Saturday 19 August 2023

My Captain Story

 At some point in my vault-career....I worked with a Captain, who'd been as a kid in Columbia....gone to the US....gotten citizenship, and gone to medical school as a mental health guy.

We sat one afternoon and he laid out his situation.  After med school....he'd gotten picked up for a mental clinic in Miami.....making probably double what he was making as a Captain.  He was....however....unhappy.

His focus by the clinic director....was to take mostly married female patients...ages 40 to 60, and listen to their woes for an hour every two weeks, and if they were out of happy pills....issue more.

I asked what the problem was.

He responded.....they all had hit some peak in their thirties....married to men who found as 'problems'.  He was there to mostly hear the stories, erotic thrills with the tennis instructor, or some indepth fantasy.  

After 18 months of this....he told the director that something had to change.  Well...the director responded.....this was the top-money maker of the clinic.  Anything of a change meant a paycut.  A month later....the guy walked into a recruitment office and signed up for the Air Force.  He told the recruiter bluntly.....absolutely no medical jobs.  Fine...the Air Force saw that he was a great Spanish speaker and got him into the vault-profession.  

He admitted....if he'd just stayed, he'd probably be retired by age 50.  But this was just not a place where you wanted to hear about woes every single day.  

I look around today, and I see a lot of guys/gals.....unhappy....with no angle to improve things.

1 comment:

LargeMarge said...

I call them 'low-effort' monologues from 'low-value' individuals.
Part of their issue is they thrive by fertilizing a vague border between wishes and reality.