Lounge lizards

On an OR Facebook page I follow because it is funny, someone asked a question about where some people go during lunch and breaks.

They aren’t in the lounge.

Not in the department.

As I see it there are three answers to this mystery.

The first answer is probably the most likely. Some people just don’t want to sit with other people. This can because of a variety of reasons.

People, some people, suck.

There is a television ALWAYS going and silence is never appreciated.

There are too many voices going on, competing with the TV and each other.

Chaos in a break room is not loved by everyone.

Have you never noticed the seating area that people have created outside the lounge. Or is that just my hospital.

The second answer is that not everyone goes to lunch at the same time.

This is an operating room! Cases do not start at 0630, 0830, 1030, [PAUSE FOR EVERYONE TO GO TO LUNCH], 1230, 1430, etc.

This is not how the OR schedule in a hospital works, or any OR schedule in anywhere I’ve ever worked.

This also isn’t high school where we all have to eat the same things, drink the same things to be popular. We’re all adults, most of us do not care.

If the OR schedule stopped so everyone could go to lunch at the same time, the lounge would have to be ginourmous to accommodate all the employees in the department.

The third answer, and the one that I gave, was that they are busy working.

My answer verbatim “Aww, you think I take a break?

When I was the evening charge nurse there was ALWAYS something to do and only me to do it.

I always look a little askance at the ones who are always in the break room. You know who you are.”

My evenings were spent doing the cases on the board or preparing for the next day, I don’t watch television, I don’t require an audience while I eat.

Everyone is on their phone anyway. No one is watching the television but protests when it is turned off.

If you are in the lounge often enough to notice abscence of certain people, you might be in the lounge too often. And we have noticed. Management probably hasn’t, but your coworkers have.

You are the lounge lizard.