4 June 2006(moved form Yahoo!360)-Our morgue attendant who started calling me "Professor" from Day 1 at work had always been effusive with his sycophantic lines. The pessimist in me always found these exchanges suspicious. Either he wanted me to do his work, do him a favor, or remotely, was genuinely a nice guy. But then morgue attendant jobs do not have a track record of attracting the creme de la creme of the work force. Back in my first hospital, we had a morgue attendant who was a young guy who apparently liked to live on the edge. He'd be a truant most of the time and delinquent in his duties of minimally keep the autopsy suite clean. On days he'd come in reeking of alcohol from an all nighter at CBGB. We couldn't complain, there was no one else. One day, he lived to far beyond the edge and was found dead in a roach motel on the Bowery from an overdose. But I digress...
Henry had been generally a nice guy year round; at least to me. On a regular basis he has been driving his boss crazy for the last how many years. Absences, too many sick leaves, dirty morgue, etc. But lately the verbal skirmishes have been escalating to near physical events. There was one night when his Korean boss was so upset he started waving(accd'g to Henry brandishing/hacking) a long knife as he lividly expressed his anger. Henry, feeling threatened. quietly disappears and reports to security the supposed "threat" to his life. Not taking the matter lightly, security came to investigate but without success as Boss went home already. Henry goes to me," Can you sign this incident report as a witness?" Hmmmm.
Yesterday, an unusual specimen necessitating extra attention threw the two into another finger pointing session as to who was supposed to do what. The specimen had to be preserved snap frozen and liquid nitrogen had to be found ASAP. Henry said it wasn;t his job, the Boss orders him to find some, he says no, the Boss ends up doing it himself. End of story? Not quite.
Today I heard this story. As Henry walks into a walk-in freezer in the lab, he notices a small open vial of liquid nitrogen sitting precariously on a ledge along a tight alley in the walk-in freezer. Above on another ledge was a precariously sitting container of acetone. Henry remarks, "These two make an explosive combination.......I think my Boss is secretly trying to kill me. Can you sign this report as a witness?" Hmmm.
Too bad I won't be here long enough to see how this plays out.
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