December 31, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Today I had great fun subbing in at one of our other pediatric clinics. Someone needed to be on sick leave, and I moved myself from my home clinic to our “sister” clinic. It usually does not make sense to move a paneled doctor to another clinic, because a paneled doctor has their 2000 patients to care for. But in this case, we were stealing from Peter to pay Paul and evened out the staffing numbers. One of my patients found me but otherwise I was seeing other people’s patients. I don’t mind so much because I need to check in with the other physicians and nursing staff as a middle manager. It’s fun once in a while to sit at someone else’s desk and have a different lunch routine.

There were still the usual annoyances of middle management. We just came back from a glorious week in Utah, so it was time to pay my work dues. I get paid to work and I earned my keep today. I had planned on maybe stopping by the nearby creek at lunch to do some plastic picking. But lots of little scheduling things came up, and I only had time to grab a small coffee and a sandwhich with a friend at the nearby deli and headed to finish it in the lunchroom. But overall it was a very fun day. Most patients arrived on time, and I was on-time. Miracle for sure. And at lunch, I got to appreciate some very cool reusable water bottles in the lunchroom!

drplasticpicker: Tell me about your water bottle Nurse J. I love the color and all your stickers and how you personalized it.

Nurse J: So this sticker my baby boy got me from Starbucks. This one my baby girl got me these little stickers from a store on Convoy. Some of these stickers you get for free when you buy shirts from shirt shops.

Nurse J has teenagers, but it is so sweet that she calls them her babies still. She is such a mommy! As Nurse J is telling me about her reusable water bottle in the lunchroom, she is slowly gliding her fingers lovingly over the stickers. She has a pug named Jasper and most of the stickers are of pugs. Clearly she loves pugs and her water bottle.

drplasticpicker: It looks beautiful. Why is your Hydroflask orange? (I was really intrigued by it’s color).

Nurse J: My favorite color is orange. Everything is orange. My wallet is orange. My water bottle is orange.

As we are admiring her reusable water bottle, the clinic secretary walked in.

drplasticpicker: A, do you have a reusable water bottle? (She seemed a bit surprised at my question.)

A: No, I don’t.

drplasticpicker: (I know I am an odd middle manager) Do you want one?

A: Yes.

drplasticpicker: What kind would you like?

A: Probably something like that one right there, a Hydroflask. (Clearly Nurse J is a trendsetter in this clinic).

drplasticpicker: What is your favorite color?

A: Any color is fine but maybe black.

I wandered back to the other nursing station amazed at how wonderful Nurse J’s water bottle was. And then Nurse B, told me about his water bottle. He did not have it today, but I asked him to send me pictures of it on Facebook. He sent them! He is a lover of the earth and supports our plastic reduction efforts. He told me about the special sticker he has on the bottom of the water bottle that was designed by a visiting nursing student. It has a stethoscope shaped like a heart and then ends with an EKG like wave. The black stainless steel water bottle and personalized sticker is simply cool and I think many nurses and doctors would love it.

And then I spied at the corner of my eye, a beautiful torquoise water bottle. This belonged to one of our young pediatricians who is also a plastic picker, as she has joined us on one of our beach cleanings. I wandered into her office.

drplasticpicker: Dr. HD, how long have you had your water bottle?

young Dr. HD: Years and years.

drplasticpicker: Do you love it?

young Dr. HD: Yes because I use it every day and it keeps me hydrated.

I asked her how she personalized her water bottle. She is a photographer as well, and now I know she has graphic design experience. She described how she converted the JPEG image into a vector file. She knows about vector files! I just learned about that. Usually you have to pay folks big bucks to do that file conversion. Then I remembered that when we hired her, we were all impressed with her resume – she is an aerospace engineer as well. She is one of those truly smart people. I am smart also, because I was on the committee that interviewed and hired her. Yeah me! Maybe I should put her on one of the quantitative quality/metric commitees? She is really busy settling in right now at work but that is a good idea I should file in the back of my managerial mind. Engineering types are the best on these committees and we get so much done. Dr. HD is a dedicated earth lover, so that makes sense that she is smart. I am so glad she became a pediatrician.

So today was a lot of fun as I got to see three really nice reusable water bottles that are personalized, loved and used. And I also know of someone who needs one – black and preferably a Hydroflask.