so much for the people pleaser.

i took a short "personality profile" type test last week which reminded me again of what the myers briggs' test told me 4 years ago: i talk too much and care way too much of what other people think about me. these are two of the "weaknesses" for someone like me (although i could argue for talking too much sometime being a strength...someone has to do the talking, right?). now, thanks to that stupid test, i've become again (for a brief time no doubt) acutely aware of every action triggering one or both of these things. so today at the hospital, i decided to take my former taylor roommates' longwithstanding advice to do what's right and not care what someone thought of me b/c of it.

paula is a 50+ year-old LPN, (which is almost like a nurse, but different in that she can't give drugs to people hand-to-hand) and was having a bad morning. it was 9:00 a.m., and already she was stressed to the bone. now, mind you...she's the kind of person who gets stressed out about a fork dropping to the floor or when more than one patient asks for a glass of water around the same time. point blank, she's always a little grumpy and irritated and aggrivated with human beings. here i come, ready to get a patient and take them to x-ray and paula picks up their breakfast tray and then walks one step before tripping, with food and plates and silverware and orange juice going all over the patient's room floor and out in the hall. i recognize the embarassing situation, drop to the floor, and begin picking up chunks of scrambled eggs. paula helps in repeated sighs and grunts, chomping on her little annoying piece of gum in the process. i'll spare you the verbatim words, but a few minutes later--due to several more time-wasting moments--she snaps at me in front of the patient, complaining that i've wasted her time, and storms out of the room in disgust. now, i said nothing but all i could think of was how unprofessional, rude, and disrespectful this was to me, and more importantly, to both patients in this room. i've felt this millions of times while working at the hospital but have NEVER said anything to the nurse or doctore or employee with the bad attitude. now though, i'm fed up. my personality weaknesses are on the brain and i'm getting hot just thinking about how to confront paula on just how rude she was. i thought for minutes and minutes and after taking the patient to x-ray, made up my mind to suck up my people pleasing instict telling me to just "let it go" and walked up to her alone and went off....sort of. i told her how unkind and rude and disrespectful that was of her to treat me the way she did and she looked at me in shock b/c this is the way she treats everyone. although she never apologized, she accepted my comments with respect and said to take what she says "with a grain of salt." my co-workers--two of them walked by while this was happening and overheard me saying "that was rude" in a very serious tone, so then, were wondering what was up--were stunned. "neville, i've never seen you get mad???" they said. i smiled (i get mad all the time---and they never even know it). "no one make neville mad or he'll tell you what's up!!!" another co-worker said. for the rest of the day, i was seen as a rebel, leading a group of high school dropouts on a road to respect in the hierarchy of employment at borgess medical center. one small step for neville, one giant step for borgess-mankind.