 |
| The beautiful Operation Raleigh clipper |
I really wanted to get on that ship so I signed up with some of my colleagues and we went to the selection weekend. It was pretty tough (more Bear Grylls than Ray Mears).
The first challenge was to find the location from an eight figure grid reference (no sat navs then kids). During the weekend we had to solve puzzles (get the oil drum out of the radioactive duck pond using only ropes and manpower) some hiking, pluck, gut and cook chicken and rabbits and hike some more.
For one challenge we were blindfolded, led into a muddy swamp and told to hold the shoulder of the person in front and the leader followed a rope WHEREVER IT WENT. It went under logs so we had to duck under the trees into the goopy mud. At one point my boots got stuck in the thick mud so my 'friend' grabbed the back of my collar and pulled me out, sliding me face down across the chest deep mud. Gross.
During another trial, we had to get a rope across a frozen lake to create a bridge - I volunteered for this one, stripped down to my pants and waterproofs, had a rope tied to my waist, sidestepped along the foot rope, held on to the hand rope, neither were taught so i was flip flopping forward and back trying to keep my balance. after about 15 feet I lost my balance and fell into the frozen lake. My buddies pulled my back with the rope and I swam a bit (once the shock of the freezing water had worn off). Once on dry land I had to run round and round until i was dry and warm.
The point of the exercise was to see who was emotionally and mentally strong and to separate the leaders from the followers. Anyway, my point is this...
One of the exercises was an orienteering hike, we were accompanied by a Raleigh adjudicator, the brief was "... do what the adjudicator says and find the points on the map..." We traipsed through the countryside, mile after mile through woods and streams, hungry, tired and fed up. A couple of hours into the hike the adjudicator said she had dropped her pencil and we had to go back and find it. We walked miles and miles looking for a pencil. In the end the adjudicator said we had failed that particular part of the test. Instead of obeying her, apparently we should have either offered her another pencil or questioned the order. <faceplam>
Why do I mention this now? Well, I work at the local general hospital. Today at work, I was told I had to urgently find out if the doctors in my department had had their flu jabs. This information was needed before close of play today and I was to phone them to get the information. Now thought of interrupting a doctor while he was examining a patient or interpreting x-rays to ask if he'd had his flu jab; was not filling me with job satisfaction and I wondered if this was a test like on the selection weekend.
It wasn't. To mitigate the risk of me getting yelled at for asking puerile questions of busy doctors during patient consultations, I decided to send SMS messages to the doctors. I wrote, "Don't shoot the messenger but, have you had your flu jab? The Trust wants to know." Thankfully the doctors were good humoured and answered the question.
When my manager phoned to ask if I had had my flu jab, I answered,
"No comment, that information is private and confidential."
It was my own little fight back at the Trust for wasting my time, my doctors' time and my colleagues' time across three hospitals'. <facepalm with a chair>
