As you can see from the photo (the caption should read - this old nurse wants to be in bed in this house not driving on the 103) taken by the student participating in a snow day... today we had a winter storm advisory with 30 - 35 cm of wet, blowing, drifting snow which began during the night and was a mess by first thing this morning. All schools on this end of the province were cancelled and lots of other places too. My plans were complicated by the fact that there was a general staff orientation session scheduled for Yarmouth which I was expected to present occupational health and infection control topics (remember the coworker lying on the beach who I'm jealous of). I started calling everyone on the HR list in YRH early and was still only getting voice mail at 8 a.m. so assuming no one made it in, I called the switchboard saying to the receptionist "they must have cancelled orientation for today is there anyone in the conference room?" she agrees that it can't be on but she'll check and the next voice I hear is that of one of the HR staff who sounds surprised that I should question if the session is still on, says there are five people there he and asks me why I'm not coming up? Now on a good day this is a one hour drive and he's really surprised me with the 'what's the matter with you' attitude so I tell him I'll start out and see. Then I phone my counterpart in YRH and ask why the session is still on (we have white out conditions at this point and no plows on the road) and she says "well this is a hospital, people have to know that they have to come to work" and mind you she has traveled less than 5 km to get to this hospital, but she does offer to do both of the presentations for me so I'm not long taking her up on it. So now... I just have to get myself into Shelburne and email them to her. This was quite an experience at 50 km on a very greasy road which means I arrive over an hour late. I have to stop at the phone store because the loaner they've given me has a defective charger and so is almost dead. My original phone is still not reset. I skid into work to find out that everyone, and I mean everyone is really cranky as it looks like they're in for the next 24 hrs. and my computer is just creeping along and the techs haven't even called me back. I found the IT Manager on the phone in his local office (he'd started out for YRH and headed back) and asked him to come fix the machine (he says he knows I 've had a 'ticket' out on that for a couple of weeks) - he tells me it's been about 8 yrs since he's been a tech and I tell him that's more than I have - he has 15 min. to get things operational and unbelievably he does manage to cobble together a partial solution to the almost stalled performance so I can post for my assignment. I managed to hang in until about about 1:30 p.m. when the RCMP were warning folks off the road, businesses were all closing and by then I thought ' there is no job worth risking my life on these roads for, I have + + hours of vacation and time in lieu.. I'm out of here. The sad situation is that I likely got as much accomplished in 4 hrs. today as I do in 8 hrs on others. Now the driveway is plowed, we didn't lose power here and there is no more snow forecast at least for tonight so tomorrow should be better. I need a tropical perspective on this!
