I chatted for a short time with the person who gave me my vaccine [View all]

[MineralMan]

yesterday. It was at a mass vaccination site in Minneapolis. A very long snake line was in place to handle the many, many people who had appointments. I was surprised that there was no standing still. The line moved steadily forward, or back and forth between the barriers, anyhow. First stop was a registration table, of which there were many. They had all your information at hand on their laptops, once you gave them your name. We all filled out online forms before getting our appointments.

A card was handed to each person. We were advised to bring that card to our second appointment and to keep it. Optionally, you could take a photo of it on your cell phone. Then, we rejoined the line, passing through a doorway in the convention hall. There were about 100 tables in there, 10 rows of 10, each with a person giving the shots. Once you reached the head of the line, another worker either directed you to a line of tables and a specific table number, or one of the shot-givers would wave to catch your attention when they were available.

I got waved to a table by a young woman who looked to me, an old 75 year old man, like a teenager. Obviously, of course, she was not. I walked over to her table and sat in the chair there. She said, "Hi! What's your date of birth?" I told her and she looked at her laptop. "OK, here you are? Right or left arm?" She started filling in the date and time on the card.

We're getting better these days at reading people's eyes, since everyone's mouths are covered. She had friendly eyes, so I asked her, "How many vaccinations have you done today?" "About 50 so far. Yesterday, I did 160." I asked her, "So, what is everyone's mood like as they come to the table?" "Relieved," she answered. "Everyone is really nice and friendly when I see them."

As we chatted, she was getting ready to administer the vaccine. I pulled up my T-shirt sleeve and turned to make my left upper arm easily reached. "See," she said. "Everyone is being really helpful and cooperative like that. It makes my job a lot easier." She wiped my arm with a swab and gave me the vaccine, totally painlessly, and then applied a bandaid.

"That's it. Follow the arrows to the observation area." "Thank you," I said. Her eyes smiled at me.

That was it. In the observation area, there were at least a dozen medical professionals checking on people during their 15-minute wait. They were also friendly and seemed happy to be doing their jobs. I asked the one who stopped by my chair if they had many bad reactions to the vaccine. "Nope. I haven't seen any so far today." After the 15 minutes, another person came over and said, "So, how are you feeling?" When I said, "Fine," she said, "You're out of here, then. Enjoy the rest of your day."

The thing is that it takes a long time to set up a vaccination center like that, to train those working in it, and to make the process of vaccinating many hundreds of people a day go smoothly and efficiently. What was remarkable to me was how helpful, nice, and friendly everyone I encountered was who was working there. Very well-planned, fully staffed, and perfectly executed, as far as I could see, and I notice things like that.

Of course, all of this should have been accelerated by the previous guy, but he didn't give a shit. Things are going better all the time, now that we have a real working President.