It's a standard refrain--how inadequate so many doctors are, how chaotic their offices can be. I've read the explanations about being overtaxed. I empathize. As a tutor, I sometimes do not want to show up. My bedside manner can be "terse." I can be slightly--or significantly--distracted. My child's neurologist is well-intentioned, but she tends to be forty minutes late. Each time this happens, she appears stunned--as if she herself cannot believe she is so tardy. But I've stopped "buying" the act, since the lateness is now a ritual. It's like if you let your dog shit on your neighbor's garden sculpture every single morning. Eventually, your neighbor is going to suspect that your "surprised face" is just a kind of pantomime. The neurologist had a nurse call to say that my child's potassium level was high. What followed was a kind of nonsense word salad. "Maybe it's high because he didn't fast before the blood work....
Lisa Kudrow gave an interview recently about auditioning. She said that auditions are frequently brutal for actors, because the actors are focused on the director. ("Does he like me? What does she think of me?") Kudrow's suggestion is simple: Just do the job. Forget that anyone is observing you. When I was in high school, I was puzzled by Charley's observation in "Death of a Salesman." Having sent his son to argue before the Supreme Court, Charley says, "I never cared about anything. That was my ticket to success." Now I understand what Charley means. He has removed his ego from his work. He has shown up and done his job in an efficient way--and he has used his actual mental and emotional energy to pursue his hobbies. Missteps at work have not had a seismic impact on Charley--because work is just work. Charley's sense of self-worth is not linked with the things that occur at the office. The elegant plot of "Death of a Salesman" build...