When I was growing up, basically from first or second grade through high school, my dad worked in an emergency room. He worked there before and after that too, but that stretch of time is the one I remember most clearly. And at some point during those years he got promoted and became the group leader for the physician assistants. Which meant he controlled the schedule.
That schedule was, looking back, kind of wild.
He technically worked only two days a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays. But those two days were monsters. He would get up around six thirty in the morning, head out. I rarely saw him in the mornings. He wouldn’t get home until eleven or eleven thirty at night. Eighteen hour days. He would get home long after everyone else was asleep, put on the TV for a bit to unwind, and eventually go to bed. The only reason I know this was because my bedroom was near the living room, so I would hear him come in sometimes.
Those two huge days added up to about thirty six hours a week, and then he had administrative office hours scattered elsewhere. That part was whenever he wanted, so the rest of his week was essentially free time. He used to tell me he loved those early morning drives. He would throw on scrubs, be out the door in minutes, and the roads were empty. We lived in Queens near the Throgs Neck Bridge and he worked in the Bronx, so it was a quick trip. From the way he described it, he was not overly committed to speed limits, and because of his job, I do not think any police officer ever gave him trouble. Then coming home late at night was the same thing. Empty roads, easy ride. He really liked that routine.
Later on, when my sister went to college, he picked up a side job on Wednesdays to help cover tuition. That was at Rikers Island. His hospital had the medical contract there, so once a week he did a four to twelve shift at the prison clinic. He hated that job. They would literally lock him into the clinic area for his own protection and he would sit there with a tiny portable television, because this was the late eighties and entertainment options were pretty much nonexistent. If something happened, they would either bring an inmate to him or escort him out to whoever needed care. He did it strictly for the money, and he knew the exact week he was planning to quit because that was the moment he would no longer need the extra income our college tuition’s.
When I got older and went off to college, he still had the same overall routine. I would call my parents on Sundays for the usual check in, but if I wanted to talk specifically to my dad, I would call him on Wednesday mornings before he left for Rikers. He told me once that I was one of the only people who ever called him on Wednesdays. Everyone else avoided him because he was grumpy about going to that job and made sure the whole house knew it. But I always knew he would be home on those mornings, and for whatever reason, I never minded calling then.
Eventually he moved out of the emergency room entirely and into a more administrative role. More of a normal nine to five thing. That was sometime toward the end of my college years, and there is another whole story about how he got that job, but that is for another day.
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