Best Laid Plans

I had four job candidates lined up for interviews Friday afternoon. I have them come in on a staggered schedule then they suffer through, er, enjoy?, six half hour interviews with various people with the last half hour being with me for final questions.

One of my interviewers went home sick on Thursday so I emailed a backup who kindly agreed to cover if needed even though he hates doing interviews. However, the sick one was back in the afternoon so I was covered. I thought, anyway.

One of the candidates showed up 15 minutes early, and another showed up 45 minutes early. Oh, and one showed up 15 minutes late (he said he got into a fender bender on the way). I eventually got them all squared away when the receptionist stopped me to say one of my interviewers had a family emergency and had to go home right away.

I pulled him out of his interview and frantically tried to replace him. My backup guy, feeling safe, was offsite so I roped in one of our Help Desk guys. The other HD guy was in a training class so I answered those phones until he was done and also canceled my now interviewing guy's training session. He'll now have to go on Tuesday.

Once again, I thought I was in the clear until my cell phone rang. It was my Dad and, fortunately, he called a few minutes before I was set to start my round of interviews because I wouldn't have answered the phone.

Turns out, he was at an Urgent Care facility and they were getting ready to transport him to the hospital Emergency Room. My Mom was off playing Scrabble (and wouldn't have known how to answer her phone even if she had it with her) so he wanted me to meet him at the hospital.

I caught the person doing interviews right before me and told her to explain my absence and to do the "do you have any final questions" routine then headed out.

I'm not sure what those candidates thought with two people leaving because of family emergencies. Does it indicate we're a family oriented company who cares or that we're a bunch of flakes who just bail out on Friday afternoons?

Once I got to the hospital, I checked in at the Emergency Room and they told me he was still enroute and that they would call me in about 15 minutes. A half hour later, I checked back and got an "Oh, sorry, yeah he's here and you can go on back." Thanks for that.

Turns out, it was another of Shorty's annual unnecessary hospital trips. The last one was in February of 2011. There's a formula we've learned:

Old, chubby man + chest pains + (urgent care or emergency room visit) = hospital admittance + possible ambulance ride + no actually heart issues

His GP has actually told him to stop going to the Emergency Room because his heart is totally okay. This time, he had additional pain going up his neck on both sides so it scared him. It didn't scare him enough to even call his GP on Thursday when it started, though, nor enough to call on Friday morning. No, he waited until Friday afternoon when his doc was gone for the weekend. Of course, his office told him to go to an urgent care facility which set in place the testing of the formula.

You should have seen the poor on-call doc from his GP's office. "Wait, you actually had the pain on Thursday but didn't go in until Friday afternoon?" "Well, yes, because I had to work". "You're stubborn, aren't you?" I think leading a new employee training session at Wal-Mart is not worth risking your life for but, hey, that's Shorty.

As I indicated early, he's fine. They checked his enzymes and found no evidence of a heart attack. They did an EKG which turned out fine. They did admit him, though, and scheduled him for further tests on Saturday. I think they did an ultrasound on his heart and his carotid arteries and found no issues. As a precaution, he's seeing his Cardiologist this week for a stress test and following up with his GP either this week or the next.

Oh, and his latest theory is that it's arthritis pain because he suddenly realized that his Mother had that same pain pattern from her arthritis. I haven't even asked him if he took any pain relievers on Thursday or Friday because I'm pretty sure he's going to say no and then I might want to punch him in the head. A few ibuprofen are a hell of a lot cheaper than an overnight hospital stay.

He got released Saturday night and, when I called to check on him, he was mixing a Martini and talking about meeting up with friends today. Yeah, he's fine.

Not one of my better days, though.