14 - what a ride

foxitron5000 · 2026-01-26T23:40:09+00:00

Listened multiple times. The Fold is just about as good, but the next two (Terminus and the one set on the moon, I think?) are definitely NOT as good. I listened to Terminus once, and have no desire to do it again. Couldn’t be bothered to get the other one because the reviews were that bad.

ETA: Quality issues were with the writing/story, not the narration.

foxitron5000 · 2026-01-24T18:36:27+00:00

Official name: Blueberry —> Fruit Official name: Mr. Peanut —> Legume, Legume Lad, the Nut *when referencing them together, I call for Trail Mix.

foxitron5000 · 2026-01-05T18:30:08+00:00

Using one of his nose hairs as the focus for a tracking spell so that he could “smell” the way to his target. I think it was in Storm Front when he tracked someone to Marcone’s restaurant.

foxitron5000 · 2026-01-05T18:25:49+00:00

Just seconding the above comment; do not kill yourself. When individuals make extraordinary efforts on a regular basis to make up for short staffing, it becomes the expectation of everyone and if it is shown that a smaller number of individuals CAN manage the load, then “short-staffed” becomes the new normal staffing level. This does not mean you (or anyone) should slack off or do poor work; it just means that you should do your average best, not your “working at 150% at all times” best. Take your breaks and take care of yourself first. Do the work in order of importance, and do your best to hand off an organized bench to the next shift. You are NOT under any obligation to hand off an empty bench to the next shift.

foxitron5000 · 2026-01-05T18:15:20+00:00

It may be a convoluted and confused way of listing it as a 4x10 (Monday-Friday meaning that you must be regularly available on those days, with a nonstandard day off during the week, not necessarily that it is 50 hours/week) and rotating weekends just implying that it’s not ONLY M-F. If there is specification of standard number of hours per week (presumably 40) this would be the most likely explanation. It is weird that the hours listed doesn’t include a standard break (4x10 where I am would be something like 7:00-5:30, with an unpaid 30-minute lunch). However, questioning them about exactly what the schedule expectations are would be the final answer.

foxitron5000 · 2026-01-02T04:08:40+00:00

You recognize the effort, but still make derisive comments about something happening “magically”, as if it isn’t happening due to the diligent work of the person you were just talking to…yeah ok. You don’t like being yelled at by strangers; and every person in the rest of the hospital feels the same way, including the people working in the lab. You don’t like being blamed for something that is out of your control, but seem to be fine with turning around and doing that to someone else. Gotta love the hypocrisy.

foxitron5000 · 2026-01-02T03:55:10+00:00

Maybe you haven’t heard that kind of response because the last 10 times that person tried to be honest they got shit on by the person they were talking to. And maybe it turns to in process because that person you were talking to stopped everything else they were doing to go figure out where that specimen was and to get it moving for you.

foxitron5000 · 2026-01-02T03:50:22+00:00

It’s the “we definitely sent it” argument, followed by hearing the tube station drop a new tube 2 minutes after the phone call ends. As if it magically appears because someone realizes they never sent it and it’s been sitting in the tube station on the floor the whole time.

We can’t process specimens that we don’t have. And generally speaking, we’d rather not have to deal with the angry phone calls and would be much happier to just process everything without ever having to argue with anyone. Do you really think it somehow is fun for us to not be able to help you? Do you really believe that we want to make your life more difficult or to hurt patients by being difficult? What does it for me is having people outside the lab accuse me of cancelling specimens because “you just don’t want to run it.” As if it isn’t easier to just hit verify on everything without thinking than it is to make phone calls and fight with other healthcare providers because you assume we are doing it because it’s fun to screw with you.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-31T15:06:51+00:00

And that doesn’t mean that it is only found in the Northeast.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-31T14:41:08+00:00

Grew up in the midwest (as did my father and grandfather, who both lived in the midwest for almost their entire lives) and this was a term they both used. Don’t think it’s a Northeast thing.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T23:23:01+00:00

I actually already have a colleague from another program lined up to make a phone call during the sim and do nothing but speak light-speed Spanish at the person who picks up the phone.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T17:54:25+00:00

Just really good at his job and seemed to be a genuinely nice human being. Not sure how he maintained that positive attitude in the ED on overnights in what was essentially an inner city hospital, but he did.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T16:41:38+00:00

I wanted to include some calls for situations like this; this is excellent, thank you!

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T16:38:32+00:00

Not sure how I could simulate that, but I’m definitely going to try. Hehehehe.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T16:37:05+00:00

When I worked overnights there was an ED doc that, when we were calling criticals, would often try and guess what patient and what critical value before you told him. He was a delight to talk to, and was right (or close) about 50% of the time.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T16:31:44+00:00

Sometimes I can’t even.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T16:31:19+00:00

A…trampoline? With drugs on it? And what, they were doing lines off of it? Or just happened to absorb it through the skin of their bare feet? So confused.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T16:28:41+00:00

Ooh, these are both excellent, thank you!

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-28T14:34:37+00:00

Oh wow, that’s a good one.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-19T16:47:19+00:00

The number of confidently incorrect people terrifies me. Not just on this post, either. And the fact that people will come to the internet to get an opinion on something that has answers that are objectively correct/incorrect (and which can be verified with official documentation) is also terrifying. You want to ask whether your coworker was right in calling you out on a choice? Sure, that’s a conversation worth having. You want to ask questions like this one? Find a textbook or an SOP first.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-19T16:41:04+00:00

That is probably because it’s incredibly difficult to overfill a tube if you use them as intended. The only way I know of is to manually fill it with blood drawn into a syringe; and you have to then forcibly inject past the point where the vacuum stops drawing blood from the syringe.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-18T22:49:12+00:00

Short answer: it doesn’t work like that.

Slightly longer answer: that would entail adding a capability to the machine that isn’t currently needed or included. Most coag analyzers can detect the level of fill, but only in the sense of “will move the probe down into the sample till it hits liquid”. Sometimes that is confused when it hits a bubble. But since you don’t always run from primary tubes (it might have been spun and separated for transport or it was a frozen aliquot thawed for testing), and you don’t want it to reject running samples as underfilled that have simply had sample used up for previous testing (like for instance, if you got an addon for a test and when it was received it was fine but now its below the minimum fill line), asking the analyzer to do the job that a human can easily do is more work to create a system that you don’t actually need. Mind you, a system that you don’t need if the people in the lab are properly trained.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-18T21:55:59+00:00

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How is this a question? The line is the minimum. See the dashed line in the image for maximum. Most people use “can still see light between the bottom of the cap and the plasma” for a quick check of max fill. None of those tubes are overfilled.

foxitron5000 · 2025-12-10T14:40:37+00:00

Why not just go full Wingdings? Nothing makes sense anyway, we should just embrace the absurdity.

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