(no subject)
Fuck. Before it gets slurred together in my head. For the time being, I'm not naming names.
I was hired as a ghostwriter to help a doctor organize his scattered thoughts and the whole garbled world of clinical research on a particular topic into a concise, salient narrative that would be accessible to his patients. He had done the legwork, he said, and I took on the task of giving the amorphous tied up in bits mass a form. I loved this idea. I got to write, and get paid for it--not much, mind you, I would have fared much better financially waiting tables--but I took a pay cut for the experience. And, as a girl who has had one too many milkshakes thrown at her, for the cleanliness.
The problem was, I wasn't handed the raw material on a silver platter. Or at all. Writer became gopher, digging and scrounging for articles and abstracts, doing the research and drawing lines between the dots all by myself. The adipocyte bone connected to the hepatic lipase bone, the hepatic lipase bone connected to the cholesterol ester transfer bone, the cholesterol ester transfer bone connected to the atherogenic lipid profile bone...and that's the way it goes. Imagine having no textbook and putting together photosynthesis piecemeal from 15 different abstracts from articles you don't have access to because you obviously can't afford to subscribe to 15 different medical journals.
This I did during the day, digging and printing and reading and looking up words. Angiotensin converting enzyme. Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2. Hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors. I spent the days putting together, slowly, slowly, the puzzle--making a forest out of the trees. I, with all words and air and sound and no science in me, had to learn more than most doctors know about dying. In the afternoon and evenings and the wee hours, my free time--unpaid, unacknowledged time--I wrote. I neglected to converse much with the folks in the office because I was usually too up all night haggard and didn't have time (or money with my $600 a month pay) to go to movies and concerts and New York and I was busy doing my fuck nut job. They said, you're so quiet. I said, yeah. I don't go around handing out ammunition to strangers.
They said when the book was done they wanted me to stay and answer the phones. They would pay me a lot more. I wouldn't have to worry about looking for another job once this project was done. I said, well good. That's one less thing.
I went to Kinko's and printed a draft with color and images and nice things and had it bound and I looked upon my work and saw that it was good. And so did the doctor. He said it was just what we needed. Good ideas. Thank you for carrying this project by yourself--I know I had responsibilities in it too, but you know I've been busy. I said, next week I'll/we'll spit shine it and be done and I'll start answering the phones and drawing blood and could learn to do all things necessary in the office, undeniably fabulous Renaissance woman that I am. He said, great, that will be a big help.
Then they all quit talking to me. They snuck out the back door to go to lunch. I ate my chicken salad by myself. They told me to put everything I had done on a disk, for backup, to put in his safe. What the fuck is what I thought, but what I said was, Ok. I guess you can't be too paranoid about computers. I put the CD with the book and the other projects I had done on his desk and left over the lunch break to run errands. When I came back to my desk there was a sealed up handwritten note that said: Thanks for all the help, best wishes in whatever you do. He signed his name, comma, M.D. He was gone for the day.
I shut my office door and muttered bad words and packed up my shit. The office guy came in trying to not look distressed and asked where the CD was, so afraid that their well-orchestrated scam had fallen apart in its final moments. Deceitful bunchbacked elfish abortive hogs.
I took back some particularly relevant articles and went to talk to him early this morning before the day got started and patients started coming in. I just want to know why. This fired-by-post-it shenanigan is passive aggressive and humiliating and degrading and absolutely perplexing, and this morning he was hiding out in the back and I wasn't allowed past the waiting room. He's too busy, underneath too much paperwork, they say, to talk to me face to face. I have no idea how deep and thick this plot is. I have no idea what he's going to say about me when other employers start calling. I probably have no idea just how completely fucked I am right now. But I do know, and god and jesus and everybody else, I will never work this hard for anyone else again.
Hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitor. Yeah, say that 3 times fast, bitch.
So long and thanks for the fish.
I was hired as a ghostwriter to help a doctor organize his scattered thoughts and the whole garbled world of clinical research on a particular topic into a concise, salient narrative that would be accessible to his patients. He had done the legwork, he said, and I took on the task of giving the amorphous tied up in bits mass a form. I loved this idea. I got to write, and get paid for it--not much, mind you, I would have fared much better financially waiting tables--but I took a pay cut for the experience. And, as a girl who has had one too many milkshakes thrown at her, for the cleanliness.
The problem was, I wasn't handed the raw material on a silver platter. Or at all. Writer became gopher, digging and scrounging for articles and abstracts, doing the research and drawing lines between the dots all by myself. The adipocyte bone connected to the hepatic lipase bone, the hepatic lipase bone connected to the cholesterol ester transfer bone, the cholesterol ester transfer bone connected to the atherogenic lipid profile bone...and that's the way it goes. Imagine having no textbook and putting together photosynthesis piecemeal from 15 different abstracts from articles you don't have access to because you obviously can't afford to subscribe to 15 different medical journals.
This I did during the day, digging and printing and reading and looking up words. Angiotensin converting enzyme. Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2. Hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors. I spent the days putting together, slowly, slowly, the puzzle--making a forest out of the trees. I, with all words and air and sound and no science in me, had to learn more than most doctors know about dying. In the afternoon and evenings and the wee hours, my free time--unpaid, unacknowledged time--I wrote. I neglected to converse much with the folks in the office because I was usually too up all night haggard and didn't have time (or money with my $600 a month pay) to go to movies and concerts and New York and I was busy doing my fuck nut job. They said, you're so quiet. I said, yeah. I don't go around handing out ammunition to strangers.
They said when the book was done they wanted me to stay and answer the phones. They would pay me a lot more. I wouldn't have to worry about looking for another job once this project was done. I said, well good. That's one less thing.
I went to Kinko's and printed a draft with color and images and nice things and had it bound and I looked upon my work and saw that it was good. And so did the doctor. He said it was just what we needed. Good ideas. Thank you for carrying this project by yourself--I know I had responsibilities in it too, but you know I've been busy. I said, next week I'll/we'll spit shine it and be done and I'll start answering the phones and drawing blood and could learn to do all things necessary in the office, undeniably fabulous Renaissance woman that I am. He said, great, that will be a big help.
Then they all quit talking to me. They snuck out the back door to go to lunch. I ate my chicken salad by myself. They told me to put everything I had done on a disk, for backup, to put in his safe. What the fuck is what I thought, but what I said was, Ok. I guess you can't be too paranoid about computers. I put the CD with the book and the other projects I had done on his desk and left over the lunch break to run errands. When I came back to my desk there was a sealed up handwritten note that said: Thanks for all the help, best wishes in whatever you do. He signed his name, comma, M.D. He was gone for the day.
I shut my office door and muttered bad words and packed up my shit. The office guy came in trying to not look distressed and asked where the CD was, so afraid that their well-orchestrated scam had fallen apart in its final moments. Deceitful bunchbacked elfish abortive hogs.
I took back some particularly relevant articles and went to talk to him early this morning before the day got started and patients started coming in. I just want to know why. This fired-by-post-it shenanigan is passive aggressive and humiliating and degrading and absolutely perplexing, and this morning he was hiding out in the back and I wasn't allowed past the waiting room. He's too busy, underneath too much paperwork, they say, to talk to me face to face. I have no idea how deep and thick this plot is. I have no idea what he's going to say about me when other employers start calling. I probably have no idea just how completely fucked I am right now. But I do know, and god and jesus and everybody else, I will never work this hard for anyone else again.
Hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitor. Yeah, say that 3 times fast, bitch.
So long and thanks for the fish.