As a nurse you get used to discussing aspects of life that are taboo outside of the hospital. Bowel movements, blood, guts, urine, everything is fair game at the hospital. Most of the time you are discussing patients, but it often becomes personal and you will discuss menstrual cycles, bowel movements, whatever else with your coworkers. I am lucky to have roommates that remind me that wrapping dead bodies is not dinner conversation for all people, or that you do not have to be descriptive when you use the restroom. "excuse me for a moment" is more than enough to the average person!
While my roommates appreciate my stories and ask for more details, they are also quick to let me know that not everyone cares about blood draws or trach decannulations.
As I struggle with how to make appropriate small talk, i wonder many things:
why wasn't there a small talk class in college? (was that what sorority recruitment was for?!) do other professions run into this problem as well? Do lawyers, teachers, business people have "inappropriate" topics to stray away from in their conversations? Where is the common ground? How do we find topics that we can talk knowledgeably about without making our friends want to vomit? (is it too graphic to say vomit?)
the joys of nursing never cease to amaze me... who knew i would be contemplating how to make "i need to pee" into appropriate, adult language!
2 comments:
funny post... and yes, every profession has their own language that annoys the rest of the world... yours is probably just a little "grosser" than the rest of ours. matthew definitely tires of endless school conversations. i don't though! :)
yes ma'am! i can't tell you how many times last year not everyone was interested in hearing about gonorhea of the eye while i thought it was fascinating!
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