Long day today.
I get Mondays off, but I pay for it on Tuesdays. We have been doing 4-day weeks now for a couple of years, but I am having second-thoughts about it. It makes the rest of the week much tougher. I start seeing patients at 8:00 AM (7:30 if I have morning walk-in clinic), and am usually there until at least 6 PM. Today we were just hammered with phone calls.
My last call was one of my more complex patients. I spent half an hour on the phone with her. That is 30 minutes of unpaid work. I know that it is just part of the job, but it gets frustrating when you end up with less time with the family because you are working for free. I spent at least two hours dealing with phone calls and labs that have come back. Again, I don\’t get paid to do that work, it just goes with the territory.
Why don\’t we charge for our calls? Lawyers and accountants do. Our advice is more important than theirs. Usually. Yet we have somehow set a precedent that we don\’t charge and if we started doing it, patients would just think we were being greedy. My medical advice is a commodity and yet people expect it for free. It just seems strange to me.
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My son turned 15 last week and we got him "Guitar Hero 2." I must say that it is kind of fun. It is nothing like really playing guitar – it is more just a test of hand-eye coordination. When you really play guitar, you don\’t have colored circles coming at you to tell you when to put your fingers down. Still, I have gotten to the "hard" level – although he is better than his guitar-playing father. What would you expect?
Even E, who is somewhat of a music snob – always favoring classical over other types – has gotten into the game. Hearing her say that she really likes that Nirvana song is kind of strange.
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Here is something humorous from "The Onion:"
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Sorry I haven\’t gotten around to replying to my second caption contest. I do plan on doing it, although the responses will be harder to shape into a story.