Family leave in medical industry

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Whenever I chat with my friend who is in a neurology residency program, I always feel a little guilty talking about my life — everything from the trips I am taking to the flexibility of my job to the fact that I can work remotely (doctors… can’t really work remotely). But today, I actually got angry at her industry when she told me that at the current hospital where she’s working, there is no recognized family leave, maternal or paternal. When the doctors in the hospital have a baby, they have to take time out of their sick leave (which is only about a week and a half) and their vacation time (that’s only two-ish weeks). Then, they have to make up that time later. 

“What the fuck?” I just blurted it out, not that my friend minds my occasional potty mouth, but I was just in total shock and disgust. I know at this point, I really should not be surprised at all; the U.S. is the only industrialized country in the world to have zero legal paid family leave (wasn’t it only Papua New Guinea that didn’t… and it’s sad to even put ourselves in the same category as them?) and to not recognize that new parents should be with their children. But it hurts even more to think that those in the medical profession, people who are devoting their lives to the health and wellness of others, can’t even take care of themselves and their new family members, and their lives are discounted.

It’s no wonder doctors are committing suicide and burning out at faster rates than the average person. Their lives and even their babies’ lives don’t matter to their employers.

Secrets, secrets

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I called my mom this evening on her mobile phone. I actually noticed that the last two times I’d called her in the last week at times when she’s usually home, she wasn’t. But I figured it was just because she was out and about. Today, I found out that she and my dad have been in Las Vegas for the last week, and she never even told me she went. “Oh, I just wanted you to know that your dad and I were in Las Vegas for the last week, and we’re coming home today,” she said nonchalantly. “This is confidential, so you know not to tell anyone.”

I always respond this way: no one cares where you go. No one will be jealous the way you think. But this time, I just said “okay,” in my usual annoyed tone, and she told me not to give her attitude.

So my parents love to keep secrets, to warn all the time not to tell anyone anything, not to share information. She even told me not to tell anyone I was looking for a new job when I was (yes, because looking for a new job or going to Las Vegas is likened to… you know, murdering someone or robbing a bank). Now, they’re even keeping more secrets from me. Before, the only things they never told me was information about what was happening with Ed when he was around.

We all know how that turned out. No good can come of this. They will never learn. Ever.

Furniture

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In addition to the madness of looking for a new apartment in a place as infuriating and fast paced as Manhattan, the other frustrating thing that awaits shortly after we choose our new place is… what furniture are we going to put into it? For the most part, we’ve decided that the majority of our furniture in our current apartment will not come with us, not because we don’t like it, but more because it was bought specifically for the shape and quirks of this apartment, so if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to sell at least some of it to the next tenant who moves in here.

I visited my friend’s new apartment yesterday, and he showed me the new dresser that he got from West Elm that I thought was nice; he told me it was a good deal. I’ve never seriously looked at furniture there, so tonight, I decided to take a look at their website to see what we could potentially buy for the new place this summer. And again, I had the same shock I had back in 2008 when my then roommate and I went furniture shopping; things are THIS expensive, really? The night stand tables that I liked cost… $299 each?! How is this even possible?!

Maybe I will end up spending time on Craigslist this summer, too, in an effort to save money and get cheaper things and at the same time drive myself even crazier.

Family brunch

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Today, with my cousin and his wife in town for a wedding, I met up with them and my other cousin, his wife, and son for brunch in Soho this afternoon. The food was good, and things kind of went the way I thought they would. My cousin’s son stood up on his seat and refused to behave or eat any of the food that was presented to him, my cousin’s wife who lives here barely made any effort to talk to me or our visiting cousins, or to ask about our lives, and my visiting cousins ate their food and made small talk about what they’ve been doing in New York, in their last leg of their trip in London and Paris, and how the wedding last night went.

I’m sure my visiting cousin sets up these meals because he wants us to have a semblance of a functional extended family. He wants to make it seem like we’re “normal,” like we get along and actually want to see each other. Don’t get me wrong — I don’t mind seeing him and his wife. They’re probably the most normal of the cousins on that side of the family in that they actually are relatively happy and healthy people, and they get along with most people and their families and try to be good human beings. But we rarely talk about anything that matters. I just started a new job. Why is no one asking me how the new job is going and what I’m doing there? Why is his brother not asking him about his Europe trip, which he just came back from? Why is no one other than his parents giving any attention to the little four-year-old at the table? Why aren’t we having a real catch up to discuss our actual lives and what is important?

Oh, that’s because that stuff is too deep, and we don’t want to have deep relationships with each other. I got it.

Pantry cooking

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In Manhattan, where apartments are oftentimes teeny tiny and cramped with very little storage space, it’s hard to have a well stocked pantry unless you make a serious effort to keep key items and have the very bare minimum to survive in the event there’s a snow storm and all the stores are closed.

When I was growing up, our pantry was always well stocked, and the vegetable and fruit drawers in the fridge were always full of different things. You could whip up many different meals without even going to the grocery store. So when I am stocking up on grocery items, I tend to think about this and think about things I could make quickly and easily when I don’t have much time or energy to cook.

One of those things is noodles. If you have noodles – dry or fresh from the freezer, you could boil them up in less than five minutes and in that time, create a sesame, peanut, or chili based sauce and have a quick meal in a matter of minutes. And that’s what I did this morning when Chris was whining that there was nothing to eat. 🙂 I made spicy peanut sesame noodles in less than 15 minutes, and we ate and caught up on Samantha Bee’s missed episodes over the last several weeks. These are the moments when I pat myself on the back for remembering best practices for pantry stocking growing up.

Mock presentation

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Today, after six days of preparing, I did a mock business review presentation in front of my team over video conference. My company takes onboarding very seriously, and they want to make sure that everyone is set up for success properly before delving into their actual jobs. This is my seventh week on the job, and I haven’t done any “real” work yet. But given that this presentation is basically a test to see what I know and how I present and speak in front of customers, it was a little nerve-racking for me. I’m usually not that nervous when it comes to having small group conversations with customers and informal chats since I was so used to it at my last job; presenting internally to your team who you know is full of smart (and very opinionated) people tends to seem more scary because you know they will call you out on something if you get it wrong.

I think overall, it went as well as it could have gone. My peers have been very supportive of me, and it’s a comforting feeling that I definitely don’t take for granted. I’m also in an environment now that is conducive to constructive feedback, so however harsh it may be, at least there’s actually a true feedback loop now that we need to acknowledge rather than my last situation, where only the positive (and fake) feedback was given and taken. It’s not great to tell someone they did a great job when in fact, they did a really crappy job.

Fast forward

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Facebook has a way of making you realize exactly how crazy people are who you’ve barely been acquainted with. I’m still fairly strict about who I accept and keep as “friends” on Facebook, but a number of them I’ve kept just out of laziness and because I don’t care one way or another to see their updates or if they see mine. Then today, a picture popped up in my feed of a former colleague who left my last company last August. She was in a “I’m not sure where this is going” type relationship with this guy that hadn’t lasted very long, who she then went on a trip to Iceland with, and she said that this trip would either make or break their relationship. Fast forward five months later, he proposes, then fast forward. Then, this Saturday, they’re getting married! They’d been dating seriously for less than a year!

This is how quickly things go when a) you live in New York, and everyone here is so freaking impatient, and b) when you are past your 30s and everyone is pressuring you to settle down.

Personal history

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Tonight, in the midst of cleaning the apartment and doing laundry, I sat down to do one of my original favorite pastimes of coming home from work while living in New York City: reading the New Yorker. Some of my all-time favorite articles and spotlights on quirky famous individuals have come from this magazine. Nora Ephron is one of them. And she just happens to be a Wellesley alum. In this Personal History piece originally published in this publication back in 2010, she wrote:

“I always hoped that he (my dad) would show some interest in my kids, Max and Jacob, but he didn’t even remember their names. One day, Jacob answered the phone and my father said, “Is this Abraham or the other one?” I consider it a testament to Jacob that, at the age of seven, he knew it was funny. Still, it made me sad. You always think that a bolt of lightning is going to strike and your parents will magically change into the people you wish they were or back into the people they used to be. But they’re never going to. And even though you know they’re never going to, you still hope they will.”

You know what’s so funny about this? This is kind of how I imagine my dad will be with my future children, his grandchildren. I imagine that my mom will remind him of their existence by her endless obsessing over them, but that without her, he’d be clueless and not really outwardly care. Like Ephron, I also still imagine my parents will be something else they aren’t, think about things they don’t think about, and want to do things they have zero desire to do. These thoughts come into my head at the most random times: when I am running on a treadmill, perusing books at a bookstore, or even hiking in Cape Breton. It’s like hopeless undying hope.

Travel banter

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I love it when I meet people who find beauty in the things that others tend to ignore. This morning, a colleague and I were talking about our long weekend travels, and he was curious to learn more about Nova Scotia. Since he and his fiancee have a friend who is from Cleveland, they went out there for the long weekend to visit her. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of Cleveland, but after I gave him some suggestions and told him the food scene there is actually quite good, he went in with an open mind. And he came back beaming and saying he really enjoyed his time there, from the general vibe of the downtown area to the food scene.

“I never thought I’d like it, but I had a lot of fun!” he said.

That makes me so happy.

Long weekends

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Long weekends rarely feel long. Three-day-weekends always fly by too quickly. And even when we took off two extra days to stretch our three-day-weekend into a five-day-weekend to Nova Scotia, it still felt like it ended too soon and we didn’t have enough time to see all the beauty that is this beloved province. So I hate it when people ask about your “long weekend” as though it truly was long and felt like some great rest period.

But sometimes, the weekend may be too long for your skin, or at least, maybe the diet you are giving to your skin. I noticed on Sunday morning that i was developing bumps across my forehead, and I wondered if it was because of the lack of vegetables I tend to get during travel, or if it was because of all the seafood I am eating. No one ever said seafood was great for skin.