The town where I live is tourist-driven. Therefore, nearly everyone of us who lives here has a job they're overqualified for. Comparatively speaking, I have a desirable job, because I work at the hospital. However, it's in the kitchen, so I'm still doing the same sorta foodservice job that motivated me to finally finish my degree so that, "I'll never have to do this kind of work ever again." I've had my degree for twenty years now; nearly eleven of those years have been in foodservice.
People can be at their most anal, most a-holeness when it comes to their food. Throw in being hospitalized and it can understandably make them even moreso. Further, the lines of communication between the second floor, where patients and nurses are, and our kitchen on the first floor can typically be poor. This patient doesn't want what they said they did, earlier, or their diet has changed, or they want this something or other, now; or the patient has left to go home, been transferred to another hospital or other facility, or can't eat because they're having a procedure, which means they'll need a second tray when the procedure is completed, and they'll be even hungrier, grouchier, then.
There aren't any closets in the kitchen, so I've made the hospital's staff elevator my prayer closet. At least four times for every meal, when I'm transferring food carts, I have to take the elevator. Ours is a small hospital (our town has less than six thousand), so I all but always ride the elevator by myself. Going up to, or down from, the second floor, I have a good half-minute or so to bow my head, or drop it in exasperation/exhaustion, and pray for strength, clarity, perseverance, patience(!), faith, trust, and/or divine intervention.
It's fairly common to hear folks talk about hospitals being Holy Ground; but I bet most of them don't think to include the elevators.
