Green Means Go

I have a tendency to be loud at work - especially when dealing with people in the waiting room. It can be very loud. People moaning, yelling, children crying, people talking... I like to make sure I'm heard. I don't have the patience or time to be calling people three or four times. Recently the powers that be installed a big traffic light outside of the triage office. A big red light and a big green light. Inside there is a switch. Flick it up to red to stop the traffic and green to welcome in all the sick people. I like to think that I'm the reason they installed this. Apparently I was quite noisy when calling out "NEXT".

One would think that such a system would also be helpful in directing the waiting room traffic in and out of triage. Red means "oh wait...she's busy. She can't help me right now. I should just wait patiently outside for my turn". Green mean "now I can go in to be triaged...or to ask where the cafeteria/fracture clinic/parking machine/delivery rooms/lab, etc. is". But unfortunately that is not the case. Tonight I was in my triage office entering some orders on the computer. My light was flashing green. A mom came in with her two little girls and sat in the "waiting to be traiged" chairs. And there she sat. And green my light flashed. After 3 or 4 minutes the four year old said "mommy, the light is green - we can go". And yet it took the mom another 2 or 3 minutes to be convinced that yes it was ok for her to go. Green means go! Gotta love it when your four year old is smarter than you are!