The most only heartwarming thing about Christmas is that I generally work for someone else so they can get the night off. Especially medics with small kids, so they can be with them. Before you get all misty eyed, keep in mind that they pay me back by working on a day that I need off. I’m altruistic, but I’m not silly.
Anyway, holidays are generally a pain in the butt to work. I haven’t worked Thanksgiving Day in over 20 years and hope never to again. What happens on Thanksgiving? Family fights. People actually fighting over things like who gets the drumstick. Really. About 25 years ago, two brothers fighting over who got the drumsticks. One stabbed the other with one of those big forks. Not a real serious injury, but one brother ended up in the hospital, the other in jail. Neither got a drumstick.
Depressed and suicidal patients. Again over 20 years ago I was working (back in my BLS days) and we got sent to a call for a depressed person. I spent 20 minutes talking this guy out of the closet in which he was hiding. I had him all set to go when a nitwit supervisor showed up, pointed to the patient, and asked “Is this the nut job?” THAT’S when the fight started!
Cardiac Arrests. Nothing like Grandma keeling over into the stuffing to ruin a holiday feast. Nothing like having your son drop dead and fall into the Christmas tree to set the mood. Nothing like having one of your idiot partners tell the family that he hopes they didn’t buy anything they can’t return in response to the inquiry as to Dad’s condition.
Did I mention the drunks? Really, can’t you folks celebrate any holiday without getting knee walking drunk? Christmas isn’t the worst, New Year’s Eve is. Which I generally end up working because it’s impossible to get that night off. Sort Of Big City has a big New Year’s celebration, which is just another excuse for people to get drunk. Let me tell you ladies, no matter how sexy your little cocktail dress is, no matter how well your make up looked, no matter how much you spent to get your hair coiffed, it’s all for not if you pass out and vomit all over yourself. I don’t think that even a guy who spent the last 20 years in prison would be interested. Even the pointy little party hat that some wag perched at a jaunty angle on your head won’t help. Although it is good for a few laughs. I sent her off to the nearest ER, hat and all, where it just happened that a close friend of mine was doing triage. Even though no one told him, he knew that I was involved in this someway, somehow. Sometimes, you just have to do that sort of stuff.
The good part is that with the exception of New Year’s Eve, it’s not very busy. What we lack in volume, we make up for in weirdness, though.
Oh, and on Christmas Eve, everything is closed by 7:00PM. I mean everything, you can’t even find a decent cup of coffee in most places. Sort Of Big City has ONE Dunkin Donuts that’s open. Well, not everything, the Chinese restaurants are all pretty much open. At least there’s that.
It might not be heartwarming, but it’s the reality of working in EMS during the holidays.
Oh, did I mention the time the crazy guy in a wheelchair attacked two of our EMTs? They ended up throwing his Christmas tree at him so that they could escape. As the ran out the door, one of them did wish him a Merry Christmas. You may think of people in wheel chairs as frail, but this guy was built like an Olympic weight lifter from the waist up. And nasty. I met him a few months later when he attacked my partner when we called to assist him. But, I digress.
Sounds like you're in for a fun time then 🙂
We usually plan our Holiday dinners at our firehouse for around 3pm so that we are done eating by the time "fight night" starts, as we refer to Holiday evenings. After 31 years its a little depressing to see the same families over and over for beating the crap out of each other.
Fight night is right… When I did VFD/Rescue a few of us military guys would take the holidays if we were home. That way the folks that lived there their whole lives didn't get beat up year round about a particular response or lack of during the holiday.
Never ever get in a fight with a guy in a wheel chair
OR a guy dressed in drag either, for that matter. Different story though!
Oh, and on Christmas Eve, everything is closed by 7:00PM.Well, not necessarily _everything_. If you're lucky, you may be able to find a place run by somebody who doesn't observe Christmas as a holiday and realizes there's money to be made by being open on Christmas Eve/Day. I recall a town where there was a small restaurant run by a Greek Orthodox family. I'm not sure exactly why, but I do know they were almost the only restaurant in town you could find open on Christmas morning.
I have the Christmas Eve coverage this year. And I worked Thanksgiving. The only good thing is the holiday pay – otherwise, it indeed sucks.And I'll stop here now…
There was a time when management tried make sure everyone got one of the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's) off, but I don't know if that's true any more. We're almost twice the size we were five years ago, so it's a harder task. As it happens, I'm working Christmas Day to cover for someone. He's working New Year's Day for me, so it all works out.
"Never ever get in a fight with a guy in a wheel chair."Because even if you win, you lose.And if you actually lose… well, that's just sad.
Wolf Walker, Churches that use the Julian, not Gregorian, calendar celebrate Christmas on January 7. Even though the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't maybe these people were traditionalists.
We go "british style" and say that we're celebrating "Boxing Day" early at work. Nothing like 2 brothers stabbing each other over cheese to really show the holiday spirit.Oh, and word verification "cooted"? weird.