Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
Character development updates (mine):
Remember the Model? Yeah, that one.
Right before I left India again, she told me that the guy she'd been dicking around while getting dicked down by the first gentleman had finally dumped her. I offered condolences calibrated to approximately the level of sincerity the situation deserved, which is to say I made the appropriate noises and thought about dinner.
Then, about a while back, she called. I'd had a shite day at work (base rate in this placement: high), and my entire evening's accomplishment to that point had been stripping down to my knickers and lying in bed marinating in my own sweat. I picked up anyway.
I asked if she was calling about the latest jackass. She denied it. I told her she wasn't fooling anyone, and certainly not me, because there is exactly one genre of call she makes and this was it. She pretended to care about my day; I told her it was awful, and to get to the point.
She asked if I was seeing anyone. I said yes. She demanded photographic evidence, which I supplied with rather more glee than was strictly dignified. Her oh was a small and satisfying thing to hear, as was her independent confirmation that I was dating a looker. I added that the lady in question also had a great personality and a proper career, ostensibly in the interest of thoroughness, actually because I wanted to watch the last of the air go out. And it did. I could hear her deflating down the line, whatever residual fantasy she'd been keeping on life support about me eventually coming home to marry her escaping like air from a punctured balloon.
She then spent fifteen minutes briefing me on the ridiculous new motherfucker: verbally and physically abusive, likely sleeping with his new boss to get ahead. I observed that these revelations really had me doing some soul-searching about what, exactly, had ever made her think I was her type. This was a joke, but only mostly. If your exes keep selecting for men who treat them like furniture, and I'm in the sample, at some point the question asks itself. The answer is I barely knew her, and I was decent enough to her anyway.
And then I finally snapped. I had been unkind to her the last time she pushed me past breaking point, but I hadn't washed my hands of her. I had even apologized and tried to help. I was past that.
I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I was not her dad. I was not her boyfriend. I was not her shrink. They were the appropriate gentlemen who deserved her as a headache. I had no further interest in her problems. I was exhausted, I was done with her bullshit, and her absolute lack of taste, sensibility and judgement was beyond my ability to fix. And that even if I could fix it, I wouldn't. She asked if she could call me later. I said I'd call her back.
Reader, I did not. I suspect she got the message. Whether the message survives contact with the next crisis is a separate empirical question, but it can ring a phone that doesn't answer.
I told the (real) lady about all of this, and was asked, not unreasonably, why I'd spent twenty minutes on the phone with an ex. Fair question. Better question than she knew. The honest answer is that these headaches historically ran an hour or two, and a mere twenty minutes represented me slamming the door in her face and then throwing the lock, which is what I said, and which had the advantage of being true. The less flattering answer is the one flagged above: I picked up. There was some part of me that still wanted to be the man whose approval she was calling to lose. That part got twenty minutes of airtime and then got fired. I also mentioned that a professional model had concluded she was out of her league. This mollifed her appropriately, and is also true.
More recently: my boss, who I can usually count on to be supportive, implied that I'd been slacking on getting assessments done while he was away on vacation. This could not have been further from the truth. I had been overloaded to hell and back, other junior colleagues were telling me they'd been breaking down and crying in the loo, and I had said as much in an email he hadn't read. He then accused me of an error I was mostly confident wasn't mine.
I left the room devastated and about one provocation short of detonating. A colleague on her way out saw my face, put two and twenty-seven together, and found us a room so I could vent. She ended up doing all of the crying while I did most of the comforting, which was not the planned division of labor. I was amused by how this was the second time I'd had to reassure someone breaking down in that room, the last person had been the Dutch doctor, and she had been trying to console me first too. Both are moving to a better place, this one's an intern heading out to Australia soon; I'm the actual trainee and this skill is what makes me good at my job.*
I do appreciate the effort, and I say that without sarcasm. Mostly it reminded me that my boss was the one woefully out of touch with reality.
Now. The old me would have been genuinely broken by something like this. Not because the accusation was true, but because he would have needed it to be false in someone else's eyes before he could believe it himself. The current me skipped that step and went on the warpath, which looks superficially similar (both involve collecting a great deal of other people's opinions of me) and is not the same thing at all. The old version was begging for a verdict. This version was loading a gun.
I canvassed my juniors for feedback forms, amassed a fat stack, and dumped it on my boss's desk. I investigated the alleged error and found that a new intern had made the fuck up in question and I'd had no involvement at all, then went back and told my boss so while protecting said junior, because I know what it's like being three days into doctoring, even if it was five years ago for me. I documented, in exacting detail and impeccable NHS-speak, how our meeting had gone, and sent it to him "for input and corrections." He had none to offer. If you have never received a scrupulously polite email that is also a loaded weapon, I recommend the experience from the sending end only.
He emailed the next day to tell me the feedback was uniformly positive. I knew that already, and knew he was understating how good it was, because my colleagues had offered to show me what they'd written. He asked for more, from the rest of the ward, senior clinicians and non-medical staff included. I did ask he asked. The ones I saw could glow in the dark. I then did my best pitbull impression, cornered a senior reg, and did a clinical case with him. It was more difficult than I had anticipated when opting for it, but I decided that if this didn't demonstrate my clinical acumen, nothing would. I had overprepared so hard the poor bastard ran out of questions to ask me.
When I left work today, I handed in another stack of forms. My boss, looking remarkably harassed and overworked (see how that feels?), admitted he hadn't read the last batch. I asked him to ensure he did before reporting up the chain. He sighed and said he would.
He has only himself to blame. He told me to jump; I didn't ask how high, I put a dent in the ceiling. I suspect he's wincing at how the thing he implied about me (which I documented) compares to what the people who actually work with me every day chose to put in writing. He's not a bad person, and I suspect he does feel bad about it. He later came by to say he'd told his colleagues to expect me and to make time for me. That is quite literally all I've ever asked for, and thanks to us being temporarily overstaffed, I'm making so much hay during the local sunshine that I'm crashing the market.
The only person who gets to call me lazy is me, because it's not true. I intend to keep this up until he throws up his hands and tells me I can stop, he's gotten the memo.
*One of the feedback forms noted that patients had approached this doctor and told them that just talking to me had made them feel better. I know this, but it's good that others see it too.
I skimmed this but have the following observations.
Am I understanding it right that two men, working in a hospital, were crying together in the bathroom because their boss had some tough words for them?
And after that, you aggressively went around to all your seniors for feedback and, requested formal performance feedback, looked over their shoulder with it, and demanded your boss review it all?
I suppose that’s one way to approach work/career goals. Not a very good one in my estimation. Yes, corporate/institutional work settings have this whole formal HR performance review framework. I suppose it can be helpful for progression, but the real reason we do this is to document low performers and ease separations. It’s rarely for the employees benefit. You will get much more mileage making your bosses’ life easier rather than harder.
But that’s all besides the point I’m trying to make. Is it normal for Scottish/British men to weep at work or get emotionally flustered when they’re having a bad day? Is it normal for them to passive aggressively confront their bosses about it? Is it normal for them to stir the pot with the other staff?
Maybe it is, but that wouldn’t be my guess. This all sounds extremely feminine. I’d love to know the demographics of this place you work. Are you trying to fit in? Or is this just how you operate?
I suppose I’m looking for a window into UK office culture. If it’s as pozzed as the UK police, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at any of this. But this sure doesn’t sound like UK that was once a great country - rather, it sounds like place headed straight for the third world.
None of the above buddy, and in part because none of that happened. If you have the time to write all of that, you have the time to do more than skim. You just have no idea what the workload can be like, this isn't a profession you opt for in the hopes of excellent work-life balance, and this particular department is on the hellish end of the spectrum.
I work for a consulting company you would have heard of. Im no stranger to demanding hours. And I’ve had people management responsibilities for over 10 years.
Based on that experience, I suspect we’re only hearing one side of the story. I’ve had easy people on my team and I’ve also had difficult ones. The difficult ones are always genuinely shocked when they get a bad review. It’s amazing, almost universally they think they are doing a supremely good job and they think they work extremely hard. And sometimes they are right - in a very narrow slice of their responsibilities. But they are often well below expectations in most other areas.
All of this is to say that this pattern matches with a problematic employee. Maybe you’re great with patients. But if your institution is anything like mine, being good at the technical piece of work is only one part of the job. Agitating with the staff, using excuses, and making demands like that will often get a person tagged with being more trouble than they are worth. And all the positive performance review documents in the system will only delay the inevitable.
I’m just trying to give you some perspective and help you course correct. Sometimes you need to hear the truth and I’m guessing the other women in your group are not giving it to you.
Well, you tried. It's hard to rescue a young man from his own arrogance, when he's first feeling the flowering of his agency and ability.
He'll either get humbled in a few more years and give what you said a second thought, or turn into one of those monsters in management who's "never wrong" and lashes out at people, destroying the institution from within.
Shit, we got on the topic of UK institutions in terminal decay once again!
This is a great point worth highlighting. I too went through this sophomore syndrome early on in my career. It’s natural for talented people. But if one doesn’t break out of it, they will crash out and find an early ceiling in their trajectory.
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I admire the confidence with which you present these as the only possible outcomes. I hope I do end up with that much epistemic humility.
No epistemic humility required. Those are literally the only two outcomes physically possible. You think you can never be humbled? You ever meet a person who refuses to ever have been humbled their entire life?
You're a clinician, what does a person who always thinks they are the greatest, and is always correct about everything, and reacts aggressively when their ego is challenged sound like?
I know perfectly well what that person is. The problem is that I resent your implication that that's a fair description of me. You don't have to go digging very far to find examples of me admitting that I'm wrong about something, really. Here, I'll make it super easy for myself and kill two birds with one stone:
@Brainwavez @sarker
The recent shakeup at Google, with the departure of Jeff Dean, puts them out of the running as a frontier lab. I'm not saying they don't have a hope at all, I'm saying that regaining the lead is going to be even more of an uphill struggle. In other words, I was wrong.
Now, back to you, Coil:
Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no answers only, please. I'm too old for these games.
I would if she stopped deserving it.
/sarcasm
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Hahahaha. I can't even be particularly mad, this loops right around into hilarious. When I worry I'm too self-aware for my own good, I can do with a reminder of what its absence looks like.
Aight buddy. I'm sure you've got a proper Big Boy job. I know a handful of Big 4 "consultants". Probably pays the bills well, doesn't it?
I do wonder just how common it would be for an error you've made while under stress to lead to someone dying. Do you have any idea what doctors do? Been to a hospital since you were (presumably) birthed in one?
My man, last time you skimmed this story you got the sex of every crying person in it wrong, then built a thesis about British civilizational decline on top of your own lacking literacy. Now you've skimmed again and built a theory of my employment. I'm starting to see what passes for your workflow: read 30% of the text, hallucinate the blanks, invoice for the full engagement. I wish I could get away with that, I seem to have to work for the money.
In other words: knock it off.
I am sure you have perspective to share. I sample plenty, and I've heard more informed opinions from the floridly psychotic.
It's a first-person anecdote on a forum; of course you are. I presume Deloitte or PWC pays you for such cutting edge insight.
The difference is that my side comes with documents, and yours comes with hot takes about a profession you've never worked in a country you probably don't live in.
With all due respect (guess how much), the last man who guessed at my workplace from his armchair was you, one comment ago, and every checkable claim you made was wrong.
Let me see if bullet points help:
This is a strange way to “agitate with staff.” Apparently I have been so disruptive that nurses, pharmacists, ward administrators, junior doctors and senior doctors keep volunteering to say nice things about me when formally asked, and have said it before, without asking, and my boss's response to my campaign of terror has been to tell his colleagues to make time to assess me.
Perhaps the inevitable reckoning is merely taking the scenic route.
And to spell it out, my male peers, which includes the senior reg, and most of the consultants? They like me too.
The facts, as you understand and present them, are useful, however, they are also incomplete. I have two things for you to consider on the off chance you want to be helped and are just trying to save face here.
Management doesn’t like people that are annoying, demanding, and go around to the other staff badmouthing the bosses. Management also likes and expects to have the final word on things. It’s very annoying when people are explicitly or implicitly telling their boss all the great things they’re doing and ignoring all of the not so great things. It’s transparent and often invites backlash. A stack of good performance reviews are great, but if you’re annoying, it’s not going to get you very far.
You’ve represented yourself and 100% aggrieved and flawless. I haven’t seen any acknowledgment of behavior problems or challenges. You seem to think you’re well above your peer group because “everyone likes me and thinks I’m great. I know this is true because they told me so”. The fact is that unless you have a major problem with someone, you’re pretty much always going to validate a person and say they’re amazing when you are confronted for informal feedback. Particularly when a person is a loose cannon and potentially going to go off the rails at the slightest criticism. For formal feedback, well, I wouldn’t just take someone at their word about what they wrote without verifying it myself. It’s possible they’re being selective in what they tell you.
I find this all so interesting. It’s a great little encapsulation of the modern work environment, institutional decay, and personality issues. Your situation aside, it’s going to be interesting to see how things develop now that hospitals are run by a bunch of women in a sewing circle (in spirit, even if half those women are men). We’re very far removed from the stoic old man doctor with a cigarette or pipe. Maybe things will be fine?
I understand that your day job involves coming into a situation where you had no original stake, or direct involvement, and then assuming an advisory position despite a clearly superficial understanding of the facts of the matter. I ask that you keep it there, I'm not paying you.
On a factual basis: no, I haven't presented myself as perfectly flawless on any day of my life, even I'm convincing women to let me sleep with them. Good grief. I, like a real human being, have made actual errors. And like a responsible trainee doctor, I've disclosed that to my boss. They're not material here, because the one specific issue he raised wasn't my fault.
Have you ever considered the possibility, in theory, that someone might actually be liked and good at their job? Or is that an entirely foreign prospect for you?
Beyond that? I hope your advice finds someone who needs it. If you want the fuller picture, I can ask my boss to sign up on themotte.org. I'm sure he has the time. God knows where I find it.
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I can't speak to the object-level here, but I'll caution for anyone on the state side of seeing-like-a-state that this is also the sort of diagnostic that shows up when the measure is wildly off-target.
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