First off, I think it’s kind of rude for people to use
abbreviations. I mean, they know what it means, but does anybody else? I think
they say to themselves, “Hmmm, I’ll sound cool if I use this abbreviation, and
if anyone else doesn’t know it, I’ll get a good laugh when they try to guess
what it means.” I think I’ve given several people a good laugh.
One night, the
unit secretary from ER called up and said they were calling Life Flight. I
couldn’t exactly understand what she had said until she made helicopter noises.
Anyway, I was supposed to call the police department because they come out and
make sure the landing pad is cleared of pedestrians. So, I dutifully called the
police and told them that Life Flight was on their way.
“What’s their ETA?”
the guy on the other end asked.
“Their what?”
“Their ETA.”
I decided to
assume that meant he wanted to know what he was supposed to do. I figured he
should already know that, but I would try to help him out anyway.
“I think you guys
come and keep the landing cleared off,” I said.
“Estimated Time of
Arrival,” he clarified, probably thinking that I was a complete nut.
“Uhh, right. I
don’t know that, let me transfer you back to ER.” I was probably blushing over
the phone because I do that often.
Just yesterday, a
guy called and wanted Sterile Processing. Okay, what in the world is that, and
why would anyone want to talk to a department called that? Whatever. The point
is, he wanted to talk to Sterile Processing and I had no idea what to do. Besides
that, the phone had already rung back because another girl had already tried an
extension for him and it didn’t work. Ahhh!
“Is there another
name for that department because we don’t have one called by that name,” I
said, not realizing that we really did.
“SPD,” he said
giving me the abbreviations. Here we go again…
“STD?” I asked,
repeating what I heard. The girls next to me started to giggle.
“No, SPD,” he
said, and I quickly hit “transfer” to get rid of his annoying voice and to keep
from embarrassing myself further.
I was blushing
again, which is no surprise, and I finally got rid of him by paging Sterile
Processing overhead.
The other girls
in the office said they were glad for a laugh, so at least I made somebody’s
day a little brighter although I embarrassed myself AGAIN.
In conclusion, I
would just like to see if anybody out there knows what ODOT stands for without
Googling it. I recently learned that one too…
