An ill-advised post on the job search

Quick. Give me your gut reaction to the following comment from a headhunter:

“They’re a family values organization.”

Yeah, I probably shouldn’t write about the job search before all is said and done; one never knows who might be googling my name, wondering what horrors they’ll find if they scratch the surface on Yours Truly. (Hint: just search my Thirteens.) Anyone wants to look that hard, I’m toast. I have to depend on the natural laziness of doctors and administrators.

Anyway, the “opportunity” in question didn’t pan out, I have no intention of ratting out their name, nor will I provide you enough information to figure it out for yourselves. If they’re here reading these words (God only knows why they would be), they’ll recognize themselves. But they didn’t want me, so I don’t owe ’em jack.

Back to “They’re a family values organization.” This was not quite as outrageous as the Nigerian episode, but it comes close. Unlike the Nigerian thing, this time, my radar went off.

“What do you mean ‘They’re a family values organization’?” I said in the voice I learned from Karen, the voice that’s supposed to communicate, “You’re in trouble now.”

“Oh, nothing, nothing!” the headhunter said. “Just that they’re really into their families. Spend a lot of time with them. And they’re all graduates of” a well known Christian university.

But it’s a denomination I’m familiar with and, for the most part, I get along really well with their adherents. They have the right politics, for one thing. So I didn’t think much of it, and didn’t pay attention to my nurse anesthetist (also of that denomination) who reminded me that there are jerks in all religious groups.

After the interview, I decided they weren’t a good fit for me. Maybe it was the fact I’d be in another solo practice situation with all the disadvantages of my current position and none of the advantages (I would no longer be my own boss, for one thing). Maybe it was the way the CEO and his cohorts kept criticizing one of the local colleges as being too liberal*. Maybe it was the way the CEO kept coasting through stop signs and talking with both hands while he drove. Or maybe, ultimately, I’m just not a family values kind of guy.

Because, what the hell does that mean, anyway? I take good care of my wife and son. Doesn’t that make me a family values guy? I don’t think so. See, they didn’t want me.

Top possibilities for why they didn’t want me:

• The CEO didn’t care for the fact that when he asked me if I’d like to operate three days a week, I laughed at him. (Three days a week is preposterous. Every new patient would have to need surgery. And, news flash, they DON’T.)
• Or maybe he didn’t like it when, on the fourth “too liberal” comment, I got an edge to my voice when I asked, “Exactly what do you MEAN by that?”
• I suspect the Obama button on Karen’s purse didn’t help.
• Or perhaps when the CEO brought up animals — because he wanted to regale me with stories of how he and his family raises horses — he wasn’t expecting an enthusiastic discourse from me and Karen on the joys of tarantulas and the dangers of centipedes. Tarantulas are not Family Values-Approved pets.
• Our snake stories could be misconstrued, I suppose.

I hope I’m wrong about this, but the other thing that occurred to us was

• We’re just not white enough.

And that’s the main reason I can’t give out any identifying information about this group. One doesn’t casually throw around charges of racism or antisemitism, particularly when there’s no evidence to back it up.

Nothing more than a hunch.

***

I have two more interviews next week. As of Wednesday, I’ll be on the road yet again. Yes, this is exciting. Yes, this is getting old. I want this to be over, and it will be, soon, because my friend in Santa Rosa ain’t gonna wait all year. One way or another, we’re deciding this by the end of the month.

D.

*What does “too liberal” mean?

“They don’t have grades there, and the kids . . . are you sitting down? Some of them smoke marijuana!“