Glimpsing The Corporate World #70

And other tidings

Valued Reader,

This week’s issue comes to you from my parents’ place in rural Ireland. After a brutal deluge of rain, the fields are like swamps here, but there is nonetheless a beautiful crispness in the air – it feels more like winter than autumn already.

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This week, rather than raving on a given topic, I thought I would update you on what I’ve been doing and thinking about.

1. Work

Despite my rather bleak newsletter last week, which decried the perils of remote work, I’m quite enjoying my new job. I work for a company for the first time, and so have therefore been given a little glimpse into the corporate world.

I’m a doctor, so almost all my previous jobs were working in hospitals or clinics. Now, I get to be more ‘strategic’ as they call it. Perhaps surprisingly, I feel more valued in this environment. As a doc on the frontlines, you are sort of just expected to shuttle in and shuttle out, to get stuff done and patients, to one extent or another, sort of just see you as another cog in the wheel.

One thing that frustrated me about my clinical work as a doctor was that the patients that you went to the greatest lengths for, often did not appreciate that you went above and beyond. On the other hand, those that you performed the smallest, most basic services for, often thank you disproportionately and enthusiastically. Maybe every job is like this. And, before someone says it, yes – I should not be in medicine to be ‘appreciated’ by patients, but we all like a little pat on the back now and then.

In the new job, the old love I had for science is reawakening. I can explain things about medications and treatments from both a birds-eye view and also a granular level, and how this might effect how we go about diagnosing, treating, advising our customers, and so on. It seems also possible to float ideas which are generally listened to, and the sense that everything good and beneficial will eventually be exploited and abused and trampled upon is not prevalent. I am unsure as to how representative my experience is, having no reference points to compare with.

I should probably also point out that I’ve come into this job in a pretty good position. I’m not an intern or graduate who is drudging through databases or generally doing grunt work, and if I were, I’m sure my view of the corporate world might be a bit different or I might hate my boss or just generally become bitter or something. Having said that, I did more than enough drudgery of that in my early medical career, so it seems about right that I can coast a bit here, and I’m glad that I feel valued.

As they say in Layer Cake:

You're born, you take shit. You get out in the world, take more shit. Climb a little higher, take less shit. Till one day you're in the rareified atmosphere, and you've forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake, son.

Perhaps a downfall awaits – all is suspiciously okay, at the moment.

I have also observed that working in a business has sort of attuned my mind to the business world in general. I immediately started wondering, hey, wait a minute, should I be setting up a business, too? Maybe I am an entrepreneur after all?

In a sudden rush of blood to the head I asked my parents if there is a cafe in their little village. There is not, they said. No cafe? In this little village? A business opportunity if ever I heard one!

But then I soon realised that when the barista calls in sick, I would have to frantically run around for a replacement, or turn up in the little village myself and pretend to know how to make coffee. Then I remember that I value a low-hassle, low-maintenance lifestyle, and I decide that such thoughts came from a place of fear or anxiety or having too much time on my hands, and I recall that I am generally lily-livered and risk averse person, and all is well again in the world.

2. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Possibly I have touched on this before, but I am still learning German. I have lessons again in two weeks or so, and have felt again the humility of not being able to communicate simple ideas to people. One is like a baby again, albeit with a lost innocence and a retained fear of the Revenue department.

I’m at a sort of low intermediate level. I listen to podcasts, and various creepy tapes from Michel Thomas (his Wikipedia page is more than worth a read), which consist of deliberately repetitive phrases. He also frequently makes loud noises of throat clearing or of tongue sweeping or of moistening of the palate, in close proximity to the microphone. The method, however, is admittedly good, if sometimes tedious. Rare moments of humour are provided when he slightly bullies the students on days when he is in foul spirits.

Here, in the Hibernian metropolis, there are also various opportunities to go to language exchanges. Generally, however, there are far more French, Spanish and Italian speakers here than German-speakers, and so I often resort to practicing my French, thereby harkening back to my Parisian days, when I spent a month in that fine city to learn the language.

I’m pleasantly surprised at how much of my French has stuck around. My Italian, technically better, but even rustier, is due for a refresh. Perhaps I will go south, to the mediterranean, to have a go at the languages again, which brings me smoothly to my next point.

3. Migration

Like certain migratory birds, I am generally possessed of a desire to move south for the winter. This allows me to go to places which have cheap, good food and where I can practice my languages and, most importantly, where the days are a little longer and the sun is out shining.

The darkness here, at this time of year, otherwise tends to get me down a little. Darkness on its own, I can cope with. But the darkness and the rain and the wind and the cold together…are a perfect storm. And so, I like to break it up a little, remind myself that there are other ways to live, that the sun is only a plane ride away, and I remember that there are people, particularly in Scandinavia, who live much colder and darker existences for much longer, and who eat strange things like Kalles and Surströmming.

In October, I generally try to go to France. If the funds allow, and the stars align, I like to go to Spain in November, where it’s a bit warmer, that bit later in the year. This week, my intended destination of Biarritz is also putting up with an onslaught of rain, so that particular notion has gone down the swanny. Then, in early November, I have friends visiting from Australia, and so it is likely to be mid to late November before I see a glimpse of that golden orb. Most likely I will go to the south of Spain. If you are planning on being there too, please also bring wine in bags, a zesty sense of aventura, a bandurria, and half the price of a respectable accommodation.

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Thanks for reading. If you wish to support me, the button is in the usual place. As is usually the case, I don’t know what the next issue will be, but I hope you will be here for it – slán go fóill.

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