Wednesday, August 23, 2006

23 August 2006

Oops, didn't realize that yesterday was Tuesday, hence the delayed update.

In any case, without further ado, three things I've realized over the past couple of weeks of recuperating...

The first is that the doctors here prefer to take the "wait and see and then come back" approach to treating patients. I had a vicious case of bronchitis a little over a year ago, and the doctor refused to give me any antibiotics until I had been coughing like a TB patient with pneumonia for a week. This time, I went in with a concussion, two massive lumps on my head, a hand-sized bruise on my back, and a visible knot in my back muscles, and the doctor told me to take Advil. That's it, Advil. It was only after I returned two weeks later with continued symptoms that he prescribed some muscle relaxants and time-release, high-dose Advil. I can understand not wanting to over-prescribe antibiotics, to some extent, but if someone comes in with obvious sources of pain, wouldn't it make sense to give them something?

Second, one of the medications I was prescribed is called Brufen Retard. Seriously. I'm taking Retard pills. I know that they aren't sold under the same brand name in the States and that "Retard" probably doesn't have the same connotations here as it does in the States, but still… I'm taking Retard pills that the doctor gave me. The same doctor who looked at an X-ray of my head and said that there was nothing there. I think he might be trying to tell me something.

Third, I learned how accident insurance works in Switzerland. Employers are required to get accident insurance for full-time employees, and the accident insurance covers all accidents, both on and off the job, with "accidents" including anything from falling in your own home to wiping out while snowboarding to totaling your car. As it turns out, there are very specific conditions that must be met for the insurance to be valid. For instance, employees who work 40 hours a week (as I do) are required to have at least one 45-minute break each day, which is why employers have a one-hour lunch policy that requires employees to take a real lunch hour every day. If you skip lunch and eat while working, or if you take a short lunch, it doesn’t count as a full lunch hour, which would therefore theoretically void the accident insurance.

It makes sense for people working in a physical job, where not having a break could decrease alertness and increase risk, but seriously, I sit at a desk and work on a computer. There is no scaffolding or heavy equipment, no power tools or hard hats. If I'm less alert, I might get a paper cut. Maybe. In any case, knowing exactly how accident insurance works here makes me feel like a truck driver: OK, so if I work this many hours, I have to stop and take this many minutes of break before working this many hours again. Maybe I'll get some donuts. Except for there aren't good donuts here.

I'll finish with a random weird moment from Street Parade a couple weeks ago: we were checking out a late-night party in the square that is right by my apartment, and the DJ was mixing beats in with some sort of vaguely classical-sounding music. I suddenly found myself thinking about jewelry, and after some mental probing, realized that the music was the tune that has been used for as long as I can remember in deBeers commercials, the "A diamond is forever" ads, where a shadow man gives a shadow woman a diamond ring. The music is linked so strongly to the brand in my consumer-culture-infested brain that even played in the street, using different instruments, with techno beats added in, the song still made me think of diamonds.

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