If you can't have me, you don't want nobody bay-beh...

A general rule of the workplace (or the market) is that when you're good, you're in demand.  Over the past few weeks that I've been working on the FCH Master Plan, I've been having to wrap up a couple of small projects that I started working on before I got on FCH.  Thing is, I've been underemployed for so long that folks have gotten accustomed to me being available to sketch something up/make a phone call to the state health department/do a code study for them.  So, even though I'm heavily and gainfully employed on FCH, I'm still being bombarded with requests from Sven, Prudence, and Howie.  Last week when I sat down to review some plans with Bosley, I described my predicament to him.  I was afraid to say "no" to any request because I wanted to be able to have something to work on while he was gone to Frontier County here and there, but I wanted to do FCH justice.  Each interruption may take anywhere from five minutes to six hours, but regardless of length it keeps pulling me away from what I was doing on the master plan, and I don't want to short Bosley's project.

"There's enough to do on Frontier County to keep you busy even when I'm gone, at this point," Bosley said.  "I need you completely on this.  If anyone asks you to do anything, tell them to come to me."

"Thank you," I sighed.  It was good to know Bosley had my back.

I've been helping Howie with a little outbuilding project we were doing for Wheatlands for free.  We revamped an earlier-issued PR of a small outdoor enclosure for the hospital to be smaller and unheated.  I was hoping I had wrapped up this work for him last week, so I emailed him the final drawings for it as a PDF and told him they were ready to go.  I had also been helping him and Prudence do some code reasearch on a small pharmacy that was a part of a tenant finish project she was doing.  I had called the state health department regarding a technical question on the pharmacy, and they called me back just this morning to tell me I'd been given a wrong number, and here's the right number and guy to call.  Fine.  

But I know that a phone call to the state isn't "just a phone call," especially when Howie's involved.  When the state finally calls me back, it's about a ten-minute phone call.  It's another five to fifteen minutes to write out a clear and complete email describing what I've found out from the state health guy or gal.  Then Howie reads the email and asks me a bunch more questions for five to ten minutes, then I gotta call the state health guy or gal back, and whenever they call me back it's another ten minutes, then another five- to ten-minute email or conversation....  You get the picture.

So this morning, Howie emails me that he looked at the PDFs and has these four changes.  I should add that he still wants me to continue chasing the code question for Prudence, and on top of these two tasks he sent Gregg and his team to me to help them with a state code question because for whatever reason I have a good relationship with the state health folks and they call me back whenever I call them.  So now I'm making phone calls for two other people and doing redlines on a project we're not getting paid for...and Howie wants me to interrupt a project with a tight deadline to do these things.

Mmhmm.

So I emailed Howie back to relate the situation to him and asked him to please make sure all these extra-project activities are good with Bosley.  Y'all, Howie actually pushed back: "So, I should ask him about everything but Wheatlands?  But, you're just making a few phone calls!  Do you need more help on Frontier County?"  I pushed back on his pushback: "You should ask him about all of it--we're on a really tight deadline between now and Monday.  It's that the phonecalls take longer than one would think, and I have to keep getting distracted by them and can't concentrate on the project I'm supposed to be working on.  Frontier County is just the right size for Intern Kimmy and me--extra help wouldn't really help."  For some reason my brain had frozen up and I couldn't find the right words that I think Howie needed to hear: We're working on a master plan, and I'm doing space planning--it's all in my head and extra help wouldn't actually help.  But most of all, I think I was just getting frustrated and perhaps even offended that Howie evidently simply could not accept my own assessment and assertion of my abilities over a seven-day span.  I cannot help you properly and help my project properly in the next week.

As I searched for the words to fend Howie off, I realized there was a dark, shadowy figure in my peripheral vision.  I turned: Jesus, Mary, and Calatrava, it was Bosley.  I turned to Bosely and attempted to explain the situation: "Some teams want me to call the health department on some technical questions because I'm one of the few people they'll call back.  However, I don't want Frontier County to suffer."

Bosley made a polite facial expression of understanding.  I honestly think what he understood was that I was trying to push back against Howie, and Howie can be really pushy.  I don't know if he overheard the conversation starting and decided to step in and stop it or if he just happened to be walking by; either way, it was great timing.  As Howie began to ask Bosley if the Frontier County project needed help, Bosley raised one finger and cut him off: "She needs to be left alone until Tuesday morning so she can keep her head in the project."

Howie started to ask again, and Bosley cut him off yet again, gesturing to me as he spoke.  "Pixie needs to be left to work on the master plan--she's doing space planning and all the work is in her head.  Everytime she gets pulled away by a phone call or a code study, she can't keep her head focused on the master plan and get things done."

Howie responded with a tinge of resignation.  "So the answer is no, no extra help would allow her to work on this."

"No."  Bosley's voice was brilliantly final.

He then walked around to Howie's desk, and I could just overhear him explaining to Howie how he loaned me to Prudence for two days while he was gone to Frontier County, and that was all he could afford for me--if she didn't use me those two days while he was gone, then she lost her window.  He loaned me to Sven for one day and if Sven didn't use me on that day, then too bad so sad.  I smiled and turned up my headphones and started jamming as I worked out FCH's emergency department remodel.  I knew whatever Bosley was saying, even if it included anything about me having Shiny Object System (which I do have occasionally), it was ultimately in my defense and giving me the room I needed to get. stuff. done.

Back from the wilds of Wheatlands

My landscape architect, Dash, and I went out to Wheatlands today, so at least I had some good company to ride three and a half hours each way. Dash originally went to architecture school and did what I do now for a while before going back to school to become a landscape architect. This is a good thing for me because Dash better understands what I'm trying to do indoors and with the exterior of the building, so he can make the landscape become almost an exterior "room" for the building. He has impeccable taste in clothes, furniture, plants, and catty comments. He's a hoot, to say the least.

My building is gorgeous, but y'all already knew that. Punchlist time is coming up for all of April, which will make me a busy little pixie for the next two months. Punchlist is the process of (usually) the architect walking through the building and making notes on the condition of the building: dings in the walls, incomplete wall base, paint scratched off of a door frame, plastic laminate not fully adhered to the countertop, insufficient water pressure in toilets or sinks, cabinet doors not closing completely or hanging unevenly when closed, etc. We walk room by room and check everything, putting a colored sitcker or piece of blue painting/masking tape by things that need to be corrected. From the looks of the building today, my punchlists in April and early May should be pretty short. That building is in fantastic shape.

I'm vascillating between two different Details of the Week tomorrow. One has political implications but would also be more interesting. I'll have to think it over and decide Friday evening which to do....

Speaking of pharmaceuticals, I could use some myself...

...because I've been piddling around with my pharmacy at Wheatlands all day.

There is a primary set of regulations that dictate how pharmacies should be run and how chemicals in them should be processed called USP 797. There are three levels of pharmacies, classified depending on the hazardousness or the specialness of the chemicals that get mixed in them: low-risk CSP, medium-risk CSP, and high-risk CSP. For this entire project, we've been designing Wheatlands' pharmacy as a low-risk CSP pharmacy. They mix pretty tame stuff and only use it in-house (it's not a pharmacy like the ones at which you fill your prescriptions, like a CVS or Walgreens). The head of nursing showed the floor plan of the pharmacy to a pharmacist in a nearby larger town and had him review it with his understanding of USP 797. He said it looked good to him.

Well, some guy who's supplying the fume hood for the chemotherapy chemical mixing room mentioned USP 797 again and told the head of nursing about a few things she better make sure she had in the pharmacy, such as seamless flooring and HEPA filters. The design team leaps into the air and shouts, "What?! We thought we did that already!" So, I call this guy and he sends me to a website where I get the 100+ page PDF of USP 797 (which I've been trying to find for this whole project). I ask him about flooring and light fixtures, and he says:

"Oh, I don't really do much with the building. I'm more concerned with the processes in the pharmacy, like where and how they handle the chemicals."

Well, thanks, Scooter Bob. Why the fuck did you mention finishes if you don't actually look at them? Anyway, the design reviews the standards, clarified a few of our finishes, confirmed that we had all the right filters and fixtures, and went on our way. As I was wrapping up this issue, I emailed the hospital and informed them that all was well, we comply with the USP 797 regulations for a low-risk CSP pharmacy.

We do have a low-risk pharmacy, right?

The head of nursing confirmed this for us.

Then I got an email on Friday. The head of nursing had been idly talking to her pharmacist in the other town over and mentioned that she was mixing a "banana bag" (an IV bag that includes vitamins and electrolytes, often given to severely dehydrated patients or alcoholics in the ED), and the pharmacist suddenly says, "Oh, banana bags? Those make you have a medium-risk CSP pharmacy."

Fuck.

The design team goes into another tailspin. Everyone tears open their copies of the USP 797 again to discover that we now need an extra sink in the ante area/buffer room, which means we have to sawcut the slab (with the seamless flooring already installed) to install another waste line. Worse, my mechanical engineer found fishy language in USP 797 saying that the buffer room "should" provide 40 feet per minute airflow in that room. This room is only 140 square feet total--40 fpm is going to turn that room into a wind tunnel. "Pixie, they'll get so annoyed with their papers and gowns blowing around in that room that they'll just shut off the equipment and never use it!" my engineer nearly wept into the phone.

I call the head of nursing and get a name and phone number for the state pharmacy board. I call and talk to a guy who's trying to be helpful, but God help him he works for the government and can only say so much because he only knows so much. "So what about this 40 fpm airflow in this buffer room?" I asked him. "We're already supplying more air than required for a low-risk CSP, but that's gonna turn that room into a wind tunnel. Do we have to do it? The code says 'should', not 'shall', which would be more definitive." And he says:

"We really don't so much with the building, ma'am. We're more concerned with the processes in the pharmacy, like wher and how they handle the chemicals."

Wow. Deja poo: I feel like I've heard this shit before.

So, he says for the purposes of the Kansas state pharmacy board, he says that as long as the airflow in the room is the same as what this one clinical requirement says on this one page of the USP 797, they're fine. So, I call my engineer back, who stil feels weird about the whole thing, so I give him the pharmacy board guy's name and number.

Later this evening at home, Guy asks me how was my day. Now, comedian Chris Rock says that the question "How was your day?" is a 45-minute conversation for a woman. This is also true for me. I'm venting about the pharmacy and how we've gotta design to this ridiculous and unclear code and how this pharmacy guy said that they hadn't even adopted USP 797 yet but would be later this year--

"Bullshit!" crowed Guy. "When I did the addition to Sunflower Medical Center out there three years ago, the state board said they were gonna pass USP 797 'later that year.' They still haven't! It's fucking impossible for state agencies to adopt new codes and regs because the state legislature has to pass the law for them and they're too busy arguing over funding education and banning gay marriage!"

I put down the spoon I was using to stir my pasta alfredo and called my engineer from home. "Jerry, have you called the pharmacy board guy yet?"
He sighed. "No, it's on my list."
"When you call, dude, don't push him too hard on the 40 fpm thing. They've been saying they were gonna pass USP 797 for over three years now, so we don't wanna back this guy into a corner and make him tell us to follow the letter of the code."
"Which will just back us into a corner."
"Right."
"No sweat, Pixie. I'll poke him with a very dull stick tomorrow."
"Thank you sir."
"I hear something sizzling."
"Shit! My pasta!"
I"m hanging up now, Pix."

Ah, white-knuckle driving in Kansas....

Like driving in snow? How about blowing snow? I'll see your blowing snow and raise you big, heavy flakes and evening rush hour traffic. I'll call.

Wheatlands was a beautiful, wonderful place to behold today, despite my long drive into Wheatlands, Kansas.* The building roof and exterior (what we call "core and shell" in da biz) were finished in the fall, so they're actually putting in drywall, carpet, and casework (you might call casework "cabinetry and countertops"), and they've even gotten some painting done. It's so refreshing to see a building getting built. It's also heartwarming and satisfying to me when I look around and realize that every wall, every door, every cabinet and countertop in this building...I drew it. And I look at every carpet, every plastic laminate on the counters and drawers, every painted wall, and I know that Susanna picked them out herself. She could see in her head what i couldn't see until I walked into the boardroom and saw the warm tans and greys contrasted to the multiflecked carpet...just gorgeous. Even my contractors, Stan* and Kenny*, think the finishes are beautiful. It's just so refreshing to see the drawings I bled over for eight months become real and useful. I love watching staff members walk through with Stan and me, watching their eyes light up, watching them taptaptaptap another's arm and gush over the wood nurse station and light olive accent walls. Just beautiful. It almost makes up for driving three and a half hours in snow.

Almost.

(Note: My hands are wearing out from asterisks. Unless I say otherwise, all names and certain identifying details have been changed.)