String, tape, and ... ?

[azurelunatic]

Work: relatively calm, trying to get stuff done while things are not screamingly busy. A number of people are out of the office for various reasons. Purple's still out of the office for a week. I now have several balls of string. Heh, heh, heh.


It's nearing the end of the month, and between one thing and the other, my step count is actually fairly consistently not only near 90% of goal, but in fact above goal. I'm a little nervous because this is the sort of thing that's easy to get derailed, but I'm going to just go with it and see where it takes me. The thing is though, I don't want to undershoot my progress either, to where I get bored with chasing the line and it ceases to be a meaningful challenge. If I merely maintain what I'm doing now, I soar through this checkpoint and the next; it would be April before I'd get an assignment that's more than 90% of my current capacity.

As a result, I may bump up by a little more than 110% of current goal this time. I may bump up to where I'm already at about 90%. 5300 vs. 5666. I don't know.


One of the guys is working on getting the LGBT* community there a little better connected and engaged. I like his drive and he's a good buddy. I can say, though, that as much as he means well and cares, he is not attuned to the nuance of not being a cishetdude in tech, because he is an executive assistant and while he is in a technical department, he spends more time with executives than techs. (And I am not best positioned to really know the situation on the ground, because while I am reasonably situated in my department, we are not the depths of dev-land, and I'm not sure that $OTHER-DEPARTMENT which-has-had-Incidents is necessarily representative (god I hope not).) Fortunately many of the other people in the LGBT* group (a lot of them also guys) are better attuned. Also (and I say this approvingly) sneaky bastards.

Events: We have to be subtle.
Exec: You, subtle?
Events, sounding comically wounded: I can be subtle!
(general laughter)
Events: Okay, so I'm working from home today? And have you all on speakerphone? And my partner just walked down the hall now? He is cracking up and says, 'You, subtle?!?!'

So that was a thing that happened.


There was the customary gaming group on Tuesday night. I wasn't sure how social I would be feeling, but it turned out that it was reasonably so, after other stuff wrapped up. I arrived to find everybody in the middle of long games. However, there was fish-business to attend to!

At this juncture, I would like to inquire of my friends who are much closer to the field of medicine than I am -- what advice would you give to a pre-med student in second year of university who had always been indifferent to medicine at best, had been pressured into the field by an overbearing parent whom they now resent for having done this, and who really profoundly dislikes the field of study? My thought is that if they can at all manage to, they should eject themselves with all available speed, and that it is unlikely to get better, that medicine is a gruelling field with horrible hours and that the chief reward is following your calling and making a difference to patients. And that if there is no calling and you don't get satisfaction out of making a difference to patients, that it's basically a miserable hellhole and you'll be in a mountain of debt and perhaps too burnt out to actually complete the degrees and land a job to help get you out of said mountain. Am I too pessimistic here?


Hugs do not need lube.


Apartment remains not-terrible. I did laundry and cooked some of the things that were in my refrigerator. Yay.

Comments

[jack]

I can totally be subtle. But I generally undermine it by adding "Booyah! High-five! Did you see what I did there?" :)

[azurelunatic]

I know, right? What's the point in being subtle if no one appreciates how subtle you're being?

[kaberett]

My favourite term for that kind of subtlety involves pronouncing the b in subtle.

Medicine: oh dear gods do not do it if you do not love it do you not know what the suicide rate for that profession is even if you like your job.

[ursamajor]

I love this modification and am going to need to adopt it post-haste.

[azurelunatic]

It is also a favorite of mine. Sub-tle. :D

(Oh god. Suicide rate. :( )

[liv]

Advice to pre-med student: what you say is absolutely spot on. Get out. Get out now. If you spend the next decade scrabbling around doing casual jobs you'll still be happier than in med school and the early part of clinical training if you aren't inspired by the subject or the possibility of helping people. You probably won't get through anyway; students who hate the course and are only carrying on because of parental pressure have an absurdly high drop-out rate, some voluntarily because they just can't force themselves to do it any more, some not so voluntarily because you pretty quickly get to a point where you can't work hard enough to pass really tough competitive exams unless you're passionate as well as bright.

If you really really can't get out (and you should, even if you think the consequences will be bad they won't be as bad as trying to get through med school while hating it), maybe look for one of the less mainstream specialities? Some people who hate general medicine get on ok with psychiatry which has much less bio-science in it, or pathology / clinical biochemistry which are nearly all science and little patient interaction, or epidemiology / public health which can range from being mostly statistics to being mostly policy.

[pickledginger]

Yes, md/phd in public health would be one option. Or there's academic research. But in either case, you'd better love it ... and be prepared to hand down debt to your unborn children.

A pre-med course of study does prepare one for other potential graduate school curricula, so immediate exit may not be so vital. And looking into other options may provide Unhappy Student with motivation to enjoy or at least complete the undergraduate degree.

But no, do not go NEAR medical school unless you REALLY, achingly want to be a physician or Xxxxx, for which that academic hell is required.

[siderea]

I'm not in a position to know any better than you about doctoring, but just let me throw my encouragement in: I've lately had occasion to reflect, dropping out of college, when I was in a hateful situation I was pressured into, was one of the very decisions I have ever made. About 25 years on, no regrets. I did the right thing.

[silveradept]

That subtle is Jaegermonster subtle.

Advice is spot on to med student - if there because parents, get out, get out now, go pursue passion. Otherwise, lots upon lots of pain.

[azurelunatic]

My favorite kind of subtle.

[ephemera]

my dad used to teach med students, and some of my colleagues still do - your advice sounds good to me!