Lately I've been watching a number of YouTube videos about tabletop roleplaying games: gaming tips, rules information, advice, alternate rules, that sort of thing. And in watching a variety of different channels, I've become a little frustrated by one particular idea that seems to be stuck in everyone's minds as the most important challenge player-characters should overcome or avoid in ttrpg's: death.
Character death is pretty rare in the gaming group I've been playing with for the past 25-ish years. Admittedly, death isn't always permanent in fantasy games. There are magic items and spells that can bring a character back from death. They're costly and sometimes difficult to come by, but they exist. Our group does not rely on those exclusively, though.We have a house rule in some of our games that states that if a character dies and another character can get a healing potion or spell to the fallen character within the same turn that the death occurred, the character's spirit hasn't yet left the body and the character can be brought back to life immediately without any detrimental aftereffects. It's equivalent to giving a person a shot of adrenaline to restart the heart.
I know that thought might be offensive to some players of fantasy ttrpg's. What good is the story if the characters can't die? Won't they lose all sense of caution? I'll admit my roleplaying experience is almost exclusively with this group, and I haven't played with a group where character death is a common and accepted part of the roleplaying experience. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy that, and I think most of my friends feel the same else we wouldn't be using that house rule. When we create a character, we want to play that character until the end of the story. We want our characters to be the heroes, to save the day, to be friends and comrades by the end of our shared tale. They can't do that if they die permanently.
There are those who will say that not having permanent death as a consequence makes tabletop games too much like console and computer games, where you can restore from a previous save to prevent your character from dying. To that I say, what's wrong with that? When I've invested a lot of time in my Skyrim character and I want to find out what it will be like to play that character all the way through the main plot of the game, I don't want to have to start over with a new character because my original character died. And when I'm involved in a tabletop game I feel the same way.
I generally have a concept that I want to follow with that character, and I want her to make it to the end of the story. I don't want to have to come up with a new character and find a way to fit her into the existing party, and I don't want my GM to have to go through all kinds of story contortions to do that either. Our group often play pre-written adventure modules, and in many of those it can be challenging to find a way to fit a new character in. Just recently we've been working our way through the Pathfinder Adventure Path 'Mummy's Mask', much of which takes place in various ancient pyramids and tombs in the midst of a great desert. That makes it a bit difficult for a new character to show up. If the party doesn't leave the pyramid for days and doesn't have the magical wherewithal to teleport to the nearest city on a shopping trip, how do you introduce a new character into the group?
Recently the issue of adventure paths/modules has made me even more aware of the problem of making death the primary challenge. What happens if you're in the last chapter of the module and one of the PCs dies? What happens if you're in the middle of a dungeon when that occurs, and the rest of the party can't or won't leave? Now you've got a player who's doing nothing, or running an NPC in whom the player has no investment, or quickly trying to come up with a new character on the fly that they'll only be able to play for a short time before the campaign is over. Where's the fun in that?
If I continue to take Mummy's Mask as my example of how using character death as the primary challenge: in our group's campaign the party is currently inside a huge pyramid trying to stop the Big Bad. They don't have any NPCs with them, and every other creature within the pyramid is an evil servant or ally of the main villain, so those NPCs can't suddenly become player-characters. What would happen if one or more of the player-characters is suddenly slain and can't be brought back? What if the entire party is killed? They fail to achieve their goal, the Big Bad goes on to take over the world, and the players are unhappy and dissatisfied.
My argument here is that there are other ways to challenge the players and their characters without constantly using the potential for death as the motivator. There are many other things the characters could lose besides their lives: family or friends, reputation, self-confidence, wealth or power, home or homeland. I certainly don't expect the game to let them walk through every challenge without a struggle, but the ultimate threat doesn't always have to be their demise. The characters can still exercise caution if they're running low on resources, or they're trying to make a good impression on someone, or they want to adhere to a certain code of conduct. In my group we all want our characters to survive to the end, so we work hard to avoid getting killed because we don't want to miss out on the experience of going through the entire campaign with that character. If making that possible requires a house rule or some dice fudging on the GM's part, that's all the better. The point of the game is to have fun, and for me having my character die in the middle of the story isn't fun.
Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Sunday, September 4, 2016
The Ten Commandments of Riding a Bicycle
To follow up on the Ten Commandments of Riding the Bus, here are the Ten Commandments of Riding a Bicycle.
1. Thou shalt wear a helmet, for thy hairstyle be not more precious than thy brain.
2. Thou shalt wear brightly-colored practical garments and place upon thy bicycle bright lights and reflective devices, that others may easily see thee.
3. Thou shalt not ride in darkness unless thou first obey the First Commandment and the Second Commandment.
4. Thou shalt comply with the signs and signals that control the flow of vehicle traffic.
5. Thou shalt ride in the designated bicycle lane if there be such a lane.
6. Thou shalt be courteous to pedestrians.
7. Thou shalt not use thy cellphone while thou ridest thy bicycle.
8. Thou shalt not wear thy headphones while thou ridest thy bicycle.
9. Thou shalt not pass other bicyclists unless thou first ascertain whether automobiles approach thee.
10. Thou shalt ride a bicycle that is suited to thy size and is properly adjusted so that thou mayest ride safely and comfortably.
1. Thou shalt wear a helmet, for thy hairstyle be not more precious than thy brain.
2. Thou shalt wear brightly-colored practical garments and place upon thy bicycle bright lights and reflective devices, that others may easily see thee.
3. Thou shalt not ride in darkness unless thou first obey the First Commandment and the Second Commandment.
4. Thou shalt comply with the signs and signals that control the flow of vehicle traffic.
5. Thou shalt ride in the designated bicycle lane if there be such a lane.
6. Thou shalt be courteous to pedestrians.
7. Thou shalt not use thy cellphone while thou ridest thy bicycle.
8. Thou shalt not wear thy headphones while thou ridest thy bicycle.
9. Thou shalt not pass other bicyclists unless thou first ascertain whether automobiles approach thee.
10. Thou shalt ride a bicycle that is suited to thy size and is properly adjusted so that thou mayest ride safely and comfortably.
The Ten Commandments of Riding the Bus
After reading the Ten Commandments of Costco, I decided it was time to do something I've been thinking about for a long time.
Therefore, I present The Ten Commandments of Riding the Bus.
1. Thou shalt have thy fare ready before thou boardest the bus.
2. Thou shalt sit if there be an unoccupied seat.
3. Thou shalt keep the volume of thy music playing device low if thou choose to listen to music during thy journey.
4. Thou shalt not listen to music or watch videos if thou hast not headphones.
5. Thou shalt keep the volume of thy voice low if thou engage in private conversation.
6. Thou shalt not place thy personal possessions upon an unoccupied seat, nor shalt thou prevent other passengers from accessing unoccupied seats.
7. Thou shalt not block the aisle or exits.
8. Thou shalt not take thy rest aboard the bus, neither shalt thou eat thy meals or complete thy homework, nor shalt thou apply thy cosmetics or open thy laptop whilst thou ridest the bus.
9. Thou shalt not open a window.
10. Thou shalt seek out the schedule and route for thy journey before thou leavest thy house.
Therefore, I present The Ten Commandments of Riding the Bus.
1. Thou shalt have thy fare ready before thou boardest the bus.
2. Thou shalt sit if there be an unoccupied seat.
3. Thou shalt keep the volume of thy music playing device low if thou choose to listen to music during thy journey.
4. Thou shalt not listen to music or watch videos if thou hast not headphones.
5. Thou shalt keep the volume of thy voice low if thou engage in private conversation.
6. Thou shalt not place thy personal possessions upon an unoccupied seat, nor shalt thou prevent other passengers from accessing unoccupied seats.
7. Thou shalt not block the aisle or exits.
8. Thou shalt not take thy rest aboard the bus, neither shalt thou eat thy meals or complete thy homework, nor shalt thou apply thy cosmetics or open thy laptop whilst thou ridest the bus.
9. Thou shalt not open a window.
10. Thou shalt seek out the schedule and route for thy journey before thou leavest thy house.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Honest Pay for Honest Work
Earlier today I read this opinion piece about earning power today compared to earning power during the baby boomer years, and it made me think. Here are my thoughts.
When I was growing up during the 1960s and '70s, my father was the only breadwinner. My mother was a homemaker. On my father's single salary, my parents were able to purchase a lot and build a house on it. They owned two cars, not brand new luxury cars, but still two reasonably good vehicles. When my father died my mother got a job that allowed her to keep the house and keep my sister and I clothed and fed and supplied with whatever we needed for school. We went on vacations every summer. When I got my driving license she bought me a car - not a new one, but my own car. She sent me to Europe for two weeks as a graduation present when I graduated from high school. When my sister was old enough to drive she got her own car as well.
Because my father had died I was eligible for Social Security benefits, which helped with my college tuition. I also received a Pell Grant. That took care of tuition, and my mother took care of my living expenses while I attended a small university a short distance from my home town. When my sister went to college she attended a private university that was more expensive, but my mother managed that, too. When my mother passed away in the '80s, she left a substantial sum of money to my sister and I. I used my inheritance to pay out-of-state tuition at the university where I decided to go to graduate school.
My job with my employer is considered 'exempt', which means that my employer is exempt from paying me overtime if I work more than 40 hours per week. That means that I can work 18 hours a day and still make no more than what I would earn for 8 hours. I am supposed to be able to receive enough salary that I wouldn't need overtime pay. In reality I don't earn enough money to do what my father did. I couldn't afford to buy a house in today's economy, at least not without putting myself in debt for the next 30 years and struggling to pay my other bills. I can only afford to take trips to places I can drive to, because air fare is too costly. My employer gives me four weeks of paid vacation time annually, but I typically only use it for 3-day weekends or to extend holidays, because I can't afford to take a trip out of state and stay in a hotel every day for a week or more like my family did during my childhood vacations. My husband and I have one car. We couldn't afford to insure two vehicles. We don't have children, and I don't know how my coworkers who do manage to make ends meet.
I do have some extra expenses that my parents didn't have, such as cell phone and cable tv bills, but I don't think those are so much that I should be unable to do what my parents did. But when I was a child hotel rooms for four people cost $60 a night at most. Meals for an entire family didn't cost as much as $20. Gas for the car cost less than a dollar a gallon. Health insurance cost less. Electricity and water bills cost less. Houses were less expensive, so mortgage payments were lower. When we sold my parents' 3-bedroom 2 bath house back in the '80s, it was worth less than $50,000.
I know that inflation happens, and that the cost of living is higher where I live now than where I grew up. But it's disheartening to think that here I am, 55 years old, working for my employer for 20 years, and I have so little to show for it. I'm fortunate to have a pension; people who were hired a year or two after me didn't get one. But if inflation continues at the same rate it's currently at by the time I'm old enough to retire, my pension won't do much for me. I probably won't be able to afford to live as I live now. I might have to move into a tiny studio apartment and give up my car just to retire. And my husband, who only works part-time, doesn't have a pension, or any kind of retirement savings. He doesn't earn enough to pay bills and still set something aside for the future. Even though his job is hourly-paid, he's not eligible for overtime, either. If he works 40 hours in a week he doesn't get anything beyond his usual wage, even though he's worked twice as much as he normally does. If he retires he'll have to live on my retirement income. And my employer stopped offering health insurance for employees who retire, so we'll have to figure out how to shoulder the burden of our own healthcare when we're not working anymore. If healthcare costs keep skyrocketing, most of our income will go for insurance premiums and medication. That's not much of a retirement to look forward to.
I'm far from the only person in this boat. I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that in another 20 years or so there are going to be a lot of retired baby boomers like me who need affordable housing and healthcare and something to do with their time besides watch tv all day. And in another 20 years after that the next generation will need the same thing, only they'll all still be paying off their mortgages and student loans if we don't find a way to make those things less costly.
When I was growing up during the 1960s and '70s, my father was the only breadwinner. My mother was a homemaker. On my father's single salary, my parents were able to purchase a lot and build a house on it. They owned two cars, not brand new luxury cars, but still two reasonably good vehicles. When my father died my mother got a job that allowed her to keep the house and keep my sister and I clothed and fed and supplied with whatever we needed for school. We went on vacations every summer. When I got my driving license she bought me a car - not a new one, but my own car. She sent me to Europe for two weeks as a graduation present when I graduated from high school. When my sister was old enough to drive she got her own car as well.
Because my father had died I was eligible for Social Security benefits, which helped with my college tuition. I also received a Pell Grant. That took care of tuition, and my mother took care of my living expenses while I attended a small university a short distance from my home town. When my sister went to college she attended a private university that was more expensive, but my mother managed that, too. When my mother passed away in the '80s, she left a substantial sum of money to my sister and I. I used my inheritance to pay out-of-state tuition at the university where I decided to go to graduate school.
My job with my employer is considered 'exempt', which means that my employer is exempt from paying me overtime if I work more than 40 hours per week. That means that I can work 18 hours a day and still make no more than what I would earn for 8 hours. I am supposed to be able to receive enough salary that I wouldn't need overtime pay. In reality I don't earn enough money to do what my father did. I couldn't afford to buy a house in today's economy, at least not without putting myself in debt for the next 30 years and struggling to pay my other bills. I can only afford to take trips to places I can drive to, because air fare is too costly. My employer gives me four weeks of paid vacation time annually, but I typically only use it for 3-day weekends or to extend holidays, because I can't afford to take a trip out of state and stay in a hotel every day for a week or more like my family did during my childhood vacations. My husband and I have one car. We couldn't afford to insure two vehicles. We don't have children, and I don't know how my coworkers who do manage to make ends meet.
I do have some extra expenses that my parents didn't have, such as cell phone and cable tv bills, but I don't think those are so much that I should be unable to do what my parents did. But when I was a child hotel rooms for four people cost $60 a night at most. Meals for an entire family didn't cost as much as $20. Gas for the car cost less than a dollar a gallon. Health insurance cost less. Electricity and water bills cost less. Houses were less expensive, so mortgage payments were lower. When we sold my parents' 3-bedroom 2 bath house back in the '80s, it was worth less than $50,000.
I know that inflation happens, and that the cost of living is higher where I live now than where I grew up. But it's disheartening to think that here I am, 55 years old, working for my employer for 20 years, and I have so little to show for it. I'm fortunate to have a pension; people who were hired a year or two after me didn't get one. But if inflation continues at the same rate it's currently at by the time I'm old enough to retire, my pension won't do much for me. I probably won't be able to afford to live as I live now. I might have to move into a tiny studio apartment and give up my car just to retire. And my husband, who only works part-time, doesn't have a pension, or any kind of retirement savings. He doesn't earn enough to pay bills and still set something aside for the future. Even though his job is hourly-paid, he's not eligible for overtime, either. If he works 40 hours in a week he doesn't get anything beyond his usual wage, even though he's worked twice as much as he normally does. If he retires he'll have to live on my retirement income. And my employer stopped offering health insurance for employees who retire, so we'll have to figure out how to shoulder the burden of our own healthcare when we're not working anymore. If healthcare costs keep skyrocketing, most of our income will go for insurance premiums and medication. That's not much of a retirement to look forward to.
I'm far from the only person in this boat. I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that in another 20 years or so there are going to be a lot of retired baby boomers like me who need affordable housing and healthcare and something to do with their time besides watch tv all day. And in another 20 years after that the next generation will need the same thing, only they'll all still be paying off their mortgages and student loans if we don't find a way to make those things less costly.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
I Owe My Soul to the Company Store
"You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"
("Sixteen Tons", Tennessee Ernie Ford)
This morning I had a conversation with one of my coworkers about various social and economic issues affecting the US currently, and it dawned on me: Our capitalist society is the equivalent of the truck system era, where employees of factories and mines bought their necessities from the company, using company scrip that they were given in lieu of wages, and lived in company-owned housing. That was a form of debt bondage - the workers could never leave because they could never save any money.
Likewise many of us today can never stop working for the banks that hold our debts. We're all slaves trying to buy our way to freedom, because we've bought into this American capitalism: Own a house, own a car, send your kids to college.
How did we get here? What happened in America that made us think we have to have all this stuff - and go into debt to get it? In other parts of the world most of the population doesn't own homes. Many countries have no mortgages. If you don't save enough money to buy a house, you don't own a house. If you live in an urban area you rent a flat. You don't have a bathroom for every member of the family, and the kids might have to share a bedroom. Your flat isn't big enough to host a party of 40 people, you don't have a backyard or a garage or even any built-in closets. And people presumably don't sit around feeling like their lives are incomplete because they don't have granite countertops in the kitchen..
There are some European countries where higher education is free. That's right, you don't have to pay $30,000 a year to go to college, let alone have student loan debt for the rest of your life. I don't know what kind of limits those countries set on who can get a university education, but I do know that not everyone goes to university or is expected to go. Somehow in the US we've reached a situation where we think a university degree is a requirement to get a job, any job. My own opinion is that a lot of the current emphasis on getting a degree is encouraged by banks that give student loans, because those are guaranteed sources of income for them. It was determined by the financial institutions that not paying off your student loan is a high crime, because there's not much you can do to escape it besides die - and I'm not sure even that will free you.
Of course, the biggest difficulty of all is the way our political system has responded to this situation by giving up our modified representative democracy in favor of treating corporations as people. As long as politicians pay more attention to what the corporations want than they do to what their constituents want, we won't see any improvement in our debt bondage.
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"
("Sixteen Tons", Tennessee Ernie Ford)
This morning I had a conversation with one of my coworkers about various social and economic issues affecting the US currently, and it dawned on me: Our capitalist society is the equivalent of the truck system era, where employees of factories and mines bought their necessities from the company, using company scrip that they were given in lieu of wages, and lived in company-owned housing. That was a form of debt bondage - the workers could never leave because they could never save any money.
Likewise many of us today can never stop working for the banks that hold our debts. We're all slaves trying to buy our way to freedom, because we've bought into this American capitalism: Own a house, own a car, send your kids to college.
How did we get here? What happened in America that made us think we have to have all this stuff - and go into debt to get it? In other parts of the world most of the population doesn't own homes. Many countries have no mortgages. If you don't save enough money to buy a house, you don't own a house. If you live in an urban area you rent a flat. You don't have a bathroom for every member of the family, and the kids might have to share a bedroom. Your flat isn't big enough to host a party of 40 people, you don't have a backyard or a garage or even any built-in closets. And people presumably don't sit around feeling like their lives are incomplete because they don't have granite countertops in the kitchen..
There are some European countries where higher education is free. That's right, you don't have to pay $30,000 a year to go to college, let alone have student loan debt for the rest of your life. I don't know what kind of limits those countries set on who can get a university education, but I do know that not everyone goes to university or is expected to go. Somehow in the US we've reached a situation where we think a university degree is a requirement to get a job, any job. My own opinion is that a lot of the current emphasis on getting a degree is encouraged by banks that give student loans, because those are guaranteed sources of income for them. It was determined by the financial institutions that not paying off your student loan is a high crime, because there's not much you can do to escape it besides die - and I'm not sure even that will free you.
Of course, the biggest difficulty of all is the way our political system has responded to this situation by giving up our modified representative democracy in favor of treating corporations as people. As long as politicians pay more attention to what the corporations want than they do to what their constituents want, we won't see any improvement in our debt bondage.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Hey, cancer, I want my life back!
Cancer has stolen my life from me.
It's true that I'm in remission now, that my chemo treatments are done. It's also true that I was able to maintain much of my normal lifestyle while I was going through chemo. I went to work most days, and enjoyed social activities with my friends. But cancer still stole some of my life from me.
I had to give up one of my favorite activities, studying Chinese, while going through chemo. I just didn't have enough energy or ability to concentrate to keep going to class. I gave up weekly meetings at a coffee shop with other Chinese students for the same reasons. I gave up working on my fiction writing because I couldn't concentrate on it. I cut my work hours. I lost vacation time to chemotherapy. I gave up driving so my husband had to be my chauffeur. I gave up going for long walks.
Now that I'm in remission, my oncologist wants to keep me on a maintenance regimen of Rituxan, the monoclonal antibody I received during chemo. Every other month I have to return to the chemo infusion center to receive an intravenous dose of Rituxan. If the Rituxan makes me feel tired afterward, I'll have to sacrifice some vacation time for the treatments. If that is the case, then over the next two years I'll have to use six PTO days a year for medical treatments. That's vacation time I could have used for long weekends, trips to the beach, or just a day to loaf around the house and pamper myself. And now I have to work my treatments around other activities like actual vacations, other medical appointments, and workplace commitments.
I'll also have to spend the rest of my life having annual CT scans and going to see my oncologist at least once a year. I like my oncologist, but there's a part of me that resents having to spend so much time seeing him. I resent all those CT scans, and especially the hated barium sulfate contrast solution I have to consume before each scan. I have to worry about the cancer recurring and what treatment I'll receive the next time it comes back. I have to think about what I'll do if there isn't any viable treatment for me next time beyond a stem cell or bone marrow transplant, and whether I want to give up quality of life for quantity. I have to think about a lot of things I really don't want to think about.
I know my problems are small compared to many other people. But that doesn't make me feel any better about the intrusion of cancer into my life and the ways it's going to change me in the future. I resent it, and I want my pre-cancer life back.
It's true that I'm in remission now, that my chemo treatments are done. It's also true that I was able to maintain much of my normal lifestyle while I was going through chemo. I went to work most days, and enjoyed social activities with my friends. But cancer still stole some of my life from me.
I had to give up one of my favorite activities, studying Chinese, while going through chemo. I just didn't have enough energy or ability to concentrate to keep going to class. I gave up weekly meetings at a coffee shop with other Chinese students for the same reasons. I gave up working on my fiction writing because I couldn't concentrate on it. I cut my work hours. I lost vacation time to chemotherapy. I gave up driving so my husband had to be my chauffeur. I gave up going for long walks.
Now that I'm in remission, my oncologist wants to keep me on a maintenance regimen of Rituxan, the monoclonal antibody I received during chemo. Every other month I have to return to the chemo infusion center to receive an intravenous dose of Rituxan. If the Rituxan makes me feel tired afterward, I'll have to sacrifice some vacation time for the treatments. If that is the case, then over the next two years I'll have to use six PTO days a year for medical treatments. That's vacation time I could have used for long weekends, trips to the beach, or just a day to loaf around the house and pamper myself. And now I have to work my treatments around other activities like actual vacations, other medical appointments, and workplace commitments.
I'll also have to spend the rest of my life having annual CT scans and going to see my oncologist at least once a year. I like my oncologist, but there's a part of me that resents having to spend so much time seeing him. I resent all those CT scans, and especially the hated barium sulfate contrast solution I have to consume before each scan. I have to worry about the cancer recurring and what treatment I'll receive the next time it comes back. I have to think about what I'll do if there isn't any viable treatment for me next time beyond a stem cell or bone marrow transplant, and whether I want to give up quality of life for quantity. I have to think about a lot of things I really don't want to think about.
I know my problems are small compared to many other people. But that doesn't make me feel any better about the intrusion of cancer into my life and the ways it's going to change me in the future. I resent it, and I want my pre-cancer life back.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Being Kind to the Sick
I haven't blogged much recently. But when a couple of my Facebook friends shared the following links, I decided it was time.
The first link is to a blog that gives some excellent advice for those who know someone with a serious illness: Some Thoughts on How to Be a Friend to Someone With a Serious Illness. I wholeheartedly endorse everything the blogger says. Good intentions are not enough. "I meant well" doesn't cut it. Think before you speak. Don't offer to help if you don't mean it. And before you say "I'm praying for you", stop to think about the spiritual beliefs of the person you intend to say it to. Go ahead and pray, but keep it to yourself unless you know the person you're speaking to will appreciate the gesture.
Link #2 is advice for saying the right thing: How not to say the wrong thing.
It covers some similar territory, but it's worth a read because it gives a clever concrete way to evaluate whether the thing you're thinking of saying is being said to the right person. We all want to show sympathy by relating similar experiences we've had. It's a natural behavior. But it doesn't really help the person who's sick or in trouble.
Finally, I'd like to relate some advice of my own for those who are visiting a sick friend or relative in the hospital. Anyone who's been in a hospital knows that they are awful places to be in. A day or two isn't too bad, but if you're in the hospital more than 48 hours it's pretty miserable. When you're in the hospital, you're not there to be comfortable. You're there for medical treatment. You're probably on some medication that may make you disoriented, drowsy, irritable, or nauseous. You don't get good rest because hospital staff are waking you every hour to check your vitals. You may be in pain or suffering symptoms of an illness, you may be connected to an IV or monitors that are unpleasant and annoying, you may not be able to get up and walk around or eat or go to the bathroom as you normally would. You may not feel like having visitors.
It's important to make sure the patient is really comfortable with having visitors before you pay the person a visit. And don't just accept a "Yes" at face value if it's from your dad who never complains, or grandma who really loves to see the grandkids. Dad or Grandma may not really feel up to visitors but be unwilling to say no. Ask some additional questions to try to assess how the patient really feels before you accept a yes answer.
Even if the patient is feeling good and has no problem with visitors, don't take the whole family at once, or the whole team from work. Hospital rooms are small. If the crowd is too big everyone will get in each other's way and block the hospital personnel if they need access to the patient. Most of the group won't get much time with the patient. It's even more important to not take too many people if the hospital has non-private rooms. You can have a crowd for a few minutes if the patient is up for it, but don't hang around.
Pay attention to the hospital rules. If the sign on the bathroom door says "Patient only restroom", don't use it. Don't leave your germs in there to endanger your friend or family member. Don't hang around when visiting hours are over, even if the nurses don't tell you to leave. Don't leave children unattended. Hospitals are not playgrounds. In fact, I'd recommend not taking kids unless the patient you're going to visit is Mom or Dad. Hospitals are kind of scary and creepy. And don't stand around talking loudly about Grandma's surgery in the hallway or elevator. Keep personal information private.
My first stint of chemo, I had to be hospitalized for 5-7 days a month, and the oncology unit had several shared rooms. One of my roommates had a group of family members who came to visit every day, four or five of them at once. They seemed not to notice me. Nothing separated my bed from their relative's bed but a flimsy curtain. But they stayed for hours, used the patient-only bathroom, turned the tv on too loud, and were generally just horribly inconsiderate. And most importantly, the patient wasn't getting anything out of their presence; she was on high doses of pain relievers and much of the time was either semi-conscious or so disoriented that she was unaware of who was with her. Don't be that woman's family when you go to visit someone at the hospital.
I hope some of the advice is valuable to some people. It's always hard to know what to do when someone is seriously ill or injured. Be kind and caring, but be sure you're being kind to the person who's sick. You can be kind to yourself some other time. And then when you're injured or seriously ill, which is almost certain to happen at some point in your life, your friends will be kind to you.
The first link is to a blog that gives some excellent advice for those who know someone with a serious illness: Some Thoughts on How to Be a Friend to Someone With a Serious Illness. I wholeheartedly endorse everything the blogger says. Good intentions are not enough. "I meant well" doesn't cut it. Think before you speak. Don't offer to help if you don't mean it. And before you say "I'm praying for you", stop to think about the spiritual beliefs of the person you intend to say it to. Go ahead and pray, but keep it to yourself unless you know the person you're speaking to will appreciate the gesture.
Link #2 is advice for saying the right thing: How not to say the wrong thing.
It covers some similar territory, but it's worth a read because it gives a clever concrete way to evaluate whether the thing you're thinking of saying is being said to the right person. We all want to show sympathy by relating similar experiences we've had. It's a natural behavior. But it doesn't really help the person who's sick or in trouble.
Finally, I'd like to relate some advice of my own for those who are visiting a sick friend or relative in the hospital. Anyone who's been in a hospital knows that they are awful places to be in. A day or two isn't too bad, but if you're in the hospital more than 48 hours it's pretty miserable. When you're in the hospital, you're not there to be comfortable. You're there for medical treatment. You're probably on some medication that may make you disoriented, drowsy, irritable, or nauseous. You don't get good rest because hospital staff are waking you every hour to check your vitals. You may be in pain or suffering symptoms of an illness, you may be connected to an IV or monitors that are unpleasant and annoying, you may not be able to get up and walk around or eat or go to the bathroom as you normally would. You may not feel like having visitors.
It's important to make sure the patient is really comfortable with having visitors before you pay the person a visit. And don't just accept a "Yes" at face value if it's from your dad who never complains, or grandma who really loves to see the grandkids. Dad or Grandma may not really feel up to visitors but be unwilling to say no. Ask some additional questions to try to assess how the patient really feels before you accept a yes answer.
Even if the patient is feeling good and has no problem with visitors, don't take the whole family at once, or the whole team from work. Hospital rooms are small. If the crowd is too big everyone will get in each other's way and block the hospital personnel if they need access to the patient. Most of the group won't get much time with the patient. It's even more important to not take too many people if the hospital has non-private rooms. You can have a crowd for a few minutes if the patient is up for it, but don't hang around.
Pay attention to the hospital rules. If the sign on the bathroom door says "Patient only restroom", don't use it. Don't leave your germs in there to endanger your friend or family member. Don't hang around when visiting hours are over, even if the nurses don't tell you to leave. Don't leave children unattended. Hospitals are not playgrounds. In fact, I'd recommend not taking kids unless the patient you're going to visit is Mom or Dad. Hospitals are kind of scary and creepy. And don't stand around talking loudly about Grandma's surgery in the hallway or elevator. Keep personal information private.
My first stint of chemo, I had to be hospitalized for 5-7 days a month, and the oncology unit had several shared rooms. One of my roommates had a group of family members who came to visit every day, four or five of them at once. They seemed not to notice me. Nothing separated my bed from their relative's bed but a flimsy curtain. But they stayed for hours, used the patient-only bathroom, turned the tv on too loud, and were generally just horribly inconsiderate. And most importantly, the patient wasn't getting anything out of their presence; she was on high doses of pain relievers and much of the time was either semi-conscious or so disoriented that she was unaware of who was with her. Don't be that woman's family when you go to visit someone at the hospital.
I hope some of the advice is valuable to some people. It's always hard to know what to do when someone is seriously ill or injured. Be kind and caring, but be sure you're being kind to the person who's sick. You can be kind to yourself some other time. And then when you're injured or seriously ill, which is almost certain to happen at some point in your life, your friends will be kind to you.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Food Frenzy (rant)
I'm not sure what led me to read a review of a restaurant I'll never visit, but I followed a link from Twitter and read this scathing review of Guy Fieri's American Kitchen & Bar. It got me thinking about some of my pet peeves about dining out.
My husband and I eat out a lot. Almost every day, in fact. Without going into how expensive and potentially unhealthy that can be, it has exposed me to a lot of different types of restaurants. We like trying out new places and generally prefer locally-owned businesses to chain restaurants, though we're not restaurant snobs and are just as likely to eat at Denny's as at a local ethnic food bistro. We also like watching cooking shows on Food Network, including Restaurant: Impossible, which features chef Robert Irvine giving failing restaurants a makeover.
One of the changes commonly seen on Restaurant: Impossible is putting the menu on a weight-loss program. I don't mean reducing the fat or calories of the food, but slimming down the number of items on the menu. A lot of restaurants, especially chains, try to be everything to every potential customer. By trying to satisfy too many different food preferences, these restaurants end up doing a lot of mediocre dishes instead of doing a smaller number really well. I've noticed that lately restaurants in general seem to be buying into the menu-reduction philosophy; an old-school family restaurant near our home that used to specialize in a combo of traditional American dishes and Greek food recently gave their menu a big reduction. They still feature Greek food, but it no longer gets lost in pages of burgers, steaks, pasta and seafood. Even Denny's seems to have caught on to that idea; their menu is no longer made up of pages and pages of breakfast items. I heartily approve of this trend. It makes it much easier for me to figure out what I'm going to eat, and I feel more confident that the food will be good when the chefs don't have to know how to make hundreds of different styles of dishes.
But there are other trends that seem to be spreading that I'm not too fond of. One of the big ones is the proliferation of "sports restaurants", with televisions bombarding diners with sports events in the dining area. The family diner I mentioned above has jumped on this bandwagon. Not all of their TVs show sports, but if I want to watch tv while I eat, I'll get takeaway and eat at home on my sofa. Last night we went to BJ's, a chain of "sports bar" style restaurants, and were subjected to our neighbor at the next table shouting at the tv overhead as he watched a football game, interrupting his conversation with his companion and annoying us (we're not sports fans). If you want to watch the game, especially if you're going to yell directions at the players (they can't hear you, by the way), why don't you stay home?
Even more irritating than the sports tv is the random unnecessary television in the restaurant. Why do you need a tv in a Thai restaurant? A neighborhood Thai restaurant in our area has a tv in the waiting area. Fortunately they keep the sound off, but other than entertaining guests waiting for a table, there doesn't seem to be any reason for the presence of the television. At least if you're going to put a tv in a Thai restaurant, show video of Thailand, not Judge Judy.
Noise is another peeve of mine in restaurants, especially in some of the chains like Applebee's or Red Robin. Evidently restaurant designers don't believe in any kind of noise reduction. Red Robin is the worst; it's often so noisy in their locations that we can hardly have a conversation. I like their food, so it's frustrating to have to cope with the noise to enjoy something I like. Of course it would help if customers wouldn't all talk so loudly, but really the designers should take noise into account when they choose materials and floor plans of these places.
So many restaurants seem to be designed entirely for looks, not for any kind of patron comfort or server convenience. Don't put a table right in front of the kitchen entrance. Don't make customers have to dodge servers when they want to get to the restrooms. Make the booths big enough that adults can sit in them, but don't set the seats so far from the tables that customers can't sit back comfortably. Choose chairs that won't squeal when people move them around on hard surfaces. Don't put carpet on the floor (ick!). Don't try to cram three restroom stalls into a space that will really only hold two - customers' bums should not touch the stall divider (I experienced that just a few days ago). Don't put so many informational placards and condiments on the tables that there's no room for the food. Maybe I should become a commercial space designer. These things just seem obvious to me. Is anyone in the restaurant business listening?
My husband and I eat out a lot. Almost every day, in fact. Without going into how expensive and potentially unhealthy that can be, it has exposed me to a lot of different types of restaurants. We like trying out new places and generally prefer locally-owned businesses to chain restaurants, though we're not restaurant snobs and are just as likely to eat at Denny's as at a local ethnic food bistro. We also like watching cooking shows on Food Network, including Restaurant: Impossible, which features chef Robert Irvine giving failing restaurants a makeover.
One of the changes commonly seen on Restaurant: Impossible is putting the menu on a weight-loss program. I don't mean reducing the fat or calories of the food, but slimming down the number of items on the menu. A lot of restaurants, especially chains, try to be everything to every potential customer. By trying to satisfy too many different food preferences, these restaurants end up doing a lot of mediocre dishes instead of doing a smaller number really well. I've noticed that lately restaurants in general seem to be buying into the menu-reduction philosophy; an old-school family restaurant near our home that used to specialize in a combo of traditional American dishes and Greek food recently gave their menu a big reduction. They still feature Greek food, but it no longer gets lost in pages of burgers, steaks, pasta and seafood. Even Denny's seems to have caught on to that idea; their menu is no longer made up of pages and pages of breakfast items. I heartily approve of this trend. It makes it much easier for me to figure out what I'm going to eat, and I feel more confident that the food will be good when the chefs don't have to know how to make hundreds of different styles of dishes.
But there are other trends that seem to be spreading that I'm not too fond of. One of the big ones is the proliferation of "sports restaurants", with televisions bombarding diners with sports events in the dining area. The family diner I mentioned above has jumped on this bandwagon. Not all of their TVs show sports, but if I want to watch tv while I eat, I'll get takeaway and eat at home on my sofa. Last night we went to BJ's, a chain of "sports bar" style restaurants, and were subjected to our neighbor at the next table shouting at the tv overhead as he watched a football game, interrupting his conversation with his companion and annoying us (we're not sports fans). If you want to watch the game, especially if you're going to yell directions at the players (they can't hear you, by the way), why don't you stay home?
Even more irritating than the sports tv is the random unnecessary television in the restaurant. Why do you need a tv in a Thai restaurant? A neighborhood Thai restaurant in our area has a tv in the waiting area. Fortunately they keep the sound off, but other than entertaining guests waiting for a table, there doesn't seem to be any reason for the presence of the television. At least if you're going to put a tv in a Thai restaurant, show video of Thailand, not Judge Judy.
Noise is another peeve of mine in restaurants, especially in some of the chains like Applebee's or Red Robin. Evidently restaurant designers don't believe in any kind of noise reduction. Red Robin is the worst; it's often so noisy in their locations that we can hardly have a conversation. I like their food, so it's frustrating to have to cope with the noise to enjoy something I like. Of course it would help if customers wouldn't all talk so loudly, but really the designers should take noise into account when they choose materials and floor plans of these places.
So many restaurants seem to be designed entirely for looks, not for any kind of patron comfort or server convenience. Don't put a table right in front of the kitchen entrance. Don't make customers have to dodge servers when they want to get to the restrooms. Make the booths big enough that adults can sit in them, but don't set the seats so far from the tables that customers can't sit back comfortably. Choose chairs that won't squeal when people move them around on hard surfaces. Don't put carpet on the floor (ick!). Don't try to cram three restroom stalls into a space that will really only hold two - customers' bums should not touch the stall divider (I experienced that just a few days ago). Don't put so many informational placards and condiments on the tables that there's no room for the food. Maybe I should become a commercial space designer. These things just seem obvious to me. Is anyone in the restaurant business listening?
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