Don’t panic, Despite my earlier post on procuring venison, I haven’t gone over to the dark side just yet. But I admit that two recent events here in this bastion of liberal sensibilities that is my workplace, do have me shaking my head. Both have to do with the allocation of the scarcest of resources at the University that employs me: space.
Rant #1
I’ve recently gone to war (and lost) over retaining a walk-in refrigerator that we use to store our supplies. My tribe has lost out to another tribe, which apparently has more political influence, forcing us to abandon our 150 square foot cold room. Now, I could accept this as just another power struggle that I came out on the short side of, if it were not for the reasoning employed and the expensive outcome. The powers that be decided that one of the departments that specializes in the social side of medicine needed the space more than we did. (Apparently, a solid grounding in the social aspects of medicine is more important that a thorough understanding of infectious disease.) Now, you may have considered the same question that I did, on hearing of my lost turf: what does social medicine need a stainless steel walk in cooler for? The answer: nothing. It will be ripped out and the area converted to another office.
I don’t even want to know how much taxpayer money that wastes.
Rant #2
My staff called me this morning to tell me that they have to temporarily vacate our prep space, so the plumbers can install some plumbing. The pipes aren’t for our use; rather, they will supply a newly installed sink on the other side of the wall, in a space formerly used as a storeroom. Not that big of a deal, though we are super-short of storage space. But this is a room across the hall from another cold room used until just recently to store cadavers for anatomy studies. And it also happens to be within fifty feet of the lab space we use to teach students about the joys of shigella, methicillin resistant staph and the like. Get the picture? So what is this room being converted into?
Apparently, a lactation room. For the convenience of the hordes of nursing mothers that have somehow completely escaped my notice. For years.
I wish I were making this up.
Posted on January 11th, 2010 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings
Okay, you have my sympathy regarding the loss of the cold room but just because you haven’t noticed the lactating mothers doesn’t mean that they aren’t there and don’t have a need for a private space other than the nearest restroom. Besides, are hordes necessary? Two or three still means that they need a private space instead of having to make do with a corner somewhere. Betcha that women of childbearing age have been begging for such a space for years. BTW, no doubt you haven’t noticed because most nursing mothers don’t make it a habit to make a public display of it and it is likely that they are not seeking a place to nurse their babies but to instead express their milk for later consumption by those babies. I think the term is a family friendly work environment. 2.5 stars of sympathy out of 5.
Leave it to Sheria to set me straight and make me laugh at the same time.
Bravo!
Maybe they need the cooler to store the milk? You can’t just leave it sitting out all day. I’m sure the “hords” will need a lot of cold storage.
I’d go on but I’ll just get in trouble.
I’m appalled by converting the walk-in to office space; I remember all too well how many supplies we went through in a week…a walk-in fridge was a necessity, not a luxury.