Question - What Does a Triage Nurse and a Restaurant Hostess Share in Common?

We all have bad nights. Especially in the hospitalitynepotism.
business. Same for the emergency care business.Imagine being that poor sorry soul who ends up in
A trauma nurse often see's people at their worst.front of a triage nurse when she's had a bad day
When they are angry. Hurt. Disillusioned. Vulnerable.(meanwhile you've potentially had the worst day
A global CEO and a local hoodlum are the same;of your life).
to be treated equal and given "triage" based onTonight, the trauma team I held in highest regard
the severity of their wounds, with no factor beingin South Florida left me in the streets to bleed
greater. Fact is, today, people don't go to theout. I drove an hour and twenty minutes for their
emergency room to show off their people skills.treatment. I'd had it before and new it to be the
They go for an acute need. A pain. A thing theybest. The triage nurse had a bad day though, and
need fixed. The triage nurse is to prioritize themshoved me to the corner to bleed out - more
in a way such that the trauma team can yank asconcerned for her own emotional well-being than
many as possible from impending doom.the corpses piling up in front of her gate. The
Sharing some similarity, people don't go totrauma team kept their noses down in a blistering
restaurants because they need to fill their belliespot of immediate needs.
with a block of gunk to stay them through theIn this example, the triage nurse was the wife of
night. At least not upscale dining establishmentsone of the best chef's in Florida. She happens to
(like the one that rejected my boyhood crushbe the hostess at his - ever in increasing
with callous and perhaps even unconsciouspopularity - restaurant. She admittedly isn't ready
disregard). We go to restaurants to restorefor the success they are enjoying and frequently
ourselves, to replenish, to perhaps even 'cure' ourfreezes up in unlockable stress cubes.
emotional and psychological aliments of the day. InIt's high time that those in the restaurant
a restaurant too, there should be both a triageprofession see their jobs as more than pathways
nurse and a trauma team.to fame, fortune and the holy grail of "celebrity
The word "Restaurant" is a derivative of a Latinchef" status. Imagine if every triage nurse and
word - by way of the French - for "restore". Itevery trauma team tactfully squeezed from their
came into language around 300-400 years ago.positions only the fame and fortune it could afford
The idea back then - when the very firstand took commensurately less satisfaction in
restaurant opened in France - was that theactually healing, curing, saving and salvaging lives.
service was to be restorative; not just feedToday, we sell fully-loaded hamburgers out
people (especially not via a 60-second windowmotorized troughs/ windows with the speed and
with NASCAR like speed and turnstile indifference).technology of a prestigious national toll-booth.
A restaurant hostess is like a triage nurse in aWe've mechanized speed-of-service at the cost
way. The waitstaff, chef, and myriad of otherof service. We have lost the original notion of the
supporting characters are, in a way, the traumarestaurant business. We've confused efficiency
team. As it stands now, however, the restaurantwith effectiveness.
hostess has no binding moral or ethical oath toOur role in this business isn't to put people through
fulfill like the triage and trauma teams of aa turnstile like cattle. Yes, there's a profit to be
hospital. A triage nurse is trained and vows tomade with that among commodity grazers.
prioritize based on need. Today, a host/hostess,However, the real genesis of this profession was
at best prioritizes based on bribes, favoritism andto heal and to restore.