Will the real Michael Scott please stand up?

Along with the gadzillion other changes I've been plowing through the past months I have also changed jobs. I'm no longer working at the miniature poo factory. I now work at an industrial sized poo factory. Go big or go home, eh Gibbler? And I feel the need to stick with the poo factor. Its where I'm most comfortable. Psycho-analysis not needed. Where am I working? In the words of Michael Scott, "Drum-roll please...". The local community hospital. My job description has obviously changed. Instead of wrangling a classroom of preschoolers I now try to get pertinent detailed information from someone who is sick, or semi-conscious, or drunk, or all three symptoms. When I stop to admit it, the similarities between my last job and this are actuallyquite extensive. Some patients lack in verbal communication areas not unlike a two or three year old. Some can be quite demanding. Some don't stay in the room where they were dropped off. And some like to scribble their names in poo. One difference now is that I don't have to clean it up. I get to see it, write about it, possibly laugh at it, but no longer do I need to be elbow deep in it. I have arrived.

Something else about this new job, no two days are ever the same. Don't get me wrong. Childcare days weren't the same either but at least when I woke up in the morning I had a general idea of who I was going to see that day, what plans I had and that I could control a good portion of the outcome. This new thing of not knowing is both refreshing and terrifying. I don't even necessarily know who I'm going to be working with. This is also good and bad. Bad because I don't have the time to mentally prepare myself for certain individuals. Good because, why stress about what you don't know. When I walk in the door and discover I'm working with co-worker Q, I am pleasantly surprised or I walk in and see that I'm scheduled with co-worker X and have to score an extra cup of coffee and some deep breathing exercises before taking my place at the desk.

Co-worker X is no laughing matter. Although, now I will take the time to laugh. HAHAHAHAHA. I get my very own female version of Michael Scott. Just like back at the school when I worked with Dwight Schrute Blonde Sorority Girl I now have the pleasure of working with yet another Office character. I haven't figured out which character I could be; for now I'm enjoying spectator status.

Co-worker X comes fully loaded with jokes that aren't funny, expressions that are overwhelming annoying, vain confidence that she is right and no matter what you do you are wrong, if she makes a mistake its your fault, every good idea is her idea, a receding hairline and in the right light, which is just about every light, a mustache. I guess Michael only has a mustache in some of the episodes. That, and he doesn't perpetually half close his eyes when he's showering himself with verbal accolades.

Yesterday she was showing me how to type in some patient information and was needlessly flying through the tabs in the medical computer system. I'm pretty sure she was going even faster than necessary just to show how quick she was and to try to make me think I'm an idiot for asking about something on page one when she was already on page five. She got to the part where it asked for a particular zip-code that someone would have had to google or just know. This Michael Scott, she knew. She speedily typed it in. I had ceased asking questions by then. I made no sound. She lauds, as if typing in the zip-code nominated her for the Nobel peace prize, "Don't ask me how I knew that. I'm just one sick puppy." I hadn't asked.