Hurricane Jill

Brand vs generic

Ugh! I have reached the point in life where nearly everyone I meet reminds me of someone I’ve met before. This is a problem. I’m already pretty bad with names. But now, instead of drawing a simple blank, I’ll stand there thinking, “Oh yeah, he’s the guy who reminds me of So-and-So.” So not only can I not remember their name, but whatever tenuous memory I have of it is totally blocked by my recall of the other person’s name.

Yes, I’ve met that many people in my life. Actually, I had met that many people before I even graduated from college. But in pharmacy you generally work with a small group of people, so it wasn’t really an issue. And my medical school was such a collection of characters that it wasn’t much of a problem there, either.

But now that I’m meeting people out on the trail, it’s happening again. I have to meet people three or four times before there’s any hope that I’ll recall their real name. And if several months go by without seeing them, it’s back to square one. Like this one fellow intern of mine last year–it took me three solid months to recall his real name upon seeing him, and not the name of my good friend who had proposed to me in college. But I haven’t run across him for a while, and now I’m back to recalling my college friend’s name again. So embarrassing.

The corollary here is that I also have a tendency to react to the new person like I would the person they remind me of. Which is not always justified. For instance, in the example above, my colleague is actually kind of a jerk, and I probably wouldn’t have given him the time of day if he didn’t remind me of my old friend.

Obviously it’s not the same as being truly unable to distinguish between faces, or not grasping the fact that the person in front of me is not the person they remind me of. The mere fact that I’m aware of this is fairly good evidence that I’m still in full possession of my mental faculties. It’s just that even snowflakes have a limited set of basic structural patterns, and my brain is very strongly wired to make those kind of structural connections.

And just like in science, where you discover isolated bits and pieces of a whole long before anyone can put it all together, the resulting nomenclature can actually obscure the overall structure of the system, and consequently hinder the understanding of it.

Certainly I need a better system than the one I have.

And for the record, I am also one of those people who reminds everyone of someone they already know. And at least I don’t go around telling people how generic they look.

The next odd-numbered year

… is going to be much better than the last one.

I still haven’t posted the 2007 retrospective I wrote last January, and may never do so. It’s over and done, its events not forgotten but at least no longer the focus of my thoughts or a consideration in my decisions.

So I have a really good feeling about next year, and I’m looking forward to 2009.

I can has tire chains?

What a day it’s been. I got off work at 7am yesterday, and all still looked well outside the hospital. Got in my car, drove away and onto the freeway.

And then all hell broke loose.

Snow started falling by the bucketful, and I could barely see out the front window of my car. Traffic came to an absolute standstill, and I knew that up ahead I would have to pass the skating rink that was the West Seattle Bridge onramp. And I had a feeling that the Alaskan Way viaduct would be iced over as well. So I got off the freeway and took a detour through other arterial routes.

Then I had to stop on an overpass because of traffic, and that was the end of my attempt to drive home. When I tried to move forward again, my car spun sideways instead, and I found myself staring off the edge of the overpass and onto a slope covered by low bushes. The cars kept coming behind me, but with some assistance from a good Samaritan, I got my car turned around and drove it back down the ramp. There was a freeway entrance nearby, but it was headed south. It wasn’t really the direction I wanted to go, however I knew that the only roads with any hope of being passable were the freeways. So I got on and headed south toward Tacoma.

For most of the day, every road into the city was either a parking lot or a skating rink or totally impassable. And my poor sheltered car has never seen snow like that before and was totally unprepared to deal with it. I, myself, have lived in places where it snows this bad and much worse. But not since I’ve been old enough to drive. Plus, like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects it here in Seattle. So although I’m fairly well-prepared for most kinds of car trouble, it never occurred to me to buy snow chains for my tires.

Anyway, I couldn’t even get home to pick up my suitcase yesterday, much less back to the airport in time for my flight. I ended up staying in a hotel most of the day and evening, and driving home late last night. So I’m taking the first flight out that I can get this morning, which means I’ll be missing the dinner.

But I’m actually glad that this is happening now, when I’m not a resident. Most of my interviews are in places where I can expect this kind of storm at least once or twice a year. And at least now I’ll have some idea of the obstacles I’ll need to overcome to get into work.

People make a big deal about how dedicated you have to be to persevere in the face of a weather disaster. But I disagree. Weather is all offense and no defense. So once you walk out the door, it’s the preparations you’ve made–and very little of the effort you’re currently making– that will determine success or failure.

The key here is to identify what’s essential to defend, and do so. For example, a hospital needs a lot of things to function–food, water, supplies, people with a variety of skills and training to push the levers of patient care. And we know it will be difficult to get the people there, so we identify a team that camps out there in inclement weather. But the most fundamental need of a hospital is reliable power, and if your generators are vulnerable to flood, you need either to fortify their defenses adequately and then stock up on food, water and other supplies to support the work being done, or evacuate the building. Likewise, your car is basically a mobile tent, but without traction and a functioning powertrain, it’s just a tent. The tent function is well-protected these days, but in a flood you still need to keep the powertrain above water, and in snow you need to maintain traction.

Anyway, what I’m saying, with far more words than necessary, is that I’ll be buying some tire chains when I get back. ASAP.

Apples and oranges

I just had my first interview for the alternate specialty. I like the people I met from that group. They seem a little more social than the neurosurgery applicants, and much less full of themselves, on average. Although somewhat less polished in appearance, as well. Not that I find the neurosurgery applicants offensive or difficult to relate to at all, but there’s always a certain amount of tension in the air at the NS interviews, and everyone has on their game face.

It might just be that there’s such a low likelihood of matching in this other field, that anyone who expressed confidence in doing so would not make any friends. Seriously, 18 spots, 140 applicants. You do the math. We estimated that, at the most, only about 40-50 of the people who applied are getting any interviews at all. But even with that few, the match rate will be well under 50%, making it the most competitive of matches this year. Most places are interviewing 20-30 applicants for their one spot, and most people who are getting invites are getting at least 4-5 of them.

As for me, I’m trying to keep an open mind about ranking. It’ll be hard to create one single rank list as I go along, but I think that’s the better method. There’s no way I could create two separate lists, and then compare them at the end in any kind of rational way.

And then sometimes there’s no way to cut costs at all

I’m having a real problem getting a flight to one of my interviews. There doesn’t seem to be a way to get there for less than $600, and I just can’t make myself spend that much on airfare. It’s very irritating.

Update 12/8: I finally found a way to combine it with another trip so that the total cost for both trips is about $650, which works out to $325 each. Much more palatable. Although it still involves a crazy combination of one-way fares, alternate airports and Greyhound. Man, that interview better be worth it.

Saving money on the trail, part 2

Cheapest of cheapskates: interviewing on an intern salary
1. Housing options:
– stay with classmates who matched at that school
– hostel
– AMA’s interview housing program
– Y-M-C-A, it’s fun to stay at the…
2. Transportation options:
– rent a car if you can get one for < $25-30/day
– call the hotel and ask them what’s the cheapest way to get there (it sucks to spend $40 on a cab or a shuttle, when there’s a train you can take for $2)
– make friends and bum rides (my favorite). Just be sure to contribute something to gas or parking, if you’re sharing with a fellow interviewee.

At most interviews there will be some level of friendly competition over who got the best deal on their expenses to be there. It’s usually an impressive display of resourcefulness, and I’ve gotten nearly all of these cost-cutting ideas from someone I met on the trail.

But I’m only halfway done, so I’ll continue updating as I learn more.

Playing it safe

I was supposed to be at an interview today, many states away from my own. But I’m not.

It started out as my typical interview trip: work the night before, run out the hospital door as soon as the day pharmacist arrives and into a waiting taxi, headed for the airport. I leave my car parked at the hospital, because overall it’s cheaper to take a taxi back and forth from the hospital than to park at the airport for more than a day. Also I don’t have time to park and get through security (my plane takes off less than an hour after I get off work).

I packed a bag small enough to carry on if I got there too late to check it. But now I have enough air miles accumulated to check in at the first class counter, even though I’m flying coach. So the line is short, and I have plenty of time. I check my bag, and get in the long line to go through security. The minutes tick by. I’m halfway through the line, and my plane is now boarding. I suddenly realize that there’s also a first class line for the security checkpoint, and my frequent flyer status allows me to use that, as well. I duck under the rope and move over to the other line.

An older couple gets in line behind me. The woman is talking loudly in a vaguely New York-ish accent about how they’re running late and may miss their flight. She ignores me, and says to the man in front of me, “We’re first class passengers, and our flight leaves at 7:40. Can we go to the front of the line?”

I turn to her and tell her politely that my flight also leaves at 7:40. She replies, “Oh, are you in first class as well?”

“This is the line I’m supposed to be in,” I reply. Several people ahead of me mention that their flights are leaving soon as well.

She laughs nervously, realizing how her behavior must look, and gives up on the bullying tactic, saying, “I hope they don’t leave without us.”

“I’m sure they won’t,” I say.

Five minutes later, I’m through security and at the gate. I get on the plane, check my email one last time, and turn off my phone. I have a window seat. In the middle seat is an Indian woman in traditional attire. She seems pleasant, but falls asleep immediately. In the aisle seat is an older woman who is angry about having to check her carry-on bag because there isn’t room on the plane. She eyes my down coat in the overhead bin, not seeing the garment bag I’ve stowed underneath it, and gives me a dirty look, muttering something under her breath about people, coats, and overhead bins. I ignore the comment, knowing that she wouldn’t have been able to stow her carry-on there anyway because of my garment bag.

I stare out the window at the wet, foggy tarmac, wondering if this is the flight I’m going to die on. I’m not afraid of flying at all. On the contrary, I love takeoffs and landings, and I always try to get a window seat so I can see what’s going on. But ever since interview season began this year, I’ve had this weird feeling that I’m going to die in a plane crash. And it doesn’t help that nearly all of my interviews are east of the Mississippi, making anything other than air travel extremely impractical.

We pull away from the gate, and head toward the runway. The plane pauses halfway there, and sits for several minutes. It seems fairly routine: busy airport, long line for the runway, the usual gaming of the service statistics. As long as you leave the gate on time, it’s an on-time departure no matter how long it actually takes you to get in the air.

But then the Captain’s voice comes over the intercom, telling us that there’s a small problem, and one of the systems isn’t coming on line like it should. They’ve tried to reset it on the tarmac, unsuccessfully, and now we’re going back to the gate to turn everything off and start over.

I can tell it’s not actually a small problem. If it were a small problem, the captain would have told us exactly what was wrong, to reassure the more knowledgeable among us. But as a rule, the fewer details the public is given about a problem, before it’s solved, the bigger a problem it is. And essentially, all we’d been told was that something wasn’t working like it should. Which is about as sketchy on the details as an explanation can be.

We head back to the gate. The woman in the aisle seat is predictably pissed off, and her angry talk wakes up the woman in the middle seat. Fifteen minutes pass, and the captain tells us that he won’t know if the restart has worked until we get out on the tarmac again. So we leave the gate again and head back toward the runway.

We stop in the same place, and sit for a few moments again. And we hear the captain’s voice again, saying the problem is still present, and now we have to replace a part. We head back to the gate again. When we get to the gate, I turn my phone on and check my mail. I have an email from the residency coordinator outlining the plan for that evening’s dinner and the following day’s interviews. I also have a phone message from her, asking me to call and let her know if I’m coming to the dinner.

By this point, my earliest arrival would be after dinner starts, so I call the number she provided to let her know. Instead, the Program Director answers. I explain what’s going on, and he asks me when the captain thinks we’ll be able to go. I tell him we hadn’t been given any indication yet. He says to go straight to the dinner if I get in before 10pm, and if I get in later, just to come to the interview in the morning. He was sure the plane would take off in 15 minutes or so. I didn’t disagree, but in my head I could see news reports of a plane crash somewhere over North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin…and the irony of my mom’s well-wishes for this trip: “knock ’em dead.”

I change the time on my watch to the program’s time zone, so that I would know when it was time to call and cancel on dinner. By this time, people around me were already too late for some of their connecting flights. The woman in the aisle seat was working herself up into a tirade about how horrible it all was, how she was going to miss her flight, how she needed to take her medications, which were in the bag that she had checked.

She demanded to know what the airline would do for people who missed their connections. I told her that the airline would reroute her if at all possible, and if it wasn’t possible, they would put her up in a hotel overnight. She wanted to know if she would be able to get her bags, and was poised to explode if the answer wasn’t yes. I told her that this particular airline lets people get their bags for an overnight layover. (I’d read all of this on their website just the night before.)

Then the captain gave us the really bad news: the problem was bigger than anticipated, and the repair hadn’t fixed it. We would have to de-plane, and very likely they would have to take this plane to the hangar and find another plane for the flight. The complaining grew louder around me, but privately I was relieved.

Plus I now had time to buy some reading material. I went to the bookstore and bought Outliers, by the same guy who wrote The Tipping Point and Blink. I started reading, and would have lost track of time altogether were it not for the hourly announcement of yet another hour’s delay in our flight. My plan was to call the program again once I was on the plane and had some idea when I would actually arrive.

Then at 1:30pm my time, after the remaining flights to my destination had been booked by people with connecting flights, the announcement came that the flight was canceled. They would attempt to rebook us on the following morning’s flight. For me, this would mean missing the interview entirely. So I called the program to let them know, and asked if there was another option to interview.

Fortunately, there’s another interview date. But I’ll have to ask off yet another two days of work. Which is more lost income on top of more expense.

Still, it’s better than dying in a plane crash. And we most certainly would have: as I rescheduled my flight around the new interview date, the agent at the counter let slip that it was the de-icing system that had failed. De-icing problems are one of the most common reasons planes crash, other than pilot error. And I was flying into below-freezing weather.

So now I’m at home, with nothing to do till Friday, when I leave for another interview in another sub-freezing city. You’d think I’d be more anxious now than I was before, but strangely, it’s the opposite. The sense of impending doom is mostly gone, and instead I feel the kind of relief that comes from having dodged a bullet.

It’s unlikely that the captain of yesterday’s flight reads my blog. And I know he was just doing his job, but I’d like to thank him nonetheless. Especially since I doubt any of the other passengers will.