I don't know who started the sticker thing.
All I know is that when I walked into the nurses' lounge this morning, there was a green circle on my badge.
Just a little sticker. No explanation. No context. No warning.
Camila spotted it first.
"Oh no," she whispered. "You've been marked."
By 7:10 AM, the stickers were everywhere. Red, green, yellow, and one poor soul with a blinking neon orange sticker someone had rigged with a micro LED and a piece of surgical tape.
Trevor claimed it was a caffeine warning system.
"Red means you've had too much. Yellow means you're one sip away from a dance-off. Green means you're barely conscious. Orange?" He shrugged. "Orange means you've achieved astral projection."
No one admitted to creating the system, but everyone started following it like it was gospel.
Marcus the charge nurse had a yellow. He'd downed two coffees and a questionable energy drink by sunrise. He moved like a hummingbird with a scalpel.
Jude had green. No surprise there. His veins run on espresso, but he hides it under spiritual gloom and passive sarcasm.
Everett, somehow, had no sticker. No one dared label him.
"Probably because he's got actual blood type: black roast," Trevor said.
By mid-morning, a memo from admin popped up:
"Attention Staff: Please refrain from unauthorized personnel labeling or classification systems that could be interpreted as evaluative or performance-based metrics. Stickers are not part of approved patient care or HR documentation. Thank you."
In other words, someone tattled.
We responded by creating even more stickers.
The second generation included:
A blue star: "Emotionally unavailable but trying."
A purple triangle: "Might cry if you ask about Chart 7 again."
A silver dot: "Has achieved inner peace or gave up. Possibly both."
One of the transport techs started bartering snacks for custom combinations.
A patient asked what my green sticker meant. I told them it was a hospital clearance badge for "Low Threat Level: Mildly Funny."
They asked for one too. I gave them a purple triangle.
They laughed so hard they set off their heart rate alarm.
Camila created a wall display in the breakroom titled:
"THE STICKER ECOSYSTEM"
At the center was a hand-drawn coffee cup with wings. Surrounding it were tiers of stickers, arrows, and a cartoon of Kip trying to scrape his off with a tongue depressor.
Trevor added a line:
"Hierarchy is inevitable. Might as well color-code it."
Of course, Kip filed an official complaint.
Said the stickers were "a juvenile commentary on internal morale dynamics" and that his orange sticker "undermined professional credibility."
To retaliate, someone gave him a new sticker:
"Brown — Decaf Enthusiast."
He didn't notice for four hours.
When he did, he brought it to Everett.
Everett looked at it for a long moment, peeled it off slowly, then stuck it to his own clipboard.
He nodded once and said, "We all carry burdens, Kip."
It should've stopped there.
But Trevor made badge laminates.
Camila created an online sticker request form.
Jude got into holographics.
By the time admin tried to shut it all down, half the hospital was running on a sticker-based communication system more efficient than any pager ever invented.
We created chaos.
And somehow… made it function.
I don't know who started the sticker thing.
But I know who made it matter.
We did.
One green dot, one purple triangle, one quiet act of understanding at a time.