“This Is Not a Hotel” — Nurse Calls out Hospital Guest Who Used Staff Microwave

A registered nurse has a bone to pick with hospital visitors who medical facilities like it's their home.

Sydney (@sydney.rn) finds it "simply hilarious" (but not really) that guests who are there for more than a few days begin to walk around the place as if they're residents in a hotel.

While they probably are paying a pretty penny to be there (or their insurance plans are), that doesn't change the fact that it's still a hospital and not a Hampton Inn, she argues.

She shared an anecdote about how she was "charting" and "minding [her] own business" in a back area of the hospital.

The area she was seated in has access to a host of other rooms on the floor that serve various functions, but there's a big stop sign on the door to get to this area that also indicates it's for "EMPLOYEES ONLY" beyond this particular point.

It doesn't seem like there were a lot of folks who understood the meaning of this sign, however, as Sydney said during her shift a "scrubless" woman appeared in the area to start "using the microwave."

As everyone watched the woman brazenly enter the area and decide to help herself to the microwave, there was a moment where everyone was wondering who would take it upon themselves to inform the woman that this kind of behavior wasn't cool.

Sydney says that she volunteered herself as tribute and kindly told the lady that the area was for employees only. The guest came at her "with a 'tude," according to RN, asking the nurse how she was supposed to heat up her food. Sydney says that she didn't understand why the visitor was being so rude to her, especially when she was trying to be nice.

She told the woman that there was a family area with a microwave and coffee maker "down the hall," but the guest didn't really like hearing that option as she stated she had enough difficulty making it to the microwave in this area and that she wouldn't be able to walk herself to the other microwave in the family area.

Sydney attempted to come up with a solution for the guest, stating that if she hit a call button in the room, then a nurse or someone would be more than happy to assist her with heating up her food. The visitor didn't seem interested in hearing this, however.

The woman then called Sydney, "Stanley," and asked her what her role at the hospital was. Sydney informed the visitor that she's a nurse and the guest walked off.

The TikToker was taken aback by the unique insult (being called Stanley) but ended up forgetting about the whole thing.

She went back to work until it was her time to leave the hospital, and as she was making her exit, Sydney says she ran into her coworker who had been assigned to the same room as the visitor who used the microwave.

According to Sydney's co-worker, when she entered the room during a shift change, Microwave Lady murmured, "I hope this new nurse isn't a Stanley," sharing a laugh with the patient she visited.

Again, Sydney was trying to make sense of the insult, thinking that she was mocking a "stereotypical" nurse folks would see walking around the hospital — a Stanley cup in their hand as they went from room to room.

The co-worker tried to get in on the joke and they quipped that the nurse who would be tending to them "doesn't own a Stanley" so they would be in "good hands."

Both the visitor and the patient ended up looking at the nurse with deadpan stares.

Sydney was left struggling to understand what the hospital guest meant: "If it's not the basic b---- nurse insult, like what is this? Is this like the boomer version of a Karen? Like, is this a new thing that I am not with the times? Am I — what is a Stanley? I need to know, do I fit the description?"

There were several folks who responded to Sydney's video who had some ideas as to what the hospital visitor might have meant by the insult. One person remarked that it could have been a reference to a children's book character. "Flat Stanley?! It’s the orange hair and this shade of your skin … I hate to say it but she ate you up with that," they wrote.

Another person thought there was a much simpler explanation for the put-down: "I think — seriously — she misread your nametag," they said.

Another person thought she was referencing another figure from popular culture: "She talking bout Stanley from the movie Friday, when he told them to stay off his freaking grass."

Other TikTokers just seemed more upset with the fact that there are patients who treat hospitals like they're guests at an all-inclusive resort: "It’s the fact they expect customer service instead of patient care," one wrote.

Whereas another person who seems to work in hospitals wrote: "'This is not a hotel' comes out of my mouth more often than I thought it would have."