The pod is a small place. One by two meters at best. There are many of these make-shift pods set up in rows in buildings across the country and many more across the world.
In this pod, I assume the position of a healthcare professional. A far cry from my actual profession in an industry far more celebrated but far less important in the grand scheme of a pandemic.
I’m in this clinically bare pod for three reasons. One, to fulfil a lifelong ambition. Two, to fulfil the need for social interaction, and three, to feel like I’ve contributed to the DNA of The Great Quarantine in some small way.
It all started back in January 2021, when the Christmas shine has worn off, the weather was typically untropical and, the United Kingdom was in yet another lockdown. I was very much over all things Covid as well as my own company and jumped at the opportunity to train as a volunteer Covid Vaccinator. The nation needed me, and I needed to get the fuck outside.
Following many online and in-person courses, tests and rather rigorous personal checks, I finally qualified. Yay me. In a small way, achieving a longed-for career path I ultimately decided against back in my late teens. You see, in my late teens, I wanted to become a nurse. I’ve always been rather good at people. Not sure if this talent is a natural, or nurtured one, from years of working with the general public at their best- while they shop, and worst- when they demand refunds on ‘unworn’ attire, which incidentally stinks of fags and has suspicious white stains that are definitely not part of the garment’s design.
In any case, this particular skill set struck me as rather important in the business of helping people. Furthermore, I’ve never been particularly squeamish, phased by ‘gross stuff’ or bothered by long hours. Nurse it is. Except then, I looked into how much a nurse makes versus education requirements and decided to check if there is money and happiness in the music business instead (there is).
The yay was short-lived. As it turned out, by the time I qualified, 40 million people got jabbed and there was a brief vaccine shortage. So, many purpose-built centres closed, and the need for volunteers subsided. Bummer.
Just as I resigned to the fact the medical profession was clearly not into utilising my services, mine and the nation’s luck changed- Omicron.
So now I’m in this pod. My own private pod, where London’s residents probably believe me to be an actual nurse… or at the very least trust me to be someone who’s not been on the job for a total of 10 minutes.
Holding a syringe full of booster, I wonder if I should tell the lady whose arm I’m about to pierce that this is the very first time I have injected a human person. I don’t. Not only because I suspect she would ask for the manager, but because I have to shift focus to my own hands, shaking involuntarily. I distract the lady from looking at my hands and calling me out by throwing a vaguely interested “what do you do for work?”. I’m sure she answered, but I only heard my brain shouting at me like a drill sergeant- do not fuck this up!
This was largely the same experience for the first three people dropping by my pod. By the fourth, I got needle confidence, stopped sweating and started taking in surface-level interactions.
Here’s what I learned in my pod. First and foremost, I cannot tell you how many people do not know their own postcode. See, I assume people live in the same world I do, where the postcode is king. If you require any type of service, order any type of package or, like in this case, need to verify your identity- you need your postcode. But as it turns out, as many as 70% of people who come through my pod have no idea what their postcode is. While their name and DOB prove to be no problem at all, when I ask them to verify their postcode, people look at me like I just asked them for the square root of 13.
While the patients (wait, that can’t be right, they’re not sick- though many have had to wait for over 3 hours in the winter cold for this appointment, so patient they are!), were being tested on their postcode knowledge, the pod was testing my endurance of NHS issued technology.
Other than the vaccine and required accessories to administer said vaccine, the pod is equipped with two chairs, a wooden outdoor catering table, and a laptop issued by Moses on Mount Sinai, which is still running Windows Vista (I’m exaggerating, but only a bit).
Being level-headed with human people is one thing but fighting the illogical spasms of software that, unlike the chairs and table, will not perform its basic function is infuriating to me. If I take the care to spell a double-barrelled surname, the least this piece of excrement can do is play along and record said entry the very first time I enter it, rather than making me ask the nervous person in the pod to spell their name for a third time (hopefully lucky).
And finally, many people are like totally genuinely really scared of needles. And fear doesn’t discriminate. The young and old(er), the heavily tattooed, the architects, students, musicians, stay-at-home mums, and huge bouncer looking dudes. The anxiety, the looking away, wincing, and closing their eyes until it’s all over, is the same.
Basically, the scoop is, when it comes down to it, in one way or another, we’re all the same.
CREATIVE NOTES 