Chat Over Coffee - A Migraine for the Doctor

Posted on Tue Nov 12th, 2024 @ 1:10am by Lieutenant Fang Lee & Lieutenant Commander Oscar McDonald MD

854 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Stars Around the Well
Location: Coffee Shop | USS Arcadia

ON:

Fang grabbed his misnamed coffee from the "Who the Hell Are You?' Cafe and walked to the end table were he spied Doctor McDonald sitting alone. "Ah," he said as he approached. "I see that you feel under the spell of this place too."

Down to the dregs of his drink, McDonald peered up as he head the familiar voice. “Lieutenant Lee. Well, yes. I tend to find anything with too much caffeine has a habit of disappearing once I leave. Chloe’s doing I’m sure. So I now sit and enjoy my coffee right here.”

"May I join you?"

In response the physician gestured to one of the empty seats opposite. There were other seats and tables free but it seemed the engineer turned XO wanted to strike up a conversation and while he wanted very much to be alone, he had been challenged recently to be more of a ‘people person’. Which apparently meant being more polite and less prone to speaking his actual mind. It was torture.

Fang smiled. "Why do I get the feeling that you are really trying hard not to tell me to walk out of an airlock?"

An airlock? Hm. There was an idea he hadn’t thought of in a long time. “I’m not an expert but I don’t think it’s wise to take your coffee to go to quite such extremes. Then again, you haven’t occupied one of my biobeds for a couple of days…”

He laughed. "Well I might be occupying your sickbay soon for a day."

“I don’t appreciate threats, Lieutenant,” he replied drily, “What are you planning to do to yourself this time?”

Genuinely his department had not gone a single day without at least one engineer requiring medical care. He had never known anything like it.

He laughed. "Nothing so dramatic. I had the idea that since department heads are busy I may be able to help streamline your reporting process so that you are given to less paperwork time and more patient time and more rest time as department heads and deputy department heads. So I am having a take your XO to work day for each department."

If looks could kill it would have been a dangerous time for the Lieutenant. “Is this mandatory?” He said after a long moment.

"For the moment yes. I would like to help and in order to do that I must...follow you around."

“How delightful,” McDonald signed, finishing his drink.

He laughed. "I get it I really do but maybe we can come to a compromise."

“I’m listening…”

"Well you just submitted the sickbay report for the month. How about we sit down for an hour and go through it and then you can tell me what processes I can automate to make it more fill in the needed information and less write me a novel. Maybe we can condense things and highlight the important aspects and you can familiarize me with things verbally."

“Medical reports are done as they are for good reason,” McDonald commented. “I have no wish to automate anything, I much prefer to keep a very human eye on what is happening in my department. If you want me to walk you through the report, by all means, I can spare an hour.”

"I don't mean automate the full report more like if there is things where you just need to plug in numbers like when we do a supply request this way I can create forms rather then you writing out stuff like 5 medical tricorders, then you can just bring up a shop list and add the number of things you need."

“I may be old,” McDonald laughed, “but I’m not quite using an abacus. Our requisition process is actually rather smooth, it has to be. I appreciate the intention but if you mess with her system, Chloe will make it a mission to get her revenge.”

He smiled. "Alright. I guess I'll be making an exemption."

“Fantastic! Everyone wins!” McDonald declared as he stood, “I do however have to go scare some medical students. Don’t want you missing out on the full XO experience, dear boy! I dare say the complaints should be on your desk in oh… an hour. Two at most.”

Patting Lee Fang on the shoulder he headed for the exit, “enjoy your coffee!”

Fang laughed. "Thanks doc."

The XO watched the doctor skip away and sighed. “Well, Fang, nobody said that being an XO would be easy. Time to ramp things up. The doctor will like you yet.” Or so he’d like to believe.

He finished his coffee and then decided to head back to engineering. There were a few things that were waiting for him there. He had reports to do and things to approve and then he needed some time to himself to just digest everything from the last few days. There was also a call he had to make, one that he didn’t want to but had to while they still had good subspace range.

OFF:

 

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