) behind scheduling nurses at the hospital.

Per diems submit their availability on each day of the upcoming cycle, waay in advance, I might add. Then, the scheduler takes about three weeks (c'mon, really, three weeks?) to produce our schedule. The schedule that will dictate our lives and income for the next month.

Then, we begin our work cycle and show up as arranged. The problem comes when there are staffing holes in the schedule. Big ones. And the charge nurses come around soliciting volunteers to work extra days. Today, for example, my unit is six nurses short. Six! That is just plain poor planning.

So, I am not working today. I am relishing the rest, the ease, the chance to not be on my feet for nine hours straight. And, I am a little smug at saying 'no' to coming in on a day off that has been a day off for nearly a month. Plan ahead, scheduler. It's your job. Learn to do it.

As they say, lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

Burning limbs off

Google image

I got a really cool pole trimmer today, a Poulan hot-shit long pole thing.  It has a little bar and chain on the end of a long pole to trim trees.  Like a chain saw pole vault thing.  I have wanted one forever.  With George in Alaska, I figured I needed one now.

My nephew and I got it ready to attack the limbs leaning out over our driveway.  It looked fast and effective just laying there, all neon green and sleek.

Well, he revved it up and applied it to the limb.  I whined and spun it's chain like you'd expect. But it was passing through the limb at about the same speed as if he was using a nail file.  Hmmm.

He adjusted it a little and tried again.  Same thing, but this time there was smoke.  Lots of it. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the limb has scorch marks where the chain was grinding away at it.  My God, this thing was burning the limb off!  And, slowly at that!

So, I motioned for my nephew to stop and we got out the operator's manual.  An illustration of the bar and chain showed us the problem:  the chain (and therefore, the bar) was put on backwards, meaning no cutting edges were faced in a manner to cut the wood.  So, friction-caused heat was just burning away at the limb.

Well, even though we corrected the problem, the damn thing continued to be persnickety, stopping frequently and not cutting well.  I began to lose confidence.  I just knew that this thing had been assembled by a new or poorly trained (or both) employee on a bad day.  Or by a disgruntled and angry psychopath who was quitting the very day he assembled my trimmer. I just knew that the backward chain was only the tip of the iceberg with this unit.

I took it back and exchanged it for one that was correctly assembled.  I had the store employees open the box for an inspection and we compared the illustrations against the product.

Can you imagine if a less observant person had bought this, say, one of the lower 95?  There would have been a forest fire or a conflagration of some sort.  So, folks, check you chain saws and tree trimmers lest you get burned alive or seriously killed.