Leila was happy. The chance to do an internship and that in times of Corona was like winning the lottery. It was not just a normal hospital, but a medium sized, idyllically located private hospital. Leila was able to support for 6 weeks, she was the handyman. She was very much looking forward to the work and the world of the private hospital.
She really needed the money, because all the books she will need for the next semester of her studies cost a lot.
The first day started very early for her. At 6 o’clock she had to be changed and ready to start with her tasks. The first task was not difficult at all. She had to collect all the drinking glasses from the bedside tables, put them in the dishwasher and then distribute the clean glasses again. She was instructed to do this as quietly as possible and not to wake anyone up. This seemed to be relatively easy and Leila took the trolley and went from room to room on the second floor to collect the drinking glasses. She tried to open the door very slowly and to be very quiet in the rooms so that she won’t wake up anyone. It didn’t work badly and after about a quarter of an hour she managed to collect all the glasses on the floor. She took the trolley to the elevator to continue her work one floor down. It took almost an hour and Leila had collected all the glasses from all three floors. Now she made her way to the kitchen to put the glasses in the dishwasher. The kitchen was empty, but her supervisor had already shown her how to do it the day before, so it was not difficult for her to put the glasses in. There was still water in many of these glasses and Leila poured it into the sink with a wave of her hand. About the fifth glass she poured, there was a strange noise. Leila peeked into the sink to see what it was and froze. In the sink was an artificial denture. She felt her own cold sweat. This always happened to her when she did something wrong. Quickly she investigated the remaining glasses, which were still on the trolley. She realized it was even worse because she found 6 additional dentures in different glasses.
Leila had no idea where she had collected which glasses. She had not paid attention when collecting and did not proceed systematically. Even if her life depended on it, she would not have had a chance to assign the glasses to the right floor. She imagined the worst, how she would lose her internship on the first day, because these private patients would be incredibly angry, and the management would throw her out.
Leila put all the glasses with dentures in it by side in the kitchen, put the dentures she had spilled in the water into the glas and headed to the nurses’ room to confess her misfortune.
It turned out differently than expected, the 2 nurses laughed and offered to fix it. Leila was glad that she could continue her internship.
Thinking is always needed!
Michaela Merz 