It goes without saying, that when we pay a visit to a hospital, either as a guest or as a patient, we only see a very small portion of all the working parts of a hospital.
While countless doctors, nurses and orderlies will be seen roaming the halls, their hands more than full, there are also lab technicians and administrators who are every bit as busy, just not as visible.
Knowing this does rather make one wonder what goes on in a hospital that we don't see, or don't realize.
Or, for that matter, what we patients are actually entitled to, that they may not realize.
A question possibly best left unanswered.
Even so, Redditor SingLikeTinaTurner was eager to find out, leading them to ask:
"Hospital workers of Reddit, what happens there that's hidden but that we should know about?"
If You Know, You Know...
"Not really hidden and kinda minor but I’ll say it anyways."
"I deliver food to patients and it’s not hard to tell when someone is on their way out."
"Could be simply not being hungry, or could be the inability to eat."
"Had one patient who hadn’t eaten anything off their tray for 3 days straight."
"The last time I delivered to them, they smiled and gave me a wink."
"Next day, they were gone."
"It’s rough seeing these things happen in real-time."
"I’m a grown @ss man who doesn’t cry often, but it always leaves me feeling extra empty picking up the untouched trays and replacing them with another tray that I know will stay untouched as well."- jgss2018
Hidden In Plain Sight
"Sometimes when people die we just put an oxygen mask on them and wheel them through the corridors."
"Less distressing for other patients and visitors to think they are asleep rather than see a body with a sheet over it."- dont-believe-me-·
Know Your Rights
"You, as a patient, have every right to refuse any test or treatment or even leave."
"At any time."
"For any reason."
"Unless a harm to self or others- that's different, at least in the US."
"Added bonus you should know: leaving against medical advice DOES NOT mean insurance will not pay for the care you've received."
"Your insurance will still be billed the same as anyone else who stayed the whole time till discharge."
"But if you leave with an IV in your arm we will call the police to find you and bring you back to remove it, because of drug abuse."- Suitable_Sorbet_8718
Peeking Not Recommended
"The hospital I work at has these big square covers."
"When I first started, I would see transport staff pushing these things around the halls."
"I thought they were food trays, or large boxes of hospital equipment."
"Turns out it’s a structured bed cover, so when they are transporting a deceased patient to the morgue, it doesn’t look like a person under a sheet."- rajortoa9
The Flashing Lights Only Get You So Far
"An ambulance ride is not a one way ticket to the front of the line."
"You still get triaged and could be rolled right to the waiting room if you’re non-emergent."- dozerdude1995
emergency ambulance GIF
Giphy
Whatever Gets Them In The Zone...
"Surgeon here."
"We listen to music in the OR."
"Most people seem surprised when they hear that."- johnnyscans
Hide And Seek...
"I got a fast bleep (ie. drop everything you’re doing and attend this emergency please) one night to a side room on the ward to find no patient in the bed."
"Was just about to leave the room and go back out to the nurses station, where there had been a bit of a hubbub when I’d dashed past the first time, when something caught my eye."
"Looked up to see a face with wide, slightly wild 'psych eyes' peering down at me from a gap in the ceiling tiles."
"She was a lady waiting for a bed in the psych hospital who’d clearly thought the ceiling was the best place to hide from the people trying to poison her."
"Honestly can’t think of another occasion that I’ve been quite so terrified."
"Worst thing was that I had to walk (well, dash) back out underneath her to get help from the nurses and security to get her down."- Leas-Pe·
Speaking In Code...
"If you register in the ER and tell the triage nurse that your problem is 'personal' we know you’re here because of something genital or anal related."
"A lot of we healthcare workers have seen a lot."
"If you’re not truthful at triage, your care might be less prompt when it’s a true medical emergency."
"It is possible to die of embarrassment."- DocWednesday
Hide Reaction GIF by flor
Giphy
Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Them
"If you come into the ER drunk there is guaranteed a pool of bets on your blood alcohol level, possibly with odds if there's a pharmacist available to do the math for us."- K-Tanz
Ensuring They're Surrounded By Love
"In the ICU you spend a lot of time keeping corpses alive until their family comes around or their body gives out."
“'Oh Jesus ain’t ready for her yet!'”
"Yes, Jesus is ready for her; we’re just actively delaying it."- gamerdudeNYC
Maybe Not Just At Hosptials... Just A Thought...
"Not hidden, per se, but for the love of all that is holy, if you insist on bringing your kid into the hospital, do NOT let them crawl or play on the floor."
"The amount of literal blood, urine, poop, and vomit that has been on it and hastily (not thoroughly) cleaned up is, well, a lot."
"The hospital, especially the floors, is NOT a clean environment."
"Added to that, think of all the rooms nurses, doctors, housekeeping staff, etc. have walked into."
"Rooms that have COVID or Norovirus or group A Strep."
"We walked into those rooms and those same shoes walked into other rooms."
"Tl;dr hospital floors are disgusting as f*ck."- duckface08
Baby Crawls Face First Across The Floor GIF by ViralHog
Giphy
Not An Exact Science...
"Hospital lab worker here."
"Not particularly scandalous, but most people don't realiZe their lab tests are just very accurate guesses, and have an error range."
"When we say your 'X' is 10g/L, we might actually mean it's 10g/L ± 10-20%."
"I see too many people get extremely worked up about small fluctuations in blood test values that aren't actually in excess of the reference change value, and so technically aren't genuinely different from a previous value."- Hayred
A Decision No One Wants To Make...
"You are doing your 90 year old grandmother a great disservice by making her a full code, she will not survive CPR and her death will be significantly more traumatic because of it."- singlenutwonder
WASH YOUR FREAKIN' HANDS!!!
"I help patients to the bathroom nonstop all day."
"The amount of patients that just leave the bathroom without washing their hands is disgusting."
"If I didn’t hear the sink or soap dispenser your a** is getting led right to an alcohol hand station."- Madamiamadam
Wash Hands Water GIF by Jared D. Weiss
Giphy
More goes on in a hospital than we're ever likely to know.
If you check out from a hospital healthier than you were when you checked in, that's probably all you need to know.
Even if it's understandable to ask what song the doctor was listening to when you were open on the operating table.
I wish some bosses could hear themselves when they speak. They'd be shocked.
Dumped
I Am Trash GIF by PBS Digital StudiosGiphy"My old shop owner used to have us techs pour coolant down the toilet instead of disposing of it properly. After enough of us raised a fuss he started dumping it in the street himself."
Led_Halen
The Bell
"I used to work at Taco Bell and on the receipt there was a little online survey at the bottom. My manager told me to go through the trashes to find receipts that people had thrown out so that we could fill them out ourselves so our store would get a better rating. I was a stupid 17 year old so of course I did it. We used to give ourselves perfect reviews all the time actually."
ha1fway_decent
On Fire
"Used to deliver pizza for Domino’s on an e-bike. The e-bikes we used had a bunch of wiring underneath the saddles. One day the wiring caught on fire while I was delivering an order, so the fire started burning underneath my bum (also obviously the batteries stopped working so it became very tough to ride the e-bike)."
"Asked the shift manager of that evening if I could get another e-bike to use for the rest of the evening. He told me 'as long as you’re not on fire yourself you’re using this e-bike.' Quit my job shortly after that."
NOOWOFFICIAL
Labor and Delivery
"At the beginning of Covid, most of our pregnant patients were staying at home and not coming to the hospital for minor things such as mild abd pain, UTI, STD checks, etc as they had before because they were scared to come to a hospital. Our census obviously dropped."
"To try to get the census back up, our managers told us that if a patient called asking whether they should come to the hospital or not, we were supposed to just tell them to come no matter what their complaint was, even if it was something that they absolutely did not need to come in for."
"I refused to do this so I’d just transfer any calls to my charge nurse and let them deal with it. Let’s bring an already immunocompromised pregnant patient to the hospital in the very beginning of an unpredictable pandemic for something they don’t really need to come in for, sure. Smh."
okitay
Minted
Eating Fast Tic Tac GIF by The BacheloretteGiphy"I had a boss at a fine dining restaurant that would check to see if all his staff had breath mints and then he would make us buy them and if we didn’t, it would be deducted out of our paycheck."
Relative_Elderberry1
Hospitality bosses can be meglomaniacs. They are obsessed, it's unhealthy.
Not an ATM
Okaay What GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy"Worked at a convenience store and my boss actually asked me if he could borrow $1000 to pay for part of the beer delivery because they wouldn't have enough. Quit not long after that."
baconpoutine89
Mighty Winds
"Used to deliver for Papa John's. One night the weather was cuh-razy, tornado warning and constant lightning/winds. They kept taking orders. The winds were so bad they kept pushing my car out of my lane. One driver was so close to a lightning strike that he was visibly shaken and disoriented when he somehow made it back. They let him sit and recuperate in the manager's office for awhile, but we still had to deliver orders."
No_Extension108
No Thanks...
"I was called to cover for a temp who quit on the spot off hours. I responded that I already was 2 whiskeys in and didn’t want to get into my car to drive to the site. He responded that since I was coherent enough to have a conversation with him I was ok to make the 30 minute drive to the office. I told him I wasn’t about to risk a DUI for him and hung up."
User Deleted
Hell No
"A long time ago I worked at a grocery store. They decided to no longer get the cleaners that came in with special gear to clean out the compactor, presumably to make extra money. The compactor began to stink to high heaven. I'm talking rotten meat, produce etc. So they asked me to climb inside and clean it. I laughed at them and said no."
"I told all my co-workers to say no. One did not listen and went in and cleaned it, he had to go home because he stunk so bad and reeked for days afterwards. There is a reason a specialist comes in to clean it, wears a Hazmat suit and has the machine disconnected with another person standing there making sure no one turns it on."
MorkSal
you'll figure it out
Looking Let Me Think GIF by TipsyElves.comGiphy"Run a nursing home laundry room with no experience and no training. I didn't even know how the machines worked. Industrial laundry machines are not like your home washing machine. The extent of my training was having an under qualified supervisor telling me 'you'll figure it out.'"
rosesforthemonsters
“clean up”
"Worked at a sh**ty college town pizza place that paid me $5/H plus tips under the table. It would get insanely busy on days when there were football games and boss required all hands on deck. 12+ hour days were not uncommon when there was a game."
"I got to the store at 10am (2 hours before opening) and worked until 3am the following day. By the time 2am rolls around and the crowds finally die down and we start closing shop and cleaning up, my boss pulls back the entire front counter (which was on wheels) to reveal dozens of little roaches scattering everywhere."
"He gave me a broom and told me to 'clean up' the roaches. I waited for him to go out back to smoke his cigarette, I took everything from the tip jar, and left. Never went back."
ArtFreek
Shark Bait
"My boss had me put together a remote control inflatable shark in a closet in secret. I work in a sales office with a pretty fun culture (well now I’m mostly remote and it’s actually a lot less fun ). I have no idea where they sound this shark but he had me put it together in the marketing departments closet to surprise everyone."
"It actually was very hard to get together so the most ridiculous part was the amount of actual work I was missing. And had to grab my boss for a 2nd set of eyes like 3 or 4 times."
imlittleeric
Little Floofs...
"Ex boss. He asked me to kill a litter of kittens by throwing them over an embankment. I was driving the front end loader over to a pile of bark chips that we had covered up for quite some time. I pulled back the plastic cover and see a fuzzy grey pile. It turned out to be a fresh litter of kittens (eyes haven't even opened)."
"I phoned it in to my boss and he said that there was no time to help them, and to just toss them over the embankment because we had customers waiting. I scoffed, hung up the phone and immediately called my girlfriend to come pick up the little floofs to take them to the local shelter."
"He's an ex boss for a reason. Honestly I was not surprised that he asked me to do that. The dude was a complete f**king prick. He's confided so much nasty crap to me that I could write a book. I found a picture of the little ones that I took before they were rescued."
PopGunner
'on call'
dance girls GIF by L2MGiphy"Would we like to go 'on call' (for free) if the one person scheduled for the Saturday shift needs help or calls in sick. A weekend away for a team building exercise paid for by ourselves, including travel, accommodation, food & expenses. In our own time. No thank you."
markste4321
4 big jugs...
"My boss at a grocery/retail store told me to pour 4 big jugs of this industrial glass cleaner down the sink drain in one of two public washrooms, they’ve been in the back so many years one chewed through the plastic and melted all the paint off the shelf, honestly don’t know how I didn’t damage my vision with the chemicals in the air, long story short I ended up with a few chemical burns on my arms and hands with not as little as an apology."
IMakeBrew
Keep it Running...
"Worked at Disney World at Space Mountain for 4 months on an internship. Long story short one day we found a LOT of human crap in the waiting line. After we made the appropriate calls to have it cleaned up the supervisor that was there told me not to stop the line and keep the ride running."
"After the supervisor left I immediately called the front of the line and told them to stop letting people in. Same supervisor also told me I 'should have kept the ride running' one day after I hit the e-stop in the unload area because I heard what only could be described as a tank of CO2 breaking open any time I sent a cart through."
Spoonerx2
“ghost”
"To jump into a cardboard compactor to un-jam it."
LoganEpp
"I had a manager who used make fun of me because I emphatically said no to doing this exact thing. Absolutely the f**k I will not. They went on about safe guards and how i wouldn’t get hurt, or I was afraid of the 'ghost' in the compactor. No, but malfunctions do happen, all the goddamn time. No. I won’t do it."
Overnights
come again over it GIFGiphy"I stock overnight at Walmart. The average speed 1 pallet of goods takes to stock is roughly an hour and a half for the dairy section when you work on it by yourself. My boss asked for it to be done in 20 minutes."
XarumeR
Disgusting...
"I worked at an independent retailer. The owner pocketed a lot of money and never wanted to spend anything. We had a massive rat infestation. Instead of getting help my boss had me create a position just for wiping rat pee and crap off of beer six backs before being put out."
BusConfident1756
Mascots
"Dress up in an animal mascot costume and snowboard down a slope because the usual guy had got messed up drunk the night before and they were worried he was going to vomit inside the costume again. I’d never been on a snowboard in my life."
FormalMango
I hate bosses. Except the ones here on this website.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
Redditor ThatYoungsterSlt wanted to drink all the tea about workplace craziness, they asked:
"What is the small scale work drama happening in your office right now?"
We are here for it all. No detail or issue is too small. Speak up y'all...
Thief
"Someone's been eating people's sandwiches at work. They only get the sandwiches too. I'm legit invested in this because i wanna know.... why just the sandwiches?"
crispylilchickenwang
sandwich maria GIF by SubwayMXGiphyBedlam
"I guess this isn't small scale but fits the drama side; We've just received our pay increase and bonus figures for the year except HR sent a number of letters to the wrong people. Some of whom work together, doing the same job, but with different rates of pay and bonuses. Bedlam."
No_Sugar8791
Bad Play
"The playstation got stolen. For f**ks sake. We used to do an F1 tournament every Friday but the Playseat ain't no fun without a playstation. I will find out who the f**ker was."
Disappointless
"https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/2bcgf6/any_way_to_track_a_stolen_ps4/cj457m2?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3 Check this out, might help."
Itchysasquatch
Takeover
"My coworker was texting my old number thinking it was me asking if I could cover a shift. The person who took over my old number replied to her saying 'gargle on my b**ls' or something like that. I almost got fired for it."
liquid4618
"My sister was in a study group in school, and a guy from the group texted her to tell her when they were meeting up. He texted a wrong number, and the person replied 'won’t be able to make it, I have explosive diarrhea.'"
introvertissue
And Spoons?
"There are not enough forks in the staffroom. Some people are getting quite upset."
robohyeah
mark hamill forks GIFGiphyI'm living for it all. I work from home so my greatest dramas are with my dogs. Tell me more...
You or Me
"Minor downsizing means the two of us on temp contracts will have to reapply for a single post at the end of the year, so one of us stays and one of us goes."
MerylSquirrel
bad guys wolf GIFGiphySneaky, sneaky...
"Tom and Marie think they're being sneaky with their liaisons. They are not."
nsap200
"We had a Tom and Marie in the office. Everyone knew they were banging but they thought they were being slick and sly. Lead to his divorce and now they spend half the day at each other's desks."
TheBeardedSingleMalt
Drama & Tea
"Someone was pulled in to HR today about keeping their personal life away from work due to lots of recent over-sharing. The air was thick with tension as this person remained silent for the rest of the day. Absolutely everything. All of the dirt for the years leading up to their divorce that was finalized last summer, everything from current sex life to (unsolicited) announcement of her reproductive status. Constant discussion of private conversations with her kids and what’s going on with them (teens asking about sex etc)."
"Not only will she share these conversations with other adults but also has been heard having these conversations with the young teen kids who help us out around our shop as part time workers. The moment you drop a cordial 'Hi, how are you?' You get days worth of drama and tea. I’ve stopped talking with her other than work related conversations."
M0ck_duck
Miserable
"One of my coworkers came in 3 minutes late Monday of last week and my other coworker has been pissy at her since."
FairieButt
"Oh God, I once got called in to a meeting with the boss since she'd had a complaint that I'd left at 4.59pm the day before, instead of 5pm. The fact that I came in 30-60mins early every single day was never even taken into consideration. Quit that job, it was miserable anyway."
ishouldcoco1
The List
"The old manager wrote a list of pros and cons for each employee for the new manager. She left it out where it could easily be read. There are 3-5 cons for each person and 1-2 pros. She hasn’t left yet. Everyone now hates her."
Pantsyo_dog
fashion choose GIFGiphyFB Issues
"A guy was made redundant at work over a year ago and he still laugh reacts to every post the company makes on Facebook."
Queen_Of_Cat_Island
"Before I came to my current company, there was apparently a HUGE dustup involving the head of the company and his right hand lady. They still come in and comment on Facebook posts (they’ve both been gone over two years) with salty comments."
nomadicfangirl
We found out they could!
"I teach. Our team (teachers of the same grade level) is going to send home colored paper note sheets for parents to write encouraging comments to their students for state testing coming up. We want it to be a surprise for the students. We decided to try to see if the office could give us half size manilla envelopes to use. We found out they could! (Very exciting as a teacher to get office supplies)!"
"The secretary went into the locked closet to get us some envelopes. Another grade level team found out that we got envelopes from the office. Now THEY want envelopes because it’s not 'fair' that we got envelopes and they didn’t. That’s the drama. Plus, one teacher that basically hates kids and her job and maybe everyone else will finally retire next year (but we all were hoping it would happen sooner)."
eastcoastme
Damn it Dora!
"We have a shared spreadsheet, someone keeps changing the filters, but no one will own up to it!"
MarioCarter
"Okay I can relate to this. People kept messing with my numbers in my sheet and while I asked for mine to be locked I got denied 'in case you’re not around.' In the same breath I was told I need to have accurate numbers. It’s not my fault Dora keeps touching my stuff!"
NOT PLEASED
"They're installing new furniture and people are NOT PLEASED about the new floor/seating plan."
ConanApproves
"I have personally been in charge or ordering furniture for an office of four individuals. I went in all bright eyed and bushy tailed with my clipboard to have talk about what they wanted. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life."
bloodymongrel
The Fall
"Our operations manager fell through the ceiling of the conference room. He wasn't invited to the meeting and wanted to listen in."
Charming-Wallaby-602
cat falls GIFGiphyInked Out
"So last October our printer ran out of ink. More had already been ordered but with covid running rampant at the time the shipment was super delayed. One of my coworkers got really shitty over the fact that she couldn’t print the reports in the department and instead had to go upstairs to print them. She claimed that since I was the supervisor (I’m not) that I should’ve be the one to go up and print them despite the fact that it was 4am and my shift doesn’t start until 7am. She still isn’t talking to me."
FrostedFishbone
My two-cents...
"We have a jigsaw puzzle on one of the spare desks to give people the opportunity to sit down for 5 minutes and de-stress. However, there's a piece of this puzzle missing and everyone is pointing fingers at each other and trying to work out who has stolen/hidden the piece. My two-cents is that it's just a missing piece, but it's fun to sit and watch the madness unfold."
Naughty
"My boss has been sleeping with a married sergeant and a new boy fresh out of the academy. Neither know about the other. She just found out she's pregnant."
haroyne
New York Reaction GIF by NBAGiphyWe See You!
"We have a serial toilet clogger. Some bitch uses a half a roll of toilet paper to wipe her ass and clogs the damn toilet at least twice a week. It's gotten so bad that the poor maintenance man had signs made up that say 'Please flush after 2 wipes.' Apparently, she can't read, because it keeps happening."
april_minx2001
We need some "to be continued..." for a few of these. I love tea.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
