Diary of a (secondline) clinician"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." - Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV) Every story needs a villain and a hero, protagonists and antagonists to focus our emotion. Most everything from classical mythology to pro-wrestling follows this same basic formula. And so it is with our formulation of real life. A world in sharp relief of black and white is so much easier to deal with, cognitively at least, than shades of grey. Perhaps then this explains the present effusive thanks being directed at healthcare and emergency workers. It seems that most every fast food chain and many higher end eateries are offering such workers discounted or free food and drinks, simply for showing their ID or turning up in their work uniform. "Every story needs a villain and a hero, protagonists and antagonists to focus our emotion." Surely such a thing must be wholly altruistic. In the present hostile business environment with the economy tanking and businesses doing it tough it must be a loss-making exercise to further undercut their profits. These establishments, chains especially having long borne the brunt of public health advocacy forcing healthy menu options, mandatory kilojoule counts, and youth sports sponsorship on them, must truly have hearts of gold to support the helping professions in these dark times. That may be the case, but it conversely mustn't hurt them to attract the one profession assured of a job right now, there being few better ways to attract more business than offering a discount. And with the community scared stiff by an invisible villain, it can only improve one's corporate image to aid the natural heroes in this story. "it conversely mustn't hurt to attract the one profession assured of a job right now" So perhaps this leaves us where Ayn Rand did, with rational selfishness as the order of the day. Though this effusiveness does not mean we need to abuse this largesse. As we walked past one particular establishment before Government restrictions made such extravagance impossible I commented to my very much firstline healthcare worker wife on the free coffee on offer if I simply showed my AHPRA card. To this she replied "Don't take advantage, you're not even a frontline healthcare worker; at best a secondline and probably third or fourth!" Much chastened, I hastened us on.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
DownloadsCheck out the downloads on the next page. Archives
May 2020
Categories |