End of day, new office

I’ve done more than a day’s work but I’ve had a lunch hour. Normally today I’d drive out to a meeting but I didn’t wish to face traffic.  Besides Gilbert was here so we stayed together. Angel has brought a new Bosch coffee maker that takes the Tossimo coffee packs. I bought some cafe latte last week and had the first this morning.  It tastes like the coffee my sister in law, Adell makes me at her place.  I’m drinking a second cup now.
I don’t know why I woke at 4:30 this morning. Friends and patients described the exact thing.  Something in the atmosphere or matrix.  I’m tired today.  A long day of work but not as tired as yesterday. Wednesday was a tough day. Not surprising it’s called the ‘hump’.  Today was definitely downhill.  I’m sorry I got behind and people waited.  I wish somehow decades ago I’d learned to be harsh with time, kicking people out of the office at the strike of the clock.  I wish I was more regimented, more military, more businesslike. Looking back I realized I passed over so many opportunities for money and power squandering my time with patients.
The lung surgeon I worked with told me that. “You’re an excellent doctor, great hands. You’ll make a great surgeon. You just have to spend less time with patients." He’d do his rounds before the patients woke, waking them with his good bye.  A smart man. A rich man."
The administrative doctor at the College of Physicians and Surgeons told me I had to stop caring so much about patients, “It’s just a job, Dr. Hay’.  I feel like I never have enough time. I feel like I have to make sure the patient is not going to kill themselves.
When I took the job the government promised me there’d be beds for emergencies.  There haven’t been. They promised me that there would be nurses and community workers for support. There haven’t been. They promised every patient would have a family physician. That’s a lark.  For ten years I’ve done as much general medicine as I did when I was a family physician but the government doesn’t pay. I’m a mark.  Why pay doctors when they won’t strike, won’t let their patients die, won’t stop caring.
Give all the money to the bankers, administrators and judges. You have to pay them because they wouldn’t work for free.  Doctors, nurses, teachers, and even lawyers work for free. The police do too.  Now I’m juggling to pay for surprise expenses and resenting all the past mistakes.  God will provide. God always has.  This too will pass. I have no real reason to be afraid.  I have wealth beyond my wildest dreams. There’s endless resources with God. I will pray.
Others are working hard these days. There’s Greece and a whole bunch of countries struggling with the financial situation.  Austerity and depression are being written into the history books.  I just came from Ireland where they were starving in the potato famines. Always there have been times of disease and need. I’m growing old like the rest of the baby boomers and we’re looking seriously at death.  Perhaps we’ll dream an immortality, call ahead a resurrection, watch the planet transform into a spiritual dreamscape of love.
Otherwise it’s the same old same old and as the day goes it’s more and more tiring. Vancouver is a costly city.  I’ve done a day of work and will pay an ounce of blood in taxes.  The white collar and blue collar welfare are a burden that can break a man.  There’s all the demands.  Then times of easy sailing.  l resist decisions, delay and because of delay face more challenge.
There’s nothing I can or will do today.  Time to go home. It’s been nice though in this new office, sitting at my desk, writing. I think how my fingers have been worn out for bureaucrats and legal documents. I’ve typed a lifetime of mostly silly drivel and I thought my fingers would have been much better employed writing a play, like the one we saw in Abbey City.
I’m coming to an age where my fingers are already hurting and I might not ever want to see a written word again. I’m used up in the beaurocratic endless increasing demands.  When I began I wrote one word, a diagnosis and a billing code.
Now they threaten me and call me a liar. The courts are bullying doctors and the pay master. We should have had a union that held out insisting that we’d not write only a line for a thousand, like the new CEO. I learned they’re making $5 to 6000 an hour.  There’s never been an equivalent productivity in public sector performance.
But it’s so easy to scapegoat the father, scapegoat the parent, blame the CEO , blame the government, throw out the king, kick out a president or primeminister

We just want ‘Change’.

The politicos learned years ago that nothing need change except the face on the coin.  I’m weary.  These thoughts assail me when I’m tired. In the morning I do gratitude lists but now before dinner I’m just weary.
Self pity and resentment are common at the end of the day. Addiction flare for the working man.  The drunk stops at the bar on the way home from work and misses supper with the kids. I myself worry and fret and write drivel that in summary is just self pity and fear and negative and envy.
Character.
That’s what I need.
A little back bone. A little more character. A little more stamina. A little gratitude.  Don’t compare with the few rich above you but compare with the masses. Somewhere there are millions of people that only made a couple of dollars today.  You’re going to eat like a king. You’re going to ride in a car. You have a pet.  You’re here after a day of work writing on a computer that’s connected to high speed internet.
That’s why I’m here. I want to download a movie at work with high speed internet and play it on my apple tv at home. That’s a cadillac problem.  I found out that it would cost me $500 to get satellite wifi and if I wanted satellite tv I couldn’t move my RV.
So here I go trying to find a way to watch a new movie.  Poor me. I have netflix but those are old movies and I’ve seen so many. And Turner Classic Movies is on my tv.  I watched so many of those in Saipan. But I downloaded ex machina right off the presses for $5 and would love to do that again. It’s like being at a friends with shaw cable rent a movie or being in a hotel room or on a plane.  Luxury.
That’s my challenge to day, to get more luxury and I’m complaining.  Poor me. Right, you idiot.
Thank God for Grace.