MySpace-August 14, 2010-Fight Club

I’m not a terribly superstitious person until it comes to one thing. I don’t worry about broken mirrors, black cats, stepping on cracks. 13 is just another number, if it falls on a Friday, its just another day. The one thing that I’m very superstitious about though, is being on call.

Being on call just comes with the job. There are instances in veterinary medicine where I suppose you have enough seniority or are specialized enough that you don’t have on call shifts. I however, am not that person. Even in school, I dreaded being on call. Just the thought of that upcoming day, put a rock in my stomach. Being in practice hasn’t changed this.

I’m so superstitious that if I am on call, I don’t do anything. I sit at home. I don’t make phone calls. I don’t cook. I don’t watch movies. I sit. I wait. I worry. I live in perpetual fear of being called. In school, if I was on call later in the evening for the overnight shift, I would go out but rush back home before my shift started less I tempt the on call gods. Its happened before that I would be on call but wander down the parking lot to Laura and Rachel’s house only to be called while sitting on their couch. How can you take that kind of risk? I don’t feel that you can. Eventually, when I was on pathology and being on call seemed rather silly, I would relax, but only some. And it did bite me in the butt. I was baking a cake on a Sunday when I received a call regarding a dead piglet. I couldn’t just leave the cake. So I told the people they’d have to wait. They were okay with it but it still put that rock right back in my stomach.

For me being on call is like Fight Club. The first rule of being on call is that you do not speak of being on call. With the exception of essentially only stating that I am on call, I don’t speak about it. I don’t like it being spoken about in my presence for fear that even doing more than acknowledging it will lead to being jinxed and actually called in. At this point, I am being paid a bonus for coming in on emergency so I should welcome my calls, but I don’t. I’d rather be poorer.

I’ve also learned that if you’re on call, you should flee the building as quickly as possible. I learned at school if you stick around doing paperwork, you’re bound to be called. I was found multiple times on surgery that way. Sometimes, multiple times in a day. No body likes that.

Eventually, I’ll stop worrying. I’ve done a good job of convincing people, so far, that they really don’t want to pay my emergency fee ($100 minimum but more likely $150 because I’ll bring in a tech). Eventually, I’ll relax and be willing to do other things while on call. That day is not yet. I’m probably jinxing myself just typing about it…you know for the future because I wouldn’t dare write a blog about it if I was actually on call. Fight club.

[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on 8/23/11.]