Feignters

I'm in the office alone this morning. I'm supposed to be 'manning the phones' whilst the nurses are out vaccinating teenage girls, but surprisingly calls have been thin on the gorund, and I have no data entry work to do, hence updating.

As mentioned above - vaccinating teenage girls. Vaccinating. Teenage. Girls. What fun! I'm quite glad not to be there really. When I attend vaccination sessions it usually takes the same format - girls fall into three categories: the troopers; the gigglers; and the hystericals. Boys generally fare better, you get them in loud and louder.

Boys are amusing to vaccinate. Initially they are all trying to hide their worries behind bravado, heckling friends who are having theirs done, whilst quietly asking you questions such as "It's only one injection, right?", "You do use clean needles for each of us, don't you?" and "Does it hurt?" Their sincerity and worry always serves to make them look and sound about 10 years old, despite the vast majority towering over me (although, at 5'4" that's not a difficult feat to achieve), so I am always kind to them, despite wanting to giggle at their calling me "Miss". Generally afterwards the bravado comes back as they incredulously ask "Was that it?!" following their 3 second-long single injection, resulting in much crowing to their mates about how it was nothing, then punching all their mates in the sites of their injections.

The girls are another matter. The troopers are great - they come in, they roll up their sleeve, have their jab and leave without issue. The gigglers are usually ok once they get into the chair, but they are always good to make jokes with or about. It's the hystericals who are the problem. Ok, maybe I'm being harsh by lumping them all in together as hysterical. Some aren't. But there are tears and whining and asking for friends to be present. Those who have friends with them are invariably the 'performers', yelping "Owowowowowowow!" loudly whilst their vaccine is being injected - you never hear this from the girls who come in alone.

I'm not knocking those with a genuine fear, after all, I'm terrified by cotton wool and Tom Cruise; phobias come in all shapes and sizes. But it's when you get one that sits down and whines "I'm scared of needles" when she has half a jewellery shop stuck through various holes in her face and body that you have to bite your lip and look the other way. They will sometimes attempt to justify this with declarations that that was different, because it was their 'choice'. Fine dear, we're not forcing you to have this injection, that's a choice too, but the consequences may be far worse if you don't have this needle than if you didn't have the one that went through your tongue.

We do get the odd extreme cases too. Some are known to faint rather dramatically (assumedly not always genuinely) and last time this happened a note was made on our files "Feinted".

"Ok, who's the joker?" I ask.
One of my colleagues looks over, "Oh, that's me. I can't spell."
Whoops! "I thought it was intentional," I quickly rescue, "As in she feigned fainting."
"I hadn't thought of it that way," my colleague replied.
"Well, maybe it could be a new office codeword?" I suggested.