"Last time I had a flat tire, I pulled my truck into one of those side-of-the-road gas stations. The attendant walks out, looks at my truck, looks at me, and asked, "Tire go flat?" I couldn't resist so I said, "Nope. I was driving around and those other three just swelled right up on me. Here's your sign."

                                                                                                                                                            Bill Engvall

The pandemic has created many unusual, strange, surprising and unexpected situations for the planet.

Many negative, horrendous and heart-breaking, some opportunistic and diverse in ways we couldn't have foreseen.

One of the latter was being offered the opportunity to work in an infection prevention and control capacity in the production world.

Yup, I never saw that one coming either. I never, in my wildest dreams, ever imagined that my work and little bit of knowledge in infection control would lead me to an industry I have revere since I was a child.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge geek, huge comic book fan, huge gamer, huge soundtrack fan, huge film fan... and someone with a huge curiosity regarding knowing how things work, how things are done and how things get made.

So, to say I was excited when I heard I would be working in the UK doing something that I love for something that I have loved forever, would be an understatement. 

I may have wee'd a little.

What I should have realised, given that there have been tales in the press forever, was that bullying, sly and inappropriate behaviour are as rife in that world as they are in the healthcare industry and so many others.

Looking back, I allowed my excitement and utter wonder of that world to cloud my appreciation of what it would actually be like.

Now, don't misunderstand me. My time, though top and tailed with appalling behaviours, was magical in the middle. I was overwhelmed and underwhelmed in equal measure at how things are done on the journey to making something the world will benefit from; all of it simply a dream to behold. And to get to deliver IPC training, education and support, a subject I adore, in such a world, was a huge learning opportunity and one I have taken from so very much regarding the application, understanding and practicality of infection control in alternate workplaces.

But the start and finish of my time there... an absolute suck-feast.

The gist of it is this. There were people employed there who, whilst exceptional and sometimes renowned in their usual roles, were thrust into positions in order to manage COVID-19 with no medical background, no healthcare experience, no microbiology/virology experience and only knew what they had seen on the news or read in the newspapers about coronavirus.

And this was where there was a disconnect. 

Now, I can only speak of my experience, but from the first day there, my manager was one of these...

At the time, I was able to appreciate a modicum of the pressure they must have been under, being familiar with the urgency and details involved in contact tracing potentially infected individuals, dealing with IPC queries, managing the screening of cohorts of people... usual hospital and community IPC requirements.

Add onto this, the pressure a major company* must place on someone regarding their immediate desire for results and information, something I know nothing about, and I can see perfectly how it can affect one's behaviours, rightly or wrongly. 

*Said company gave all its instructions and diatribes from another country. Think about how effective it can be, trying to manage 'outbreak' situations when there is maybe a ten-hour time difference and having to share/being ordered to share, urgent information with others tens of thousands of miles away... yeah, nigh on impossible

But that is no excuse for being a twat. 

After my fellow IPCN, whom I was replacing, left, I quickly realised that I knew nothing as far as Crocodile Dundee was concerned (my manager was Australian). 

"David, would you mind speaking to so-and-so and giving them some advice on x,y, and z?"

"No worries. I'll go now."

Cut to return to office

" What did you tell them?"

"I said 'blah, blah, blah' and 'la, la'. They were happy with 'this and that' and I said I would check in on them later."

"What the fuck, David! You don't get to make decisions and give that kind of advice without checking with me first."

This would get to be a common occurrence. Ask me to offer advice, give my opinion, suggest alternatives etc, and then be challenged, questioned, abused for giving the advice that I did.

I have no problem in someone challenging my opinion; I have no ego to bruise (I got rid of that albatross when I 86'd the 'other guy'). But I find it awkward when the person challenging my medical advice is a former beauty spot manager with no medical background whatsoever. 

I often wanted to say, "Well, what the fuck did you ask me for?"

But I didn't. For once in my life (isn't that a song?) I was in a world that I couldn't have ever imagined being, so I was prepared to eat shit for the short amount of time I would be working with this person. 

Anyway, variations on the above happened frequently, and my employers (I was working as a contractor, hired out by a secondary employer via a tertiary company whilst advising in a quorate capacity... I know, I get confused too) often told me "I don't care" or "I'm not interested" or a variation thereof. 

One day, I got so sick and tired of being sworn at and belittled in front of others in the office, that I just left.

I called my boss, said I'd had enough, that I wouldn’t put up with that kind of shit from my family, never mind a stranger, and went home.

Kelly was pissed, not with the reason for my decision, but because I hadn’t discussed it with her first... which is a fair point. I am often accused of being impulsive and rash (remember that, as it will become relevant shortly) and, in hindsight at the time, I had to admit it had been a tad dramatic. 

I was called and asked to come back if I wanted to, I said I did, and that was it. A forced, insincere apology was offered by CD and everything went on as expected.

Until a few months later, I made a genuine mistake regarding a contact tracing occurrence. The fault lay 100% with me. I made an assumption about this person's circumstances, something a nurse should never make, and provided the wrong information.

Segue

The backstory for context is that I had delivered an induction session, and one of the attendees was one of those identified as a close contact. I had immediately connected with this person, something I rarely do, and we'd had a great, funny chat. I was told it was their first time there, had a daughter (during the conversation) and that they would be working in the customer relations business.

End of segue

When I contacted them, instead of asking all the questions I should have, I assumed that, given I had been told certain facts when we had chatted after the induction, I only needed to check a few things.

This information was shared and I thought that was that.

I was then called shortly after, with my manager telling me that said individual had been working on this day and that day, had been in potential contact with so many others, and had worked there for a while,

I was trying to convey that it couldn't be the same person, as they told me they hadn't been there before. It must be someone with the same name (which is virtually impossible if you knew their name!)

This was pretty much the reason that I ended up being moved from the location I worked on to the location I ended up on (which was for the best all around, but I didn't know that at the time).

Just to clarify, I was completely wrong, and my manager was right. I shouldn't have assumed anything and just asked the correct questions. But I foolishly had a sense of security and fondness towards this person, in an inanely short period of time, so completely dropped my professional approach.

Other factors contributed to this situation. It was a weekend, and I was bathing the boys at the time of the call, so I didn't answer my phone immediately, I don't have a problem at all working on a weekend, even if I am not supposed to be, but I perhaps don't have the same sense of urgency if my phone rings. So, I had six missed calls and five text messages before I was given the above data collection job I then fucked up collecting.

I was then told that I had to answer my phone in one ring, even on a weekend, and that the company line was that you had to be available whenever and at all hours. I stated that I didn't mind that, but on a weekend, my family would come first. 

I wrote up some reflection on my mistake and it all came to a head in the office a few days later when, after being asked an infection control-based question, my manager then said they would check with a doctor (who gave the same advice). I asked why ask me if it was going to be checked with someone else anyway. I was told that they weren't prepared to speak to me anymore, and I responded that they were a thoroughly unpleasant person to work with.

I was then told, "I wouldn't worry about it, David as you won't be working here for much longer."

That wasn't the case at all, but I will save that for tomorrow!

N.B By the way, I became great friends with the individual whose contact tracing information I had fucked up. They told me months later that they had worked there for months at the time of the induction and were just messing about. They also didn’t have a daughter - it was their sister.

Bastard.