Just save it, would you?

Just when I think TV shows can’t get any more stupid, network executives surprise me with offerings such as “Undercover Boss.” The premise was interesting enough – the CEO of a major company goes undercover as an entry-level within his own operation, ostensibly to discover the things that are going wrong with his company, and the things his company is doing right.

I watched the first episode for want of anything better on TV. And I watched the second episode. The second episode was almost a verbatim copy of the first, only the company was different and the front-line employees were different. At the end of both shows, the CEO “revealed” his true identity to the few employees he worked alongside, and awarded them with various surprises. One of the employees was a young man wanting to be a chef. So the CEO awarded him a $5,000 scholarship.

Five thousand dollars. The CEO of Whitecastle Hamburgers couldn’t afford more than a $5,000 scholarship? It was a token gift of appreciation that I found insulting to entry-level workers everywhere. This CEO is spouting off concerns that employees don’t see a future for themselves at the company, and yet all he can find in his deep, vast pockets is $5,000?

You know how sometimes you don’t know what to say to someone, and you end up saying the wrong thing? Like, two years after you accidently back over your neighbor’s cat in the driveway, you see them coming out their door and you holler, “Hey, sorry about that one thing awhile back”? That’s what this scholarship offer was. “Sorry about all the hours we make you work in stressful conditions for crappy pay and no benefits.” (I wonder how much extra cost would truly need to be added to a McBurger in order to partially fund health insurance for the employees? Would you be willing to spend an extra 50c?)

If you can’t offer someone enough to acknowledge their humanity, their dignity, sometimes it’s better to offer nothing at all.

You're Fired.

My medical history is kind of scary. Not to me. To me, it’s kind of boring. I’ve had enough occasion to talk about it with family, friends, and in speeches for this or that so now, frankly, the story bores me.

But looking at a list of my medical history on paper, yeah, I can see how that would be overwhelming for a normal family doctor. Thus, most of my medical problems that aren’t flu-, cold-, or prescription refill-related have gone through my oncologist.

My oncologist has changed a couple of times in the past ten years, but for five years or so, it has been the same guy. We never really saw eye-to-eye on most stuff, but we tolerated each other. As if in a bad relationship, I was too aware of the risk I ran if I decided to look for greener pastures.

He didn’t push me on the stuff most important to me, and I yielded on the stuff I could tell I was going to lose on anyway. It wasn’t a symbiotic relationship by any means, but I made do. All of a sudden, he has decided he no longer wants to be my “point man” for medical issues. He only wants to deal with Aplastic Anemia issues. Not even issues directly related to the Aplastic Anemia or the bone marrow transplant fallout.

Well, that’s lovely, I say. What do I tell the regular doctors who see my history, see that I’ve got an ongoing upset stomach for the past month, and they freak, telling me to talk to my oncologist? I am a medical orphan. After feeling powerless and frustrated for several days, I came to a conclusion. Actually, the oncologist’s office helped me come to this conclusion when they called me with blood test results, and proceeded to read the results to me backwards – X value meant my prescription should be lowered, when in real-life medicine, X value means my prescription should be increased.

I took back the power. I harnessed my inner Donald Trump and told the nurse to please tell my oncologist that I will no longer be in need of his services. As he obviously only wants to deal with my blood disorder, a disorder that I’ve technically been cured of for the past NINE YEARS, I’ll look him up if there’s ever a blood problem. But in the meantime, he can cut me from his patient roster.

I thought I’d feel like I was tempting fate to fire him. I mean, Murphy’s Law, right? In reality, I feel in control again. I no longer have to sit in an office once a year with a room full of bald old people staring at me, wondering how sick I am, what with my full head of hair. Am I waiting for a diagnosis? Am I at the beginning of my treatment? Wow, that poor girl doesn’t have a clue what’s coming.

They don’t see the bald patches at my scalp, the thin spots above my ears. They don’t see the scars, real and emotional. I’ve been there, and I’ve had the blessed fortune to come back from there. I hope all the bald old people in the office have the occasion to one day fire the oncologist.