The hospital people seem tremendously concerned with personal safety and security, at least by comparison to other places where I've spent my days. Last year at this time I was working with a home construction firm, where pretty much everyone in the place touched equipment daily that could crush or mutilate them. Nobody there felt obligated to put up a sign by every exit which (effectively) said "leave this door shut or dangerous things could happen to somebody." At that place, if you couldn't figure out what was dangerous on your own, they didn't want to pay your worker's comp claims.

The general environment around the hospital just goes completely the other way with that, and I suppose I can see the underlying point. Hospitals contain dangers far more subtle than a runaway forklift, and small mistakes can be bad for large numbers. People with problems wander around hospitals, and there's nothing more subtly dangerous than people.

I can also see where the management bigwigs would want to reassure the highly scarce and mobile professionals on their staff that they were being well cared for at all times. There are few forces on earth more potent than a stressed-out nurse - comforting them however you can seems to me to be a good policy, and I don't even deal with them in large groups. I'd also guess that your average nurse feels like she's leading a riskier life than, say, her next-door neighbor, so speaking of safety and security would be comforting.

I think about these things a bit differently myself, though. I automatically have suspicion for anyone who portrays themselves as a source of safety or security for me. It always strikes me as a move a drug dealer would make - c'mon, depend on me for what you gotta have. It might be different if everyone who I've dared to rely upon had proven themselves capable of providing the security they offered. I've just had too many deals go awry despite all that those good-intentioned folks could do, as well as some folks with intentions less clear.

I believe you are as safe and secure as you make yourself, and can understand tightrope walkers just as well as I understand those who barricade themselves in closets to sleep. Either way, you're making your own luck, and I simply cannot conceive of any other true path to security. This probably says something about how safe and secure my life has always been, that I don't see the need to take these things as gifts when offered, but that's how I'm currently wired.

If you tell me that you're able to make me safe, I think you're lying to one of us.

This clashes a bit with my billet du jour - this is a way that I'm odd in that place. It came out the first day I went there.

One gets orientation when one starts at that place - rules, regulations, and logistics. Parking is part of that last bit, so I found myself listening to where I could park, and the security virtues of a hospital lot. The blonde administratrix delivering the speech seemed quite enthused about the diligence of their regular patrols, and the clearly-marked emergency call stations for those who couldn't wait to be secured. Her speech faltered a bit, though, when her eyes crossed mine as she spoke, and she seemed momentarily scared.

I became a bit embarrassed - I'd been wearing a grin I'd not meant to. The one that's vaguely amused at people who take safety as a gift, flavored a bit with my general fondness for unpatrolled parking lots. (I've had more entertaining and exalting experiences in parking lots than in churches and resort hotels put together.) At the moment she lost her train of thought, I'd been thinking that she was exactly the sort of girl who'd mistake me for a problem, should we meet upon the blacktop at just the proper moment.

Once I was embarrassed, though, she seemed able to be safe again and continue... a matter of seconds at most. To whatever extent I helped, I was happy to provide safety for someone who needed it. After all, I make my own, and have no plans to run out. It went a bit oddly, but that's fine - any helpful thing I might do generally does.

Still, my attitude about all this comes out in peculiar ways, like in how I selected the place I park each day. I tried two other lots before settling on one whose looks agree with me, though it occurs to me I've never seen her there.


It's been that way for weeks now. It may not be all that diligent, but as you'd expect from a hospital, it is indeed clearly-marked.