The El was running late.
The snow that had been falling for most of the night and morning, making riding his bike a truly bad idea, was now making his other mode of transport late. And if there was one thing he didn't want to be that was it.
It wouldn't matter to Kerry Weaver that he had been on time or early for the rest of the week, all that would register with her was that Dave Malucci was late, and that meant she could make his day hell, not that she wouldn't do that anyway.
He even understood that it was her job to discipline, cajole, and moan at her subordinates, but what he didn't understand was why she only seemed to do it to him. Carter could come into work a few minutes late and she'd ignore it. Jing-Mai could stand and talk to someone and that was fine as long as she went back to work soon, but him, he couldn't even turn up early and work as well as he could without being yelled at for something.
Not that anyone should want him to work there anyway, or at least that was what the continuous criticism seemed to imply.
He shook his head slightly, trying to shift such thoughts from his mind. He didn't really like to moan, and things could be much worse, he had a job at a well-respected hospital and he liked his colleagues, even Weaver, and the snow was still pretty despite the fact it was holding him up.
He pulled himself to his feet and moved out on to the platform where the layer of black ice that covered the wooden boards was a treacherous obstacle for anyone who wasn't expecting it.
The El had arrived. It was 5 minutes late.
Five minutes had translated to twenty minutes by the time he stepped into the ER. Twenty minutes he knew he'd have to make up at the end of his shift, despite the fact that it wasn't his fault and he had important things to do that afternoon.
Sure enough, he hadn't got further than the front desk when the sound of a crutch on the linoleum indicated the approach of Weaver herself. He turned to see the diminutive doctor hurtling towards him, clutching a pile of charts that she promptly thrust into his arms.
"Hey Chief, I…" He barely got the words out before she was brushing past him, a rejoinder that she "didn't want to hear it" drifting back over her shoulder towards him.
He shrugged to himself as he continued on towards the lounge, pushing through the door and dumping the charts he held onto the sofa. Stripping off his coat as he walked to his locker, swiftly changing into the scrub top he habitually wore over his street clothes. Then grabbing the clipboards from the sofa and throwing a longing glance at the coffee-pot he headed back out into the ER, to what would be a day full of boils and flu sufferers if the charts he read were any indication.
He was twenty-seven minutes late when he introduced himself to his first patient, and he already knew it was going to be a very long day.
