i find it very hard to hate people. dislike, yes. but not hate. simply because in every single 'disliked' person that i know of, there's bound to be some goodness somewhere that i can focus on. take for example, a stingy person can simply be interpreted as someone who's perhaps just thrifty. or someone who's irritatingly talkative at work can be a real party person in a social setting. i'm thinking that it's all due to my libran nature. i'm sure somewhere deep with the core of my 'libranism', there's an idiot that's dying to please everyone. the cool part about this is that i don't look at people by their skin colour, size, eye colour, penis size, breath odour, funny ethnic smells and choice of cologne. i tend to judge a person by their characteristic qualities than their physical appearance.

but of course, this world is filled with people of varying degrees of characteristic qualities. some are simply filled with so much goodness that they deserve a Golden Ticket to heaven delivered to their mailbox the next available working day. while others, are just filled with enough of the bad stuff that you wonder if their existence on Earth is simply to bring misery to the human race. for some other really fucked up people, this misery unfortunately extends even to the animal kingdom. yeap, this world is quite a horrid place to live in, ain't it?

all that said, i've just recently discovered a new ability within myself. nope it's not cellular regeneration or telekinesis or muscle memory or whatever new abilities they are coming up next on Heroes. but rather, an ability to actually hate someone at work. and hate with such a passion that post-work, i actually envision applying the various methods of death in my dreams to this particular colleague. and colleague is not even the word i would like to use on this particular person. simply because she's a mercenary, not a team player. then again, there are many mercenaries in the ward that don't bother helping others despite the fact that their colleagues are drowning in discharges, medication, urinals and shit.

from what i gathered from people who have worked with her, she draws the line when it comes to the handing over of a shift. and not only does she draw the line, she highlights it with magic markers, re-draws it with a thick black marker, and completes it with fencing and a high-tech security system on it. it's easier to cross the Mexican border than to cross that line of hers.

this particular colleague hates me even though in the entirety of our careers in the hospital, we've spoken less than perhaps a hundred words. and we've been in the same ward for nearly 1.5 years coming. it's surprising, isn't it? that one can actually hate without having to talk to each other that much. and the silliest bit is, i'm not even sure what she hates or dislikes about me. but there's enough animosity between us to prevent us from talking to each other. but let's not talk about what causes this hate. let's focus on what results from this petty little hate-hate affair between this particular colleague and me. and just to cut down on me having to keep calling her 'this particular colleague' or 'mercenary', let's just label her as 'public enemy'.

yes, the entire ward hates her.


sometimes, the hospital can be conspiring against you working as a staff nurse. suddenly, one can get an influx of calls from Bed Management requesting to send a patient stat, the operating theatre to fetch two patients stat, the pharmacist to collect medications stat, etc. everything in the hospital's stat stat stat. when the nurse wants to go for her break stat though, you see a whole lot of negative words being labelled on her. this is why help from one's colleagues are really appreciated. this is where everyone puts aside their differences and concentrate on helping what matters most to the hospital and us: the PATIENTS.

i was working with the 53 year-old virgin several days ago. amidst admitting several new patients into the ward and settling administrative issues, we suddenly received two phone calls to fetch our patients back from two surgical centres, both within the span of less than five minutes. one had to be sent to the Intensive Care (it was a major operation), the other was a simple day surgery case which just required at least an Enrolled Nurse (one rank below the Registered Nurse) to personally accompany back to the general ward. the 53 year-old virgin is unfortunately a patient care attendant, two ranks below the RN. so he couldn't fetch anyone back. i prioritized and decided to send the Intensive Care case back first.

53 was nice enough to actually ask around the ward for help to fetch the very simple case back. alas, he asked the public enemy who happened to be very free on that particular day. and according to 53 who has a very good memory and is very objective about most things, this is what she said to him:

'I like you, but i don't like your in-charge (which is me)'

and with that, she couldn't care less about fetching my patient back. when 53 told me about what happened, the first thing that came out of my mouth is 'what the fuck?!'. and i seldom use crude language with 53 because he gives me a look of disdain whenever i do. but this was a special occasion that only 'F' words could describe. besides, behind his grandpa glasses, i could detect a hint of agreement. now, it's one thing to dislike someone. but it's another when this 'dislike' extends to the patients under my care, it's seriously fucked up. thank goodness, 53 was resourceful enough to get someone else to help. i followed-up with a bottle of green tea as a token of appreciation to that colleague. 53 and i agreed to just shrug it off and attribute this selfish behaviour as part of the public enemy's nature. the word that we agreed on this time was, 'we'll take it like real gentlemen'.

the really silly thing between the public enemy and me is that she's actually afraid of physical confrontation. or at least that's what i think. whenever we are working in the same shift and she picks up a phone call for me, she will NEVER ever pass me the phone personally. she will despatch a random student nurse to do the awkward job. there was this one time where i actually saw her spending nearly a minute looking for a student. is she insecure? is she afraid of me? what's her problem?

there was this other time when i was at the Endoscopy centre waiting for a porter to send an Oesophagodudenoscopy case back to the ward. i bumped into her along the corridor. she was sending a patient for what i assumed must have been a scope as well. as we crossed paths with each other, i could feel World War Three happening. it was a short war, but i think i won. you see, the Endoscopy centre has basically two entrances: the front and the back. the back exit is mainly for staff to send and fetch their patients. i spent nearly ten minutes waiting for a porter to send my case back with me. when i was back in the ward fifteen minutes after the WWIII confrontation with the public enemy, i found her happily chit-chatting away with her student nurses along the ward corridors. suffice to say, she actually took the front entrance (AKA the longer route) just to avoid another encounter with me.

this was when i realized that she's actually afraid of me. inside, i was laughing my balls so out that i could patent a new non-surgical technique to replace an Orchidectomy. i spent the rest of the shift relating this incident to the rest of my ward colleagues. i also spent the rest of the shift giving her stares that simply said 'i know you're afraid of me'.

i've got to admit that i enjoy fucking with the brains of someone i hate.

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