Return of the Mack (it is)

Return of the Mack (come on)
Return of the Mack (oh my God)
You know that I'll be back (here I am)
Return of the Mack (once again)
Return of the Mack (pump up the world)
Return of the Mack (watch my flow)
You know that I'll be back (here I go)

Thank you Mark Morrison - now go back to wherever it is that one-hit wonders go to when we don't listen to them anymore.

Seventeen days since my last post. I've actually had people I know ask when (if ever) I'm going to update. Mind you, most of the blogs that I read haven't updated in that time either, so I don't know why I'm getting singled out. :P

Let's see, what's happened since last time?

I've trained no less that two guys for the weekend graveyard shift. One worked for a weekend and then was no longer available. He was pretty cool.

He was young, Punjabi, and looked like he should have been modeling in the Sears periodicals for spring/summerwear. He also appeared to be pleasant and even ethical. Waheguru only knows what he was doing in security.

He also wanted to tell me about his personal ghost stories, which I mention only because the following week another guy I see at my regular site did the same thing - stopped me in a patrol for about twenty minutes to tell me about his and his family's ghostly experiences. So I gave both of them the stories I had from my time living in "the ghost house", and they seemed satisfied.

Any of you who know me have probably already heard my stories, but if you want to hear the ones from the other guys, or even mine again, toss me a comment and I'll throw them in the next entry. :P

The other guy I trained, who'll be on his second weekend by the time you read this, is in his forties and this is his first ever time in security. In fact, he'd passed his test for the license a month previously, but he'd never been on a site until Barney and I were surprised to find him arrive at ours.

I can't tell you his actual name, but it's a hilarious movie-quality Sino-Scottish collision of words, kind of like Chen MacDonald or Argyle Lee.

Anyway, he tried to show lots of interest and energy during the shift when I trained him, but despite him always seeming to know what direction north was from inside the building (he must have been counting turns, because even I need to think about it for a moment, and I've been there eight months), he was constantly getting lost when I let him lead.

So that weekend, he was all by his lonesome.

I worked all that weekend - first doing a sitting job at a hospital. That's always a boring job, as it literally involves sitting (both the baby and sedentary sense of the word) near a patient that is either dangerous or delusional or both.

Mine had vascular dementia, and would try to get out of bed. This was almost always bad, since he'd fall down and hurt himself. The guard I relieved said that the guy had been fighting a bit earlier, so I thought I'd have my hands full, but mostly he just kept waking up during the night with the same requests every two minutes, like a broken record.

By the way, this was a ten hour shift, from 0000 to 1000, and I was sitting in the dark most of the time. No reading for me! :P

I'd first see him scratching his arms (they were horribly covered with open sores - evidence he'd been clawing at himself for some time), then he'd start feeling his way up the wall, looking for the light. Never able to find it, he'd slowly start sitting up in bed at which point I'd head over to put him back down.

Him: "I don't know you!"
Me: "No you don't, but can I help you?"
Him: "Who are you?"
Me: "I'm the guy here to see you get what you need."
Him: "How did you get into this building?"
Me: "I'm supposed to be here sir, I'm here to help you."
Him: "My wife is going to have a major freakout when she sees you. Bea! Bea!"

That only went on fifteen or twenty times. Each time I managed to quiet him down and get him to lie still, but within about a minute it was a near-perfect replay of the above conversation. Then it changed.

He'd still scratch his arms and feel for the light, but this time as he started to get up he'd notice me sitting near the foot of his bed, and be staring at me the whole time. As I'd stand up to settle him down, he'd point to the tv and say "Could you turn on the light?".

After about an hour and a half of that, it transpired that he thought turning on the light would warm the place up. I got him an extra blanket, but it still took another half hour before he didn't want the light on anymore.

Of course, by that time he'd keep trying to get up because we had the roast going, and were we going to cook it all night?

When one of the duty nurses came by to check on him, he said that with her and she would quite distinctly say to him "There's no cooking - it's bedtime! GO TO SLEEP!". I started taking my cue from her, and was a little more direct when I spoke to him. Since he couldn't remember it a minute later, maybe the tone would work. And it sort of did - it was sometimes up to five minutes between episodes.

The best act from him (that only went on for three quarters of an hour) was where he would be trying to get up and I'd be trying to get him to lay back down. He would querulously demand to be told if he should get up so he could go to bed. How to answer?

"No, no need to get up to go to bed, you're already there! Just lay back and that's about all you have to do."

Over and over. But he was a sweet old guy.

There was a nurse of some description also sitting in the room, but she was monitoring another patient. After a while, she asked if I'd cover two other patients (there were four altogether in the room) and I said sure. One had dementia, the other was a suicide watch.

The suicide watch was easy - he just watched various incarnations of Star Trek all night and finally fell asleep during the upteenth Next Gen episode. The other guy...

He was awake all night, and he was a talker. I could hear the nurse dealing with him before he became my responsibility, but the reality was crazy. He was on oxygen, and the machine made a loud stuttery gurgling hiss all night. I don't blame him for staying awake.

Like the first guy, he'd always forget what he'd already said, so there was lots of repeats. But more variety with this guy too. He wanted post-it notes, he wanted his watch (he was wearing it), he wanted his walking stick, he wanted to change his clothes, he wanted to get up because he had a meeting in the morning (it was still before the hour of the wolf at this point), he wanted to check on his car (which, he was happy to explain, he'd driven here last night. Not so - he'd been brought by ambulance days ago), he wanted to check on his dog, he wanted to see his wife (she's dead, by the way), and so on.

This guy, though, would also chat. He'd talk about trains, mail, how he's number one in the army, and so on. And sometimes he'd decide to leave and get up.

Now, I'm not a bodybuilder. But I'm also not the world's tiniest guy. And I've got a monkey grip on me that would put an opposum to shame. I've also got a reasonable sense of balance and can bring my weight to bear.

That's why I was so surprised when this guy was trying to get out of bed, and bellowing that we couldn't keep him here, and I couldn't stop him!

He'd inch up, grab at the rails at the side of his bed, and make a little headway. I'd fold my arms across his chest (he was an old guy, but probably in his day you could have hitched him to the plow. And hysterical strength doesn't hurt either) and apply my weight, shifting forward to my toes.

It was like trying to hold an ocean liner back - he just kept inexorably moving more and more. And, to top it off, the buzzer for his station was out of reach regardless of which side of the bed I was on. Either I'd have to let him up to buzz it (only if he got all the way out of bed would I chance that), or I'd have to handle it myself.

Thankfully they had the alarm rigged for when x amount of weight came up off the bed, so a couple of nurses would come running and while I kicked up my force to near-maximum, they'd each pull on his arms so he'd lose his balance and I could knock him back into bed.

I know it sounds horrible, but it's what needed to be done. And since the chief doctor for that area (not on duty during the night, I might add) had specifically said "no restraints", this is how it went.

Eventually I discovered this dude was much less aggressive if I could keep his oxygen on him. So every time he pulled the mask off to cough or talk, I'd convince him to replace the mask (or do it myself). Made life much easier.

Thus passed ten hours of pure bliss. :P

The following night I took an extra assignment at a rehabilitation facility of the type that appears to be mostly for people who've lost limbs or have brain damage that renders them unable to act physically.

This place had been the target of many break and enters over the past few months, so the single regular night guard was being augmented by extras. This night, that extra was me.

On arriving, I was given a quick tour and told that I was just doing hallways in the basement and on the first level, and exterior/perimeter patrols. The regular guard would do inside all the rooms and check the levels above the first.

Good Lord, no wonder this place gets blagged! Large rambling complex, odd corners, about fifty exterior doors, large unbarred unreinforced glass windows at ground level, few exterior lights, heavy brush, and nobody living/working on the ground floor.

Did I mention no cameras and no alarms?

I counted my paces as I did the same patrols over and over again, as often as possible. I couldn't walk at full speed since then I couldn't properly check the brush and in the dark corners, but I managed eighteen kilometers of patrol that night. I love having something active to do. :)

However, at 0400 (the middle of my shift) the other guard swapped out for... the guy who trained me on my first ever day as a guard. He didn't remember me at first, but he was the same crusty old Czech he was then. But friendly enough, in his own way.

A couple of hours into his patrols, he found what appeared to be a fresh B&E that was on a level and in an area that I would patrol.

Since I could do an exterior in about fourteen minutes, and an interior in about eighteen minutes, and since the doors and windows were all secure, I was dubious about this break-in.

There was no denying the crowbar marks on the forced door, but I'd heard a couple of the regular guard talking and saying how earlier that day there'd been a robbery in that area where the thief had made off with a few hundred dollars.

I mentioned this to the guy, and he went looking for the daily reports that would back that up. Nada. Bah.

Took the cops about three hours to show up, and the officer spent all of about ten minutes there. That seemed about right.

I was all set to see Star Wars 3 on Sunday afternoon, but plans didn't work out and I didn't. The people I was going with did call me up a few hours later to see if I wanted to hit the evening show, but I needed to finish my laundry (only two uniforms for a full week's work in the summertime? Ugh!) and nap a bit more. So they went and I didn't. No biggie.

On Monday (stat holiday which I worked on anyway - w00t) I hit Science World with Kibilz, Kami, and their little Jade Elf. She was fun as a baby, and now as a four year old she's blast! I love kids when they're able to talk, and she's smarter than I am. Fortunately she's ticklish, so my lower-than-hers IQ didn't come up much. Also, she still likes to be chased. ;)

After that, since I hadn't had a day off to sleep at night, I drifted into a sort of fugue state and the week was worksleeptalkplayworksleeptalkworksleeptalkplaywork, all blended together. I wasn't sure if I was tired, alert, bored, or what. I think that's passing now.

I've had a few emails from Her, but they've been devoid of anything beyond small talk. A couple of phone calls have ended up with her still refusing to make decisions on things that really need to be decided. Except that she sometimes says she's going to do things that she doesn't want, but that everybody else says she should do.

I hate that - that's just an alternate way of saying she won't decide for herself, and will instead be swirled around by events like bark in the waves. Is this some sort of endurance test for me?

Also, because I've recently heard conflicting statements about what various people are being told, I've taken to cc'ing my emails to a trustworthy third party.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but since they come with a timestamp and properties that can be confirmed, I felt (at the time, at least) that it was a reasonable thing to do. It's not like I'm saying anything private that people don't already know anyway.

A little monologue that's been running around in my head for the past few days, remembered as a favourite from Babylon 5:

An assistant to a busy and up-and-coming powerful man who is both a patriot and an arrogant man. The assistant is meek and apparently bumbling, but at times shows a deep character and strength of conviction. The assistant has been accosted by a powerful and darkly charismatic messenger of even more powerful entities who are doing services for the powerful man, in return for seemingly minor considerations. Kind of like getting into bed with the mob. So the messenger (who has been making the rounds corrupting the influential) takes a shot at corrupting the assistant. That's the scene, here's the dialogue:

Mr. Morden: "What about you, Vir? What do you want?" (smiles charmingly)
Vir: "Oh no, there's nothing."
Mr. Morden: "There must be something. What is it?"
Vir: (considering how much he hates the influence Morden has on his employer, and the things that are being done) "I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut your head off and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favours come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this. (waves) Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Blog cut short because my fingers are tired.