Things I May Not Do at My New Job

I love my new job. I do. No, really, I do. Or, I will once the training period is over. That would be the training period that was apparently designed for someone with the intellect of a clothespin and the judgement of a leaky puppy in a house full of Oriental carpets. To say I'm a bit bored is in the same ballpark as saying "I'm a bit put out that I ran out of that one of a kind yarn with only one inch to go on the sleeve of a sweater that took me three years to knit." It's not pretty. I know it will get better...but, in the interim, my new boss has kindly offered some helpful guidelines for me:

No matter how bored I get:
I may not use the medical tape to give myself a french manicure.
I may not make crank calls to the pharmacies that we use, asking them if they have Prince Albert in a can and then giggling wildly.
No matter how long it took and how many fingernails were sacrificed, none of my co-workers want a paper clip necklace.
The male nurse working in the shot room does not want his hair french-braided. Especially not his chest hair and no, the partly unzipped top showing a frightening amount of testosterone is not an invitation to do precisely that.
I may not use all the stethoscopes in the clinic to put on an impromptu marionette show. Particularly not one in questionable taste.
I may not replace all the screen savers on all the clinic computers with pictures of my cats. Or my husband. Or my husband's cats.
I may not call back the next patient by opening the door to the waiting room and shouting "Who's the next victim here?"
"Duh" is not really an appropriate response to an interminable explanation of how to do something--even if I've done it a thousand times and everyone in the clinic knows it.
Neither is "no shit, Sherlock. Did someone help you figure that out?"
I may not look up naughty things in the medical dictionaries.
I may not fax pictures of ANY body part to the head office.
No one thinks that the joke about the "head nurse" being the one with the dirty knees is funny. (think about it...and I'm so very sorry for lowering the standards of this blog with such base humor. But I'll bet you snickered.)
Having the patient blow into the spirometer may not be referred to --in or out of the patient's hearing--as a blow job.
Going up to absolutely anyone with any authority to let me do the things I've been doing for years, dropping to my knees and begging "C'mon, play me, coach! I'm ready!" is really annoying.
I may not explain the presence of my preceptor to patients with the phrase "This is Mary. She's here because the clinic doesn't want to get sued if I f**k something important up."
No, the fact that I brought homemade brownies does not buy me the right to bypass the more ridiculous parts of the training (like the video on handwashing--and no, I only wish I was kidding).
Upon learning the above, veiled allusions to what might be in the brownies that everyone ate are not one bit funny.
Laying in the middle of the hallway with a sign on my chest saying "died of boredom" is not a good use of my time.
I may not wax my eyebrows at the nurse's station.
I may not wax my legs at the nurse's station.
Doing either of the above two will not do anything to further my cause.
No, maturity is NOT overrated.
I may not practice the bagpipes to help pass the time.
No, nobody wants their face painted. Especially with highlighters.
Pulling the fire alarm wasn't funny when I was 7; it's not funny now.
I may not draw unflattering pictures of my co-workers on the table paper in all the exam rooms. The fact that I am artistically incapable of drawing flattering ones is no excuse.
I may not call my co-workers on their desk phones to ask them what they're doing. This would be true even if they weren't all seated within arms reach of me.
Sighing loudly and muttering vaguely will get me nowhere.

And so it goes. Don't get me wrong--I think I'll have a great deal of fun there once they realize that I have an IQ slightly higher than an egg white. For now, the training period stretches out before me. I think I'll go tune up my bagpipe.