Today's List of Grievances

Ahem. Today's list of people that have pissed me off, and my suggestions to them.

To the ACLS people. There needs to be a separate class for those of us who work in the ER and to this stuff all day every day. That way when I go to renew my certification I do not want to stab all the stupid people in the eye with a rusty spoon. Also all the people who are taking the class but have never seen/ran a code in their 85 years of existence will not get scared when the medic-instructor and I get in a battle of who can outlast who in the "save the patient" scenarios. Having a separate class would greatly improve satisfaction of your students from all backgrounds.

To the WA DOL. Your state sucks. Not the state itself, because I quite like it here. But the drivers are awful. All of them. And it is WAY to hard to get your car licensed in this state. Because you are making me jump through needless hoops and perform countless menial tasks to make my car worthy to drive on your roads, I have a list of demands for you. You may start by revoking each and every drivers license in the state with the exception of a short list of people I will send you. All revoked-licensees will need to go back to drivers ed and start all over with the basics. The very basics. When they have passed the basics according to my satisfaction, they must pass an advanced class on things such as going somewhere between the speed limit and 10mph over at all times, accelerating to freeway speeds on the on-ramps --that's what they're there for ...and similarly, not slowing down a mile before your exit. Also included in the advanced class are instructions on how to be courteous, use turn signals appropriately, and keep slower traffic to the right, reserving the left lanes for passing lanes. After passing the advanced class, they may receive their brand new shiny licenses which will be subject to revocation at any time for not following the rules learned in training. This may be done at a moments notice be myself and the list of authorized drivers I told you about earlier. You must also fix all your roads. Once they are all paved, you may maintain them by illegalizing snow chains except by 18-wheeled vehicles in canyon passes in snow storms. There is no need for 4-cylinder vehicles to have snow chains on while driving around town because the weatherman said there may be light flurries of snow today. This should not be hard, since the same principle will be covered in the new drivers course. While you are repaving each and every road, you will also need to make I-5 and I-405 each 6-lane freeways at all times between Tacoma and Everett. Along with the I-90 and 520 bridges from Seattle to Bellevue. Two lanes is ridiculous. You will also need to eliminate the lane sharing of enterin-exiting freeway vehicles. This is just asking for trouble with all the idiots you have driving around here. This is a good start. Once you have completed these tasks, I will re-evaluate and let you know any further improvements that need to be made. ***see special story below***

To CNN. I hate you. You have successfully created mass hysteria in hoards of people with no medical knowledge and convinced them they are going to die of a strange new exotic disease --swine flu. Guess what. It's freaking influenza. The treatment is NO different than influenza from humans, birds, whales, or the monsters under your bed. Yep, people are dying from it. But guess what. People are dying from normal human influenza too. Thank you for making my life hell because you had a slow news day, and felt a need to blow this out of proportion. You must now be present at each ER across the nation take care of the throng of non sick people you sent to us. They are now your responsibility and not mine, do with them what you wish. In the meantime, I'm going to invent a flu called the "I'm a dumb mo-fo flu" that way when people come in and say, "I want to be tested for the 'I'm a dumb mo-fo flu'" I can say, "You have it, GO HOME!!!"

That is all my grievances for today.

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So here's a good 'ER personality' story for the day. Many of you have heard me talk about, or know for yourself what an ER personality is. We really are a breed unto ourselves. This is why we're all friends. We are all know-it-all-problem-solvers with what some might call a bitchy edge. We like our info straight up. Don't mess around give it to us straight and get to the point. Normal rules don't apply to us, and we have no patience for people who get in our way or slow us down. So the other night at work we were all talking and Peter (one of the docs that was on) says, "So I was driving to work today going 80mph talking on my cell phone by myself in the car ...in the carpool lane, when I realized I was tailgating a police officer, so I crossed back over the white lines to get around the cop." Timeout for those of you who didn't get it. The speed limit is 60mph. Talking on your cell phone is illegal. As is driving in the carpool lane when there is only you in the car. As is crossing a double white line. So this was an impressive story, but the reason it was funny is that three of us piped in with, "I did the EXACT thing the other day!" With small variations, including expired tabs, etc. These are rules that should not exist for those people on my list of drivers. You know who you are. You are the same people who will be on the committee of drivers-license patrolling mentioned in grievance #2. Which reminds me of one more thing to add on to grievance #2. There are two stop signs by my house that do not need to be there. I don't even slow down for them, you may as well just remove them. Thank you.