Your Minor Ethical Dilemma of the Day

There's this elderly gentleman who works the same volunteer shift at the hospital that I do. He's a nice enough guy, probably in his early-eighties, is a WWII vet, and is a retired mortician. He loves being assigned to work with teenagers, because they invariably ask him questions about what happens to the bodies of the dearly departed, and he has a good time scaring the hell out of them when he answers them, because he's got some good stories to share. I've got nothing against the guy. He works at the hospital three days a week, to keep himself active, and has been volunteering there for years. Everyone loves him, and more importantly, knows him. Most of the hospital staff like all of us volunteers enough, because we save them a lot of time and hassle, but they take their time warming up, because they just assume you'll be gone soon enough, so why bother? But the staff all love this guy, and go out of their way to help him achieve his tasks. It takes me a half-hour to flag someone down when I need them. But him? Five seconds flat. So, we've established that he's a good guy, with good intentions at heart. But there is one thing he does that drives me nuts: he steals cookies from the hospital's oncology clinic.

The clinic is in another building (the same one Dr. Academic's office is in) and we gophers have to run over there a couple of times a day to pick up specimens for delivery to the lab. I feel sorry for those patients, because they have to wait for us to come over, pick up the samples from two different offices, and schlep them back to the hospital's lab---which takes about fifteen minutes to a half-hour, all told, and that's before the lab does its deal. At Dr. Academic's office, the lab was in the office, so you didn't have to wait, but because the hospital has a perfectly good lab in the hospital, the samples have to be schlepped over and these people do have to wait. These runs always have priority over others, but no one understood why until I told them that the patients had to wait for those results to see if they were going to have chemo or not that day. Now everyone puts on winged shoes for these runs. All except for this one gentleman: he's in a hurry all right, but he's in one because he raids the cookie tray they keep in the lobby. Now, to be fair, he never snakes the cookies to eat himself: he takes them and offers them to everyone else, as a treat. He can't eat them because he's a diabetic. He offered me one, one day, and I refused. Now he thinks I'm kind of snotty.

Undoubtedly you're thinking I should just take the cookie, right? That the kind thing to do would be to accept this man's hospitality. The thing is, they have those cookies there for a reason. People go through icky treatments, which a goodly part of the time causes stomach upset, and perhaps, a cookie would help settle their tummies. Also, people on chemo need to snack, because that's the easiest way to eat when you're on these treatments. Anything that can boost the calorie count of a person who's going through a treatment that makes them lose weight is a good thing. There's always a full complement of snacks available in the waiting room at Dr. Academic's office, and people do take advantage of it (and I was one of them. For some strange reason, those Keebler fudge cookies taste good after enduring a carboplatin drip.), but they never take advantage, and always leave something for someone else in case they need it. Despite the number of elderly people at Dr. Academic's clinic, and knowing the propensity of some of their number (Ahem. I think we're all familiar with the ways of some of the "Geritol Express.") to fill up their handbags at all-you-can-eat buffets, I've never seen anyone take more than one cookie or a piece of candy. They, too, know that the food is there for a reason. But this guy, God bless him, doesn't get it. The people at the oncology clinic know full well what he's up to when he raids the tray, but because he's older, they don't say anything. I tried to explain to him, very kindly and very patiently, that the cookies were meant for the chemo patients, to get them to eat, but he just shrugged it off, saying there was plenty to go around, because the tray was always full.

Sigh.

What would you do if you were me? Would you lighten up, and just take the cookie, to smooth things over with someone as universally loved as this gentleman appears to be? Or would you again try to get him to understand that he shouldn't be taking them in the first place? Or would you just leave it be?

Posted by Kathy at March 5, 2008 11:41 AM | TrackBack