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I’ve been gone from blogging for a while but I thought I’d catch you up on my adventures over the last few years, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic.

I applied to work at a local hospital well before the pandemic hit. During the initial interview Karen, head of volunteers, asked me what I’d like to do there. I told her that I’ve always been fascinated by the people manning the front desk.

Having visited my share of hospitals through work I feel qualified to say that the front desk is almost always staffed with a kindly but rather helpless older person; sometimes several.

They often move slowly, have difficulty understanding what the visitor wants, and seem to know very little.  When gently guided to the computer for answers they usually approach the mouse as, well, a mouse. It’s usually a frustrating experience and a curious way for the hospital marketing department to create a customer’s first impression, methinks. I told Karen that I wanted to change that. I wanted to work the front desk as a competent, welcoming resource.

She tried to hide her agreement with my assessment of the current state of affairs but failed miserably. Following proof of vaccinations, background checks, and a note from my mother, I participated in a two-day orientation program. In attendance were more than a couple of people I’m sure I’ve seen behind the front desk at other hospitals.  Anyway, I was scheduled for my first day in mid-April 2020. A few days before my start date I received an email informing me that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital was suspending the volunteer program for those in higher risk populations, including those 65 or older. Unbelievably, I had turned 65 two weeks earlier. My pleas for an exemption went unsatisfied.

Good thing I had the Census Enumerator and Contact Tracer jobs to keep me entertained through the summer and fall. (see other blogs). Fortunately, another interesting opportunity popped up when my daughter Lisa took a job as the lead designer at a company named ClusterTruck. ClusterTruck is a ghost kitchen restaurant founded in 2014 by a serial entrepreneur who sold his tech marketing firm ExactTarget to SalesForce.com for beaucoup bucks in 2013.

His new goal was to fix food delivery by developing a sophisticated software solution. They own kitchens in 8 locations throughout the Midwest, including 4 in the Indy area. When an order comes in online or on the phone app, the software determines when to start cooking each item so that everything is done at the same time. Cooking only begins when a delivery vehicle is close enough to the kitchen. The delivery area maxes out at 4 miles so the food is delivered within 7 minutes off the grill. Often quicker. Wonderful, really. The food? Pretty good with lots of flexibility to customize tacos, burgers, wraps, salads, burritos, pad thai, curry dishes, wings, pizza, even salmon and mahi-mahi dishes. At the same time Lisa started her job, ClusterTruck opened a kitchen in my town of Fishers. And since I look for any opportunity to drive my magic-machine around, I applied to be a delivery driver. After passing yet another background check and one more note from my mother, I lined up outside the Fishers’ kitchen to take my first meal for a ride.

Now I’m sure that it’s not a comfortable thing for your retired father to be involved with your new organization. Especially after I provided extensive feedback to the Customer Experience team which included ways to tap into the Pharmaceutical and Medical device luncheons that go on every day. I even helped arrange a focus group with three friends in the industry, Adam, John, and Patti, who provided the CT team with their needs and wants for lunches. But Lisa took it all in stride. (I think)

Meanwhile, delivering meals while listening to podcasts and music was great fun! Drivers never leave their car. Kitchen expediters bring the meal out, a code is entered into the driver app and a route to the destination is plotted.

Customers get real-time updates on my location and are texted to come out to pick up their meal from the driver. Easy-peasy. And no set hours, which means that on my way back from a round of golf I could pass the kitchen, pick up a meal, and deliver it on my way home. I met many very friendly people. I guess when you are hungry and your food arrives, you are in a good mood. Many would comment on my car, often saying things like “My ClusterTruck meal is being delivered in a Tesla. Go figure.” And I’d jest, “Yeah, kinda makes you rethink your career decisions, doesn’t it?”  

Meanwhile the pandemic raged on and despite the fact that my apparently fragile body was not yet allowed in the hospital, I did get an email including me in a population of “healthcare workers” which granted early access to the vaccine, in January of 2021. I was eager to get what I thought was a miracle of science. MRNA technology is nothing short of magic.

I was finally allowed back in the hospital after a full year on April 1, 2021. Things had changed. The lobby was now a sea of Plexiglas and check-in desks had popped up across the atrium. Anyone entering the hospital was required to add a surgical mask to their face. (Cloth masks wouldn’t do). Those visiting patients were ferried to the original lobby check-in desk where they learned that patients were only allowed 2 visitors per day, each of whom had to show ID in order to have a visitor pass printed with their smiling face on it. Valet parking was suspended and those employees were commandeered to man the front desk to print passes and answer phones. I was aced out of my job!

Instead, I sat at one of the makeshift desks at each entrance to provide a surgical mask to each person and triage their visit. Of course my desk had large plexiglass panels on the front and I wore not only a surgical mask but also a full face shield. Triple protection! Too many people were on the surly side. Too many resisted the masks, which I found absurd. Sure, a mask’s ability to block the virus may have been oversold, but it certainly helps. And for heaven’s sake, you are entering a HOSPITAL! If someone was there to visit a patient then I sent them to the line in front of the main desk. If they were there as a patient, I would provide directions to their department of choice, or roll them there in a wheelchair. We had 5 different wheelchair types in the lobby.

Each chair was cleverly coded with a weight maximum printed on the back. (OK, not so clever…they just dropped the last zero). Guess which ones I used the most? Yes, we do have a weight problem here in central Indiana. I enjoyed bringing patients around the hospital, which was rather large and full of circuitous mazes. It took me a while to figure out where everything was, but the patients usually couldn’t recognize when I’d goof up and run several laps around the maze. I’d tell everyone that I was new to my job (even after several months) and that the last patient I had to bring to (wherever they were going) ended up with a colonoscopy. 90% of the time there was no response at all. I pictured them with wide eyes wondering if I was kidding or not. I wasn’t.  No, I was.

I also enjoyed bringing flowers, cookies (Crumbl!) and cards to patient rooms, especially those in the Maternity ward. It is surprising how many in-patients received cards and letters through the mail. As you might expect, many times patients were discharged (or worse) before the missives arrived.

Alas, the hospital was in turmoil. Like most hospitals, they had instituted a vaccine mandate, and I was a bit surprised by the backlash. The vaccines aren’t perfect, of course, and the evolution of the virus impacts efficacy, but they are the best thing we have to mitigate serious illness. And, oh, by the way, we are IN A HOSPITAL full of compromised, sick people. Turns out that the percentage of healthcare providers who refused the vaccine was low. But hospitals employ hundreds of non-healthcare folks in administration, maintenance, information technology, janitorial, valet, cafeteria, retail shops, security and more. There was revolution in the air.

Many expressed the concern that short-term effects have not yet been fully fleshed out and certainly longer-term effects are quite unknown. Hard to argue there, although these vaccines are now among the most scrutinized chemicals ever introduced into the human body. Even a tough look at “known” side effects, like heart involvement, kind of fall apart when compared to the incidence in the general population. The technology is still too new many say. This winter I read a book called The First Shots by Brendan Borrell that I’d love to recommend, but unfortunately what should have read like a thriller was a convoluted, overly-detailed and boring tome that often ran down rabbit holes and lost its narrative.

The book details the fact that mRNA is not new at all. In fact, numerous attempts at using mRNA technology for vaccines for such things as malaria and HIV uncovered genuine problems. The first was that mRNA is friable, delicate, and quickly degrades before it can penetrate new cells to do its work. Second, mRNA generates a dramatic immune response in humans; such that it often causes a serious allergic response. In a worldwide effort to combat the new coronavirus, teams from across the globe contributed expertise to overcome these challenges. Many separate and unrelated research teams came together to solve this biological riddle and saved countless lives. Make no mistake though: Although the science came from around the planet, it was the US of A that organized and largely funded the effort to bring this miraculous solution to the world in record time. We should be proud.

Some people quit the hospital in response to the vaccine mandate; some were let go; some were granted vaccine waivers, but eventually it all got sorted out. Soon, Valet parking was back up and running and Security guards took over the front desk duties, some wearing full police regalia. Yes, many on the hospital security team are full-fledged on-duty policemen.

I was shocked at how often security is called upon to spring into action. And so many patients have a list of people that they do not want allowed in to visit them. It was always fun when one of them showed up. I couldn’t help but think that might be a good way to stop those thugs in movies who go to the hospital to “finish the job”. In the end, it just wasn’t a great look having the Cops welcome visitors. They were always hyper-serious, and obviously not happy doing the “menial” work of checking in visitors and explaining rules. Still, it continues to this day…

One last interesting point about the pandemic and the vaccine: Operation Warp Speed, created to speed the development of the vaccine, was led by a man named Moncef Slaoui. I met Moncef at a number of meetings in his previous role as the Head of Research and Development for GSK. His main responsibility in that job was to make decisions about which new chemical entities to support, and which should be sold off or cut completely. The book The First Shots has an entertaining section outlining the culture shock felt by the scientists and bureaucrats upon Moncef’s arrival. Until then the government was burning money by supporting efforts for 10 different vaccine types. Moncef quickly pared the list down to only 4 which represented different technologies with the best chance of success and manufacture. This also accelerated development of the final 4 as more resources were made available to them. Moncef is a charismatic man, tough but warm. Too warm. Last year a sexual harassment complaint was brought against him by a former colleague at GSK. Eventually, Moncef was censored, fired from company boards, forced to pay back millions to GSK, and his name removed from research buildings. He remains a COVID hero though, I guess.

Thanks for reading.

Next up: Driving an Autonomous Vehicle Shuttle

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