Bless Me Father, I Have Salted

Some days I wish I had a Roman Catholic collar and could grant absolution.

Then again, that would require that I take vows of poverty, obedience, and celibacy (*cough, cough*). Plus, you know, I'd have to be a man. Small technicality.

That doesn't stop me from being on the receiving end of a whole lot of hospital-related verbal vomit. Because of my lucky position straddling operations and strategy, I know a lot of what happens at St. Fozzie's. I don't know anything, but EVOO and Nurse Jackie are kind enough to share details with me, ask my opinion, and continue to foster my administrative growth. As a result, I get to have my hands in a lot of projects.

It's becoming commonplace for me to get stopped 2 or 3 times en route to a meeting. I ask people how they are, how their new areas are going, how their growth plans are, etc., and they share the inner-most details of their departments, insecurities, or successes. It was unnerving. I'm slowly beginning to take this as a compliment (they must trust me, right?), but there are days where I feel like I need a Sham-wow or a squeegee to mop the verbal vomit off me. They tell me everything!

Actually, rather than comparing myself to a man of the cloth, I'll compare myself to a grilling secret: the herb rub. Sometimes the comments, rumors, situations, problems, and opportunities are flung my way so fast and furiously that they are akin to flecks of salt. By the end of the day, I feel like a salt-lick, sometimes weighted down by the sheer number of comments and items people bring to my attention. I end up with dozens of post-it notes that I must eventually address.

I've recently discovered that I often must shower when I get home from work. It's not that I get dirty from a day at the hospital. It's not that I'm a germophobe fearing bio-contamination (although, a small part of me does). It's just that I have to wash the salt-encrusted herb rub off me before I can begin to relax.

Jack whips up a wicked herb rub and can turn a run-of-the-mill sirloin into a phenomenal steak that Bobbie Flay would love. All this talk about salt-licks and herb rubs is making me crave Jack's specialty ribeye!