Posted by Lieutenant Dr. Mariah Lee Grayson (Chief of Psychiatry) in Deck 4 - Mess Hall (Anyone welcome)

Posted by Lieutenant Koria Sutret (Chief Engineer) in Deck 4 - Mess Hall (Anyone welcome)

Posted by Lieutenant Dr. Mariah Lee Grayson (Chief of Psychiatry) in Deck 4 - Mess Hall (Anyone welcome)
Posted by… suppressed (29) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Mariah sat in a quiet corner of the mess hall reading the current mission notes in preparation for the upcoming meeting with the mental health team. Information was still being gathered on the illness the crew were to address, but in preparation for offering support to the rest of the medical team, Mariah wanted to meet with members of her department just to review how they could divide and conquer to the best of their abilities. Previous psychiatric department heads had put some excellent protocols in place Grayson saw no need to upend, but it was still important to make sure her folks were placed where they could be of most use, even if that was offering comfort to distressed patients or helping to run basic labs.

Grayson was not an expert in infectious disease, but she hadn’t lost her emergency medicine or triage skills, wisdom she was prepared to impart on members of her team who may have felt a bit rusty.

For now, however, she felt restless and in need of a distraction, which is how she found herself in the Mess Hall staring into cold tea, just looking for a distraction.

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

Koria slid her tray onto one of the other tables before dropping into the chair. There always seemed to be another mess that needed cleaning up in Engineering, but she had managed to pull herself away in order to get something to eat. Mentally she was counting it as a win, because for once she had actually remembered to take a break, instead of getting pushed out of engineering by her team.

After taking a long drink of water, she settled in to eating her lunch, or was it dinner, she would have to check what time it was later.

Lt Sutret - CE

After reading her notes for about 10 minutes, Mariah’s brain decided it was time for a break, and her eyes naturally looked away from her notes and casually scanned the room. Spotting the chief engineer, eating by herself, Grayson contemplated whether she should say hi or leave the woman in peace. It wasn’t often the psychiatrist found herself needing to interact with anyone in engineering, but that didn’t mean she didn’t value them or would intentionally go out of her way to ignore them either. Frankly, she would’ve much rather engaged in even brief, casual conversation ahead of this mission‘s challenges, and she could make the case in her own mind that it was precisely because she didn’t often interact with members of the engineering staff, unless it was for evaluations or therapeutic support,

Grayson decided to make her way over and say hello, risking that she might be interrupting, preferred alone time. If she was interrupting, she trusted the chief to say so, and of course, if that were the case, she would happily step away with no hard feelings. “Hello, Lieutenant. Please forgive me if I’m interrupting. I just saw you sitting here by yourself and thought I’d come over and introduce myself. I’m Mariah, Grayson, Chief Psychiatrist.”

~ dr.Mariah Grayson, CoP

Koria looked up mid bite, she started to open her mouth but it didn’t take more then a moment before she realized that was a bad idea. Quickly chewing and swallowing, she picked up a napkin to wipe her mouth.

“Nice to meet you. Koria Sutret, Chief Engineer.” After a moment she abruptly indicated towards one of the chairs. “Would you like to join me?”

Lt Sutret - CE

“Forgive me,” Mariah replied, raising a hand in embarassment. “I didn’t mean to catch you with your mouth full.” Taking a moment to consider the kind offer, Grayson said, “No pressure, Chief, but if you’re sure I wouldn’t be intruding, I’d love to join you.” She really did need a break and hoped she hadn’t made things awkward for the engineer by coming over.

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

Koria considered for a second. Part of her wanted to run back to Engineering as fast as possible. But she was hungry, and she couldn’t keep hiding in Engineering all the time. Plus maybe her engineering leads would stop trying to push her out and take a break.

“No, it’s alright. Please, uh, join me.”

Not sure what to do, Koria took another bite of her meal.

Lt Sutret - CE

Not expecting the offer when she stopped by, Mariah realized she had left her food at her original table. Holding up a finger, she then went to retrieve her tray - a simple sandwich and drink - and then came back to sit, offering with some degree of embarrassment, “I guess I didn’t fully think that through. I’m not usually one to accost strangers, at least outside of professional obligations, on my personal time. I suppose I just saw you sitting by yourself and wondered if you might be as tired as I am of being alone with my own thoughts today.”

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

OOC: Whoops! Fixed my signature. Forgive the character confusion!

Koria looked down at the table as she took another small bite of her meal. She hadn’t minded the quiet, it was kind of nice after the commotion in Engineering.

“Uh, actually it’s the first time I’ve had a quiet moment today, we are doing a calibration of the Matter/Antimatter reaction chamber, so it’s bit of chaos in Engineering today.”

Lt Sutret - CE

“Oh yeah,” Mariah replied, her tone one of agreement. “I imagine that task requires a great deal of intense concentration because the consequences can be deadly if mistakes are made. I don’t blame you for needing some solitude and I’m sorry for crashing your bubble. I talk to people quite often in my work but sometimes still miss connecting with people, if that makes sense?”

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

“Uh yes? Though I’ve always better connecting with machines then with people.”

Blushing slightly at admitting that to practically a stranger Koria quickly used her fork to pick a piece of broccoli off her plate and shoved it into her mouth.

Lt Sutret - CE

“I get that,” Mariah replied with a nod. “Machines are pretty straight-forward. They require direct and specific instruction, but if you give them that, much of the time you’re going to get the outcome you expect. Machines may be blunt in their refusal to cooperate if you aren’t specific or clear enough, but you always know where you stand with them. People, on the other hand, are harder to predict and to read. They can be dishonest, intentionally or unintentionally if they have other worries or competing interests, which can lead to perplexing interactions even when you have no indication you’ve done or said anything to bring them about.”

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

“Exactly,” Koria said getting a bit excited. “A machine doesn’t lie to you, even if it’s telling you what you don’t want to hear. Everything is based on reason.

“Oh, I’m starting to sound a bit like a Vulcan…”

Lt Sutret - CE

Mariah chuckled and shook her head. “You sound like an engineer to me, which is a relief since that’s what you do.” She paused, then offered, “I wish sometimes my responsibilities were that straight forward, but overall, I’d say I reason more intuitively and emotionally than analytically, so I’d probably make for a pretty grumpy engineer, and that’s assuming I could survive at all. I really had to apply myself in those basic courses at the Academy, and even then, it made more sense to use scientific examples wherever possible. There were lots of times I understood engineering better if I used biology examples, but even then, I realized that just because I was capable of doing something with a great deal of effort, that didn’t mean I was obligated to do it on a regular basis or even like it when I did. We all have different talents, and I for one am glad you have such an excellent understanding of machines.”

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

“And it’s why I’m happy that there are people who are better at the squishy things then I am. I would have a terrible bedside manner.”

Lt Sutret - CE

Mariah chuckled. “You’d be surprised how many medical professionals have a terrible bedside manner. We all know how important bedside manner is for getting the information we need to help people and and certainly something that’s stressed in training, but I’ve met a number of colleagues, who at the very least could use a refresher on the people skills side of things. I think it’s gotten to be that way because medicine, in many ways, is still quite competitive. There can be a hierarchy, unspoken, or otherwise, with all the medical specialties. I wonder, is it like that at all with engineering?“

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

Koria thought for a moment, “I’m, I’m not sure. We do have people who specialize, but I don’t tend to interact with them as much. Most of the time they are off doing their research, and are not spending time on a starship.”

Koria laughed as she thought on it some more, “They would probably be horrified by some of the things we end up doing out here just to keep everything running.”

Lt Sutret - CE

Mariah chuckled in return. “Perhaps they need to be reminded necessity is the mother of invention.” She paused, then offered, “I imagine being Chief Engineer on a ship like Ogawa involves more pressure than most?”

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

“It can be. On one hand, it is a ship that doesn’t tend to fly head first into combat. So I’m not always having to patch up holes in the hull. But on the other hand, it’s a ship full of improvisers. So if my team is not fast enough to make a repair, well sometimes even though the system is working, we have no idea how they managed to make it happen.”

Lt Sutret - CE

“Yikes, that’s interesting,” Mariah replied, making a pained face. “I’m sure the medical staff wouldn’t appreciate if your team just decided to improvise surgery while you waited for them, would they?”

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

“You’d think not. But I guess sometimes they just can’t help themselves.”

Koria leaned forward a bit, her voice getting a bit more animated, “And sometimes it’s just bad luck. A bit after I joined the ship, we were doing a drill that was supposed to just simulate a hull breach. Except in the middle of it, a parasite that they thought they had eradicated from the ship a while back resurfaced and caused an actual hull breach. That was a mess.”

Lt Sutret - CE

Mariah nodded solemnly. She was helping Dira come to terms with that very event, but of course she did not reveal that. “I was here for that but can only imagine what that felt like for your team. I think we’re all still processing the fall-out from that.”

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

“Oh,” Koria said sitting back slightly. “Um, sorry I’m still learning all of the crew on the ship.”

Lt Sutret - CE

“No need to apologize,“ Grayson reassured. “I’ve been here a while and even I don’t feel like I know everyone aboard as well as maybe I should. It takes time to build those relationships, and while everyone sees the value of mental health professionals in theory, in practice it’s always a bit tricky,“ she added with a grin.

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

“True. I do spend most of my time in Engineering. Though I have met a few people here and there so far.”

Lt Sutret - CE

“I’m curious. Is spending most of your time in engineering something done out of necessity or by personal preference? I’m sure running engineering is quite demanding, of course, but I get the impression it may be the latter and I’ve crossed your solitude,“ Grayson added good naturedly.

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

OOC: Sorry for disappearing! Digging up this old thread again.
IC:
Koria shifted slightly in her chair. “No, it’s okay. The team leads have been pushing me to get outside of Engineering more often. To the point they forcibly walked me off the ship at our last port, and said I wasn’t allowed back for several hours.” She did leave out the part where she came across one of the crew bleeding out after getting stabbed in a side corridor. That was a hard memory to forget.

Lt Sutret - CE

OOC Lori: Now it’s my turn to apologize for disappearing on you! Sorry about that.

“Your team sounds like they care about you very much,“ Mariah replied. Of course, the other unspoken possibility was they needed a break from the chief, but saying so out loud would’ve just been unkind. Besides, Grayson didn’t get the impression that was the case at all. If anything, Sutret seemed less like a micromanaging boss and more like a loner, not because she didn’t trust anyone to do things right, but because she genuinely enjoyed her work.

~ Dr. Mariah, Grayson, CoP

“I guess so. It’s hard sometimes being this far away from home, and on a ship with so many medical staff, we are sort of the odd department out. I like it being a place where people can feel like they are a part of something.”

Lt Sutret - CE

Grayson nodded. “That makes sense. I’ve served aboard more medical vessels than the typical medical officer, but even so, it can feel a bit strange for medical personnel to be so heavily represented around me, as it isn’t the norm everywhere . It’s not that we’re less important within more standard ships and bases, it’s just different here. Just as it requires an adjustment to get used to being in the majority, I would expect there would be a similar adjustment to being in the minority. I’m sorry if you and your team have been made to feel less important simply because you’re here in smaller numbers by comparison. I know you weren’t offering this as criticism directed toward me or anyone else, but your words remind me that I could do a better job at serving as a liaison between departments, so people feel seen and heard. It’s true we all have responsibilities to those outside our vessel, but if we don’t take care of each other, none of that can happen.“

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

Koria quickly tried to backpedal. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t think we feel less important, there is still a lot of ship to upkeep and maintain. It’s more… It’s more the little things. Um… sort of like how we think, or problem solve. Engineers don’t always approach a problem the same way a doctor would. And that can lead to some, well, misunderstandings. Does that make sense?”

Lt Sutret - CE

Sensing she might have made Sutret uncomfortable, Mariah offered. “It does, and I apologize if I sounded like I was accusing you of thinking negatively of people when you weren’t. It was my attempt to put myself in your shoes, but I guess I got a bit too imaginative. What are some of the misunderstandings you’ve seen?”

~Dr. Mariah Grayson, CoP

Koria thought for a moment. “There have been times where despite all of the training in diagnosing a patient, I’ve seen a doctor try to fix a tricorder with this Human item called gum. It took an hour to get the sticky stuff out of the hinge. Oh! I had an old Academy professor who told the class that one time he had a science officer actually melt a phaser emitter when they thought they were helping. Do you know how hard that is?”

Lt Sutret - CE