There’s this one intern doctor ( a newly graduated veterinarian) at my hospital.
My hospital is a normal hospital as well as a teaching hospital and we do internships for new vets. They go through a year long rotation in all the different departments of my hospital and gain experience and mentor-ship from the veterinarians on staff who they work with on the internship. This one intern doctor that every time I see makes me wonder, with a geniune smile, “Where did you come from??”
She is young, I bet 24-25, and the second you look at her you can see what she is–a calm, confident, good person. I see her and think of sunshine. She has a great attitude, she works hard, she doesn’t disrespect anyone, she hold firm with crazy and aggressive owners, doesn’t loose her temper with patients, she asks questions and listens, she doesn’t freak out and get overwhelmed, and she appears to approach new things as a challenge.
She’s so young and how she reacts seems so natural it makes me think she was born this way yet that is not a fair way to think of someone you don’t know. Part of me wants her to be born that way, part of me wants me to have to know the story of if she became that way.
She appears to be confident in a way that isn’t arrogant, its calm and optimistic --like she’s trusting in the belief it will go how it’s supposed to go. I see all these aspects of her by working with her and I’ve only known her 6 months or so. That’s how I get to know most of the people I know in my life since the majority of the people I see day to day are coworkers. You get to see a lot of people’s quirks working in my job since we all work very close and as a a team - team help alliterative suffering in animals- so you quickly have to assess your coworkers to know how to deal with them to get shit done.
We get all sorts as fresh vet interns at my job–brainacs who are mindbogglingly intelligent but have terrible bedside manner, no interpersonal skills who are maybe even Asperger types, spoiled brats who have no work ethic and blow up at people, bad millennials ;), over caring super sensitive types who crack and bust visibly suffering under the pressures of the internship ( which the pressures are BIG sine they are the real honest pressures of being a vet). We get flakes and jerks, diva’s, hard working kick ass ones. We the hired staff see the interns change as well with the pressures and differences of each department surgery, emergency, radiology, sports med, general practice, internal medicine, etc) and how they react to each. How over the year they are there they change.
This intern is just a good egg all around. Sunshine, The type of confidence she has is what I am mostly struct with- a faith in things going how they are supposed to go. And not being afraid. She’s not arrogant, she’s not conceded, she’s not foolish.
Monday or Tuesday of this week I was walking down the hall at work and I thought of her. For the first time ever thought, " Maybe I could be like that. " This is something entirely new for me to think. The only word I can really use to describe it is hope. Its hope! :)!!! Its real, this change of mine… its all coming together and I never thought I’d get to this–hope. I honestly never even considered that I could be that way, and maybe I can’t , but I also never even CONSIDERED IT!!! I have now considered it!! If this makes sense you might get the point I’m trying to make. Its hope.
A few years ago I did Self Authoring. Its a program that I heard about from Joe Rogan when he had Jordon Peterson on. Here’s a link so you get the gist faster then I can attempt to type it out. A man I was dating told me about Jordon Peterson and I checked out blurbs on youtube from a suggestion from my then boyfriend.
Anyways, I won a gift card in a raffle at my work so I decided to use it to pay for the program. I completed the self authoring and it DID in fact change my life. I wrote a post about it in 2018 that explains that more.
One of the goals I set for my future authoring was something I didn’t even think I could do–to be honest I still didn’t want to give it up since in a twisted way this set of behaviors served a purpose. I luckily was able to identify it as be an unhealthy habit, so I popped it on the list of things I want for my future was to stop doing that specific thing.
The Past Authoring was the most painful and really eye opening part of completing the writing for Self Authoring, filling out the Future Authoring–what you want for your ideal future-- was the most difficult part of the self authoring. It took me a very long time to even come up with any goals. That say a lot.
Well, I DID change that behavior of my day to day life! …and low and behold…two years later…I have encountered this lil thing called hope. I never even was capable of dreaming of something, I wouldn’t let myself , now I have permitted myself to even dream it at least. Maybe, just maybe. Now I even have allowed myself to CONSIDER IT!!!
Now that sounds like a hope. Hello Hope! Thank you for showing up. And as it so happens it also made me think of other things. I’ve been at my hospital now for 6 and a half years. Before that I was working as a tech at my first hospital. It was a really toxic work place. The pay was bad, the hours were hard, the management was bad, the job is stressful, there was a lot about that job that was 100% toxic.
Shit hit the fan when my apartment lease to renew substantially and the frugal part of me stubbornly refused to pay that price for an apartment in Aurora Colorado, and if I did stay at my apartment at my current wage I couldn’t afford it. I now knew I needed to get paid more, and my toxic work place sure as hell would not pay me more. It was finally enough of a fire on my ass to find a new job.
I was terrified. On the one hand I knew I had at that time 6 years of nursing experience in a top level Emergency room with a very high case load, that I had skill in high level care in terms of medicine, and that I was very efficient at my job and got along with all staff of all types. On the other hand the I was beaten down.
I really was afraid no one would hire me, that I wasn’t good enough of a tech. I WAS good enough, I DID have skills but my confidence was beaten down by a combination of factors that I let be my environment for years.
One was the toxic work place that enforced the idea that I was to consider myself lucky to work there. That I was replaceable. The management enforced unpredictable favoritism. I had to pick up the slack of lazy coworkers and never getting appreciation for it, that hard work meant nothing, bad work meant nothing it all meant nothing. If I didn’t work overtime I was somehow not a team player, lets not forget uneven pay, keeping bad staff around, just your very standard definition of a toxic work place in a way is akin to the dynamic of an abusive relationship. You stay because you don’t know your value, you don’t enforce your value, you put up with too much, and you think you and your best efforts will change the situation .
One of the best decisions I have made was to take a job at the hospital I work at now. I showed up and I was shocked by how respectful everyone treated each other!! My coworkers noticed and appreciated my hard work! I was impressive to them! I had come to expect that the old experience at my toxic job was how all places were…but they are not. They don’t have to be.
It made a massive change in my self confidence. I was acknowledged and I was appreciated. My entire life changed and things got better right away. I had my new young man still a puppy Mossimo, a new apartment, a great new job! A better work shift! I was paid better too!
I still had to work part time at my old clinic to make ends meet. I worked once a week for a few years doing ER swing shift. My rent was still higher at my new place, however my new city I moved to for the new job is WAY better a place to live then Aurora. During one of my shifts at the old toxic place a coworker who I was friends with since she was one of the good ones made a remark to me when I saw her a couple months after being at the new hospital. Things change when you don’t see someone every day and small changes become more obvious when you do see them. She sied to me “You look really good! You look really healthy!” And I told her the truth, " I’m happy!"
I’ve gained so much confidence in my acquired and learned skill in my trade since then. Techniques I didn’t think I would ever be capable of , that I couldn’t do ever do, I CAN DO. I only needed practice. Skills I thought I sucked at I know now that I don’t, I never did suck at them, not at all! I had the wrong people around me who had a bully culture. I was around the wrong people, and I had I put up with nonsense. I let them tell me NONSENSE. It doesn’t matter their reasons, I let them tell me nonsense about myself.
I have never been a mean tech. All intern vet and technicians who are starting out I encounter I do my best to not make them nervous, to be supportive - not mean and aggressive. To instill confidence. I guess, I was giving hope to everyone except myself.
ANYWHO. All that is log in my log that I found hope in the hallway this week. 
Maybe…just maybe …
- I have a hard time controlling myself when it comes to meats (I can easily put down 3lbs)