Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
It keeps getting funnier . . .
Title from one of my favorite movie scenes.
If yesterday was as easy as making pancakes, today was as easy as making toast. I had a handful of orientations in the morning — orientation to the pharmacy, to medical records, etc. — each of which took maybe 1/3 of the time allotted. Thanks to yesterday, I knew what to expect, so I brought my book along. Good thing, too, since I had plenty of time to read it. (And that’s a good thing, too, since this is one long book.) And I still had time to take a leisurely lunch, pick up some deli stuff for the family, bring it home to them, and make it back for the afternoon orientation.
The afternoon was all bollocksed up because SOMEONE SOMEWHERE neglected to transfer my National User ID number from Northern Cal to Southern Cal. As a result, they can’t set up my local computer account, which seriously undermined plans for this afternoon. Instead, I got a tour of my soon-to-be office, and I shot the bull with the So. Cal. doc who is up this week to man the fort. They rotate from one of the San Fernando Valley programs, one doc a week. Those are the guys I’ll be replacing.
I was able to shoot the bull with him because his schedule fell apart, I guess, and he had nothing to do either. So I’m wondering (and probably jinxing myself by wondering) exactly how hard is this going to be, anyway? He tells me he has put in 13 weeks total, and on only one occasion was he called into an ER on the weekend. “They just don’t call,” he told me.
I suppose I should put in a year or two before chortling about my good fortune. Still, every indication thus far suggests I’ve made an excellent career shift relative to the Bay Area (and also relative to the North Coast).
I am guardedly optimistic.
As for the book, Sacred Games: if you read the various blurbs, you won’t find out that this is primarily a mystery interleaved with a Bombay gangsta Bildungsroman. That, IMHO, is a far more tantalizing description than the crap on the back cover.
D.
You are wise to be concerned that this utopia will change. When I started with my current employer, I had nothing to do. I roamed the echoing halls. My boss said something like let’s see what comes your way. I bitched and moaned about the boredom. I had long lunches (the salad bar was a plus) and coffees and walks on the grounds to collect pine cones. I took on special projects.
Now I work like a dog. I don’t like to leave my office much since I can’t walk down the hall without running into people and more work. If I eat lunch, it’s on the fl I leave at 7 or 8 p.m., go home, hang with the kids until they go to bed, and then get back on the computer to work. I dream about work. I can’t talk about much of anything except work (well, Sarah’s resignation added some grist for the conversational mill).
So, I bet that once the ER team realizes that you are there and that you are good, you’ll start getting calls. Same for patients – they will find you. But even if you start having to work your soon-to-be-tight-and-toned-from-hours-on-the-elliptical-trainer hinder off, you’ll still have the time saved from your previously appalling commute and that, as long as you don’t dedicate it to work, is a good thing.
The nice thing about Kaiser is, they stick to their hours of operation. I couldn’t make clinic run longer even if I wanted to, since that would mean paying overtime to all the staff. They might, however, ask me to run weekend “access clinics” so that we can meet our “access goals,” but I would get paid extra for that, of course.