The Tao of Apathy

by Thomas Cannon

  Grumby stood at the head of the table and bowed his head. “Father, will you please begin our meeting with a prayer.”

  Father Chuck stepped away from the corner he was standing in and opened his big red Bible. He was a thin, small man with a bald pate and a James Earl Jones voice reverberated out of his Don Knotts body. “Lord, please give these men your wisdom as they make important decisions today. Guide them to do your will. We pray that our hospital be a place of physical and spiritual healing. Watch over these men and protect them from paper cuts as they flip through documents. May their coffee not be bitter and all their doughnuts be jelly filled. And may your will be done despite what transpires here today. Amen.”

  “Amen. Thank you, Father. That was real good.” Grumby nodded and Father gathered up his Bible and left. Then the men, being that there had never been a lady director, listened and nodded their heads as Grumby outlined a convincing version of the right-sizing that would be taking place. They stopped nodding and stared at their coffee cups as he explained how because of the Obamacare attack on our citizen’s health, every department would be radically different and smaller with smaller budgets. It took him about an hour and a half to explain to them that it was their idea. When Grumby finished, they all jumped up.

  “I like the idea that I helped come up with,” Seuss said, “But I refuse to follow it.”

  “I am already overworked,” Swine squealed.

  “My department is years behind,” Crow, the head of Personnel bemoaned, “We are so understaffed.”

  “I haven’t had a raise in eight months,” Liberace whined.

  Grumby raised his voice. “I expect your full cooperation during these trying times, gentleman. We can not just sit idly. We must act decisively. In fact, if we are to circumvent Obamacare (How dare he name it after himself?), we must overact. Therefore, if we are going to remain a viable charitable institution, we must eliminate all non-revenue producing activities.”

  The directors roared with relief. Mr. Crow yelled out. “That’s very funny, sir. We had thought you were serious about all this.”

  “Stop laughing all of you. I am serious. The board of this hospital is very dedicated about continuing to be seen as a source of services in our community that no one else provides. The only way we can do that is by eliminating those programs. Crow. Mr. Crow, you are laughing again. I really wish somebody would explain to me how you could be laughing at this mission upon which we are about to embark.”

  “But will any directors be dis-embarked?” Freedman asked. “That’s all we really want to know.”

  Grumby looked each of his people in the eye. “No. You guys are my friends. Secondly, we will not be laying people off. I do not want anyone spreading that rumor. Eventually, we may need to implement a manpower adjustment, but we are not firing people. For now, we are only eliminating positions that some people may currently hold. And those positions will only be at the functional level.” The directors looked at him, relieved. Grumby smiled. “You jobs are guaranteed as long as I am around.”

  It was two months later that Grumby left. The board sent a bulletin with the employees’ paychecks informing them that Grumby had taken a challenging position as administrator of a hospital in a Texan city on the Mexican border. The bulletin congratulated Grumby and thanked him for his years of devoted service to Saint Jude’s and its parent company, The Sisters of the Sorrowful State. His talents had been very well used by the board of trustees, it had read.

  “I hated that guy.” Joe said as he threw his copy of the bulletin in the garbage and his paper hat on top of that. Joe knew everything that went on at Saint Jude’s. The education department sent bulletins, memos, and newsletters to every employee on a regular basis. Joe rarely read these communications and never believed them, which was the first way he kept on top of things. Joe described the newsletters as cock-and-bull written about jerk offs by jerk offs. “And these bulletins are big bullshit spoons,” he told Bigger pointing down to the garbage can.

  Joe knew the hospital from top to bottom because he got reports from Bigger as Bigger delivered the food carts and because he helped out in the cafeteria during the lunch rush and listened to the staff gossip as they waited for their tuna casserole. And most importantly, Joe was a heavy smoker. He spent every moment he could sneak in a small building that was provided for the smokers. It had once been the receiving dock office before the receiving department was moved to a separate location across the street for its unseemly look.

  This room with its stained yellow walls and stench was an oasis for smokers from every department. Because it was not possible to get to this room from inside the hospital, the smokers would hurry through the rain, snow and freezing temperatures with a coat and a lighter to get to their carcinogen clubhouse. In the summer they would lounge together outside on metal picnic tables. The smokers had a tight bond of addiction. Joe hated, feared and coveted his fellow smokers and looked forward to disdaining them every day.

  While he smoked, he studied human nature and had decided that everyone’s desires could be boiled down to two goals: to be happy and to have sex. Joe believed these goals were not usually interchangeable. From the conversations that went on in this small room lovingly called the Butt Hutt, he discerned the mistakes that each person made that kept him or her from these two goals. People lost touch with their loved ones, but would bare their souls during breaks to a co-worker that they may not even particularly like with strangers all around them. They compared the light camaraderie with their co-workers with the real, difficult relationships they had in their home life. They often did not see that their co-workers did not have to deal with the real them at home.

  Sex was an easier goal to achieve as long as you kept your standards low. But once people achieved this goal they often tried to turn it into happiness. They told themselves that they would be happy if only they added a stable relationship and a family to their sex. But once they had happiness, they weren’t happy with it and went out looking for new sex.

  As Joe smoked, he heard theories on how Saint Jude’s, Michigan, and America could be made better. These theories were worthless because (besides just being worthless in general) they would never go beyond being spouted in the Butt Hutt. Everyone said they had common sense and could do “it” better, but when it came to “all right, go ahead,” they were all “Naw, whatever you think is best” or “What? Are you trying to get me to do someone else’s job? Nice try, Bub. I got enough to do.”

  Joe sat and smoked and noticed that people had a profound affect on each other and didn’t notice. A friendly smile did make a person’s day and a thoughtless comment had the ability to break down a relationship permanently. A supervisor’s small, thoughtless comment caused a day of grumbling and a lifetime of resentment. Everyone was caught up in his or her own problems and ready to find fault with everyone else. Joe did not pretend to be any different.

  Sometimes (everyday), Joe cracked out criticism to anyone that had chipped him off. Nurses or dieticians were often rude to him on the phone and he would take it out on them on smoke breaks. He figured that the chances of anyone starting a complaint form with “While I was out in the Butt Hutt…” were slim. But because Joe knew the workings of Saint Jude’s, he knew better than to make a comment anywhere else. In a dispute between a professional staff member and a kitchen or housekeeping or maintenance person, the kitchen or housekeeping or maintenance person was in the wrong. It was assumed (by many, including some of those people) that those people were not intelligent enough to be in the right. Many even thought that the low-level personnel had a mental ailment that made them act up. A professional did not have to act professionally, just be treated professionally. Those on the low end of the pay scale (or perceived to be on the low end) were not people, but equipment. And equipment was to be seen and used, but don’t try to attach feelings to them that just aren’t there.

  Bigger often went with Joe to the Butt Hutt. He did not smoke, but he liked to gripe.
“That friggin’ Seuss,” he said as he dropped his feet on one of the two long tables that ran down the middle of the room. Ashes shot up from the table and wafted towards Joe. “He wants me to get rid of my pants and my shoes and anything else he wouldn’t approve of.”

  “He wants you naked from the waist down? Where do I sign up for that?”

  “Yeah, he wants Mr. Stiffy to wave to people as I push the carts.” Bigger was so sarcastic that Joe felt proud to know him. But his sarcasm made Bigger uncomfortable. Always ready to go toe to toe, Bigger hated confrontations. Or rather, his reluctance to get into confrontations bottled up his feelings until he was so frustrated, angry and sarcastic that he wanted to fight someone.

  “Hey, I never noticed before that your name is a nickname for a Johnson. Bigger Steiffy. Wow.”

  “Can we just get back to Seuss? He wants me to wear white pants, a white shirt and white shoes.” Bigger wiped the ashes from his plum shoes.

  “Well, Bigger, that is our uniform. If you haven’t you noticed, all my work clothes are white,” Joe said pointing to his clothes that were all white except for the food, coffee, sweat and beer stains.

  “But why? I don’t see why. I do my job. I do it well. I used to wear all white, Remember? I felt like a sperm. It made my legs look short. I didn’t even feel human. Plus I think that that the right colored pants help protect me from the invisibility rays.”

  “Oh here we go.”

  “There are invisibility rays in the hallways, Joe.” He was talking loudly so others could hear, but no one took note of him. “And they only work on me. I bring up a food cart and no one says anything to me. I don’t hear a good morning or a thank you. All I hear is, ‘Oh, look the food cart is here.’ Why are they surprised unless they don’t see that it was me that brought it? If I stand and wait to see if the nurses are done collecting the dirty dishes so that I can take the cart, they don’t see me. They never say, ‘Okay, you can take the cart’ or even ‘we’ll be ready in a minute or two.’ Why don’t they say something if they could see me standing there?”

  “Bigger.”

  “Joe, it’s true. Sometimes I take a cart and someone says, ‘Why is that cart leaving so early?’ If I weren’t invisible, they would know why. Because I’m taking it. And and and in the elevator. Everyone stands in my way and don’t let me out even though I have this huge cart-”

  “I hate when you talk like this. There are no invisibility rays and there is no reason for Seuss making you conform to the dress code. It is just the way things are.”

  “Well, Seuss told me I better be in all white soon or I’ll be suspended until I am. He also hinted that people who caused problems could be let go in some major changes that hospital will be going through.” Bigger stood up seeing that Joe was finished with his Marlboro.

  Joe raised his eyebrows. “Why? What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘we are going to re-organize this place so that we won’t need degenerates in green pants.”

  “Pretty good hint.” Joe opened the door and they walked against a strong wind the short way to the entrance near the kitchen.

  From her room, Yolanda Carver watched two men in paper hats step into a steep wind. “I began smoking when I was just twelve,” she said to Janis, her nurse. “It began as just something to do while hanging out on street corners to avoid my father. In college, it made me feel sophisticated to be a young black woman sitting at parties and flicking ashes into a beer can.” She continued to stare out the window as Janis filled out her chart. “I gave it up during my student teaching, but then I began teaching in my old neighborhood. Even as principal here in Lansing, I didn’t give it up even though I had to sneak smokes behind the school with the custodial staff.”

  “You should close the blinds,” Janis said.

  “I thought of smoking as part of living my life to the fullest. Really, it was just a way of passing time. I spent my whole life passing time.”

  “Lay down and get some rest.”

  “And now because of smoking, I’m at the end of my life.”

  Janis took Yolanda by the shoulders and guided her to bed. “I can get you a sedative so that you can rest.” Janis knew it was her job to get patients to rest. She was dedicated to patient’s rest. She was a firm believer that bed rest was ineffective. And if it was ineffective, it couldn’t hurt. “It will do you some good.”

  “I don’t think anything will do me good. They didn’t get all the cancer in the surgery. I can just feel it.”

  “Now, the doctor would know that. Just take a nap.”

  “Then why do I have to go through radiation, if all the cancer is gone?”

  “To kill any cancer in the nearby tissues. You were explained all this. I’ll dim your lights.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Janis. It has its hold on me. It has been two weeks and I still feel weak and out of breath.”

  “I wished I looked as good as you. God, you look thirty, but you’re what? Forty-five. I look like the one with lung cancer. Look how pale I am.” Janis knew it could take months for a patient to recover from the surgery and she should expect to feel weak and out of breath, so without another word, she gave Yolanda something to make her sleep.

  After Janis got Yolanda to bed, so that she could stare at the ceiling and wish that she wasn’t spending her precious moments of life staring at the ceiling, Janis went to find her supervisor. She wanted to go home, turn on a soap opera and take a nap.

  Janis’ supervisor, Mary Eddy, had been the head nurse of the Cancer Wing for nine years. At forty-six, Mary was tall and svelte. Her permed red hair helmeted her red complexioned face. She liked to wear dark eye make-up as she had as a teenager and had a young face that showed wrinkles only when she smiled or laughed. She was one of the unofficial leaders of Saint Jude’s with almost every invoice from supply having her signature on them. She performed her job with kindness, understanding, and a devotion to do everything she could for the patients. Janis considered her to be her mortal enemy.

  She was wary of asking Mary for the third time in the same week to go home. Her strong work ethic demanded that her place of employment screw her over first. In her other places of employment, she had felt justified in calling in sick, forging fake Medicare claims and framing her boss. So far, she owed Saint Jude’s a couple. Try as she may, her conscience couldn’t come up with a good excuse to fake a headache and go home.

  “I blame the lights for my constant headaches,” she told Mary, as her mouth had no problem coming up with one.

  “Well, Janis,” Mary said. She wanted to confront Janice without a confrontation. “No one else gets a headache from the lights.”

  “You went home with a headache on Monday,” Janis said angrily, happy that she felt affronted.

  “That was from the stale air in this building,” Mary said in reference to the headache she had left early with that would have been a hangover instead of a headache except she had still been drunk.

  “Mine, too, then,” Janis said. She knew she was going to have to get a job that was stressful and tense. She dreamed of a work environment that paid fairly well, but would overwork and dump on her. Then she could stop showing up.

  How she envied public school teachers.

  Chapter 5

  Janis’ employer, The Sisters of the Sorrowful State and its subsidiary, Saint Jude’s Medical Center and Hospital of Lansing, Michigan, decided to help her not feel guilty about being a bad employee. The efficiency consultation company they hired came in and began to take away all the positive things Janis complained about.

  “The Company” and the board of trustees began to reconfigure every department and adjust all the employee’s work patterns. They began by renaming departments. They decided that the best way to dramatize the streamlining was to unsimplify things. The Emergency Room was now Immediate Care Services. Because the Intensive Care Unit now had a similar sounding acronym, it was renamed Special and Overtly-critical Life Services (SOL). Additionally, the Nutriti
onal Services Department became The Accredited Personnel Resources of Nutritional Services (APRONS); and the Central Supply department became the Axial Replenishment Requisition Center ARRC (often pronounced as a word with a soft C). Firing people was eliminated completely which sounded like a positive thing. However, the program of Realignment and Reduction of Associated Salary Staffing levels was implemented. Oddly, only management believed that people were no longer fired.

  Yes, the first phase of the re-organization plan cut every part of the hospital’s daily operation without exception; except for the doctors, the department directors, their secretaries and the catered parties. In fact, some of the departments had been cut so much that new jobs with higher pay had to be created for middle management. At Janis’ level, though, they had only cut staff and increased job duties. Janis was thrilled to be thrust into poor working conditions and was not the least bit worried about being one of those nurses terminated. Unlike many of the nurses that had put many dedicated years of service, she had a great service record.

  Janis would not be laid off because the layoffs were based on annual evaluations and jealous head nurses made sure to include the weaknesses of the top performing nurses in their yearly evaluations. They also knew if they told a dedicated nurse such as Mary Eddy that she needed to improve her communications skills, she would, in fact, try. But if Janis’ supervisor (who happened to be Mary Eddy) put Janis’ weaknesses and unexcused absences on paper, she would have to fire Janis and firing a bad employee meant taking a big chance of getting someone worse. So when it came to reviewing personnel files to see who would be laid off, the best were gotten rid of first. Janis was short listed to remain on staff. She celebrated her job security by rarely coming in to work.

  With the effort to cut down on wages paid out, many worked overtime. Everyone took on extra hours to fill the gaps caused by the reduction in staff and they still worked in fear of losing their jobs. The atmosphere in the hospital was tense and filled with mistrust. Janis got jazzed every time a duty was added in her job description and laughed every time they put her on the schedule to work an extra weekend.