Triple Axle Stereotype
February 17, 2006
I’ve recently switched a couple of shifts with someone at work and, instead of working my normal morning/daytime hours, I’ve been pulling some afternoon/evening’ers. The change in routine has been nice. And to be completely honest, the afternoon/night hours suit my normal sleep/wake patterns a little better. The downside is that, on several occasions, I’ve been there until 11 pm and had to turn around and be back at 6:30 am in the next morning. That might not seem too bad, except that it takes me at least until 1 am to get to sleep… and then I must wake at 4:45 am to be able to make it in by 6:30. Needless to say, it’s messed with my normal cycle a bit (which partially explains the lack of postage lately).
Things are a little different in the evening. For one, there are fewer people around that don’t work on our unit (like doctors, case workers, etc). There are fewer groups and we seem to have a little more down time than during the day. After the final group of the night, the television reigns supreme.
Normally the television watching habits of the patients depend mostly on who is in the room. Very few things captivate the entire assortment of people staying with us. The men typically want to watch the news or a sport of some sort. The women usually want to watch a movie. A decent mix can all agree to watch the dreaded reality tv. But the last couple of nights that I’ve worked this shift, one thing has been the driving force behind the ol’ boob tube: Olympic Figure Skating.
It’s actually quite humorous. Men and women alike seem to love watching the Olympians skate. In fact, tonight was by far the funniest television flipping I’ve seen to date. Save for one new admission, every patient on the floor was watching, commenting, and really getting into the men’s figure skating competition. You’d have thought it was the Super Bowl all over again. The guys were jumping up from their seats to call out mistakes and cheer on their favorite skaters. The ladies were oooo-ing and ahhh-ing over the skaters themselves. They honestly loved it.
There was an hour break in the competition. During the break, the men turned the television to wrestling… arguably a more stereotypical “male” television program. But several minutes before the skating break was to end, one of them pointed out that it was about to come back on. And so… the wresting was abandoned to return to the figure skating competition.
I know I’m playing on several stereotypes here… but it was just so funny to me to sit at the desk and watch all of these guys get so worked up and so into something that, stereotypically speaking, is traditionally not the most masculine sport. I suppose it just adds to the “stereotypes are bad” argument.
And this is definitely one I will reference in the future to support that argument.
Posted in
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:00 pm
[...] hi to a stranger, love & hate, stepping on slugs, fighting and making up with friends, and watching Olympic figure skating. All of these things - and everything in between - make up the longest thing we ever [...]