Employer Trouble – Most of the Book – Page 5 – education and deconstruction.com

Brooklyn Zoo

The Book of the Week is “Brooklyn Zoo” by Darcy Lockman, published in 2012. This is a personal account of an internship of a PhD candidate in psychotherapy.

Lockman started her internship in summer 2007 at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York State, the final leg of training before she got licensed to practice. Throughout the book, she reveals the lingo, issues and people encountered by clinical psychologists.

A few aspects of the personalities of humans include developmental level (psychotic, borderline or neurotic), and character applicable to it (“masochistic or obsessive or narcissistic or depressive, etc.”). Patients might be diagnosed with a thought disorder, mood disorder or personality disorder, or a combination thereof. These were documented in a reference guide for psychiatry, the “DSM IV.”

During her training, the author saw what she perceived to be a disturbing trend– of treating all ailments, even ones suspected to be psychological in whole or in part, by prescribing drugs with little or no accompanying psychotherapy. The psychiatric professionals at the hospital perceived part of their jobs to be to instill “medication compliance” in patients. Lockman was taught that treatment should include “the talking cure.”

However, it is controversial how effective psychotherapy is in treating addicts, because drugs and alcohol can permanently change the brain chemistry that controls learning. Lockman describes one alcoholic patient’s case: “angry young man plus bad neighborhood plus psychosis equals short life expectancy.”

Since psychotherapists themselves are human, they sometimes cannot help but become emotionally affected by their patients. One time, Lockman realized she was biased by the socio-economic level of a patient she saw: “…upper-middle-class and white… familiar to me.” Lockman later momentarily broke down in front of her supervisor, who told her, “Never apologize for having an emotion. Just make sure you give it some thought.”

Some patients, such as a narcissistic-borderline (personality disorders) married couple, recounted stories of extreme past behaviors, some of which were laughable. The two consisted of a male narcissistic ex-convict and borderline, pregnant female who had four kids total; the oldest two had a different father. The husband had been a pimp, and had committed adultery with one of his employees. The couple ended up at the hospital because they had become physically violent with one another. They had shamelessly revealed this information to Lockman. The husband said, “I’m a shooter, not a hitter.” The wife said she had committed a bank robbery to save her kids from starvation.

Another issue the author had to deal with was the hierarchical nature of the career field. ‘We all needed somebody to buttress our professional worth.” People in different specialties put other ones down. The medical doctors feel superior to psychiatrists; psychiatrists to psychologists; psychologists to social workers.

Read the book to learn the slew of other issues Lockman had to face in her quest for experience in clinical psychology.

The Good Girls Revolt

The Book of the Week is “The Good Girls Revolt” by Lynn Povich, published in 2012. This short ebook discusses what happened when a group of female employees sued Newsweek magazine’s parent company in March 1970, for gender discrimination.

Shortly thereafter, similar litigation followed at other publications– at Time, Inc., Reader’s Digest and various newspapers across the United States. The author briefly describes the historical backdrop before, during and after. One of many cultural phenomena she relates is that the year 1973(!) saw the elimination of classified ads divided into “Help Wanted– Female” and “Help Wanted– Male,” the former of which were mostly for menial and/or low-paying jobs. “Saying you worked at Newsweek was glamorous compared to most jobs available to college-educated women.”

The author says that from the early 1920’s up until the aforementioned lawsuits, periodicals publishers relegated women to dead-end positions. At Newsweek, the vast majority of female employees held the title “researcher”– a fact-checker, who could never become a reporter or editor like, or get paid as much as, the male employees. Besides, many of the men were hired “…as reporters and writers with no prior professional journalistic experience” and most of the female researchers had the same qualifications as they did.

One reason many women did not protest or were not even consciously angry about their situation, is that they were conditioned by the workplace and society in general to comply with gender stereotypes. Four decades ago, women were limited in their opportunities and criticized if they chose a male-dominated career field. They were given to believe they should not aim too high, but stay where they were, because otherwise, they would encounter difficulty. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy for most of them. Even many women’s colleges at that time had the goal of providing an education with the assumption that a graduate might get a job, but she would quit the workforce when she had children.

Even today, in the American workplace, there is an environment in which women are jockeying for position and power. According to the book, they are less well-liked, the higher up the corporate ladder they climb. The opposite goes for men. In certain aspects of their lives, such as weight-loss groups and fitness, women band together and cheer each other on. But not usually in the workplace.

Read the book to learn about the consequences of the initial legal action, and whether Newsweek’s workplace policies changed when, in 2006(!), three female employees recognized the recurrence of gender discrimination.

Just Plain Dick

The Book of the Week is “Just Plain Dick: Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech and the ‘Rocking Socking’ Election of 1952” by Kevin Mattson, published in 2012. This ebook details the 1952 U.S. presidential election in which vice presidential candidate Nixon became more the center of attention than presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower.

The dirt that generated bad publicity for a candidate in that election was of a slush fund of Nixon’s. When the news broke in September 1952 about Nixon’s alleged campaign finance impropriety, there was lots of hand-wringing among Eisenhower and his advisors as to whether Nixon should be dropped from the ticket.

The nature of the new medium of television– a visual, collective, simultaneous experience for a large audience– was a game-changer. It allowed Nixon to deliver directly to the American people, what turned out to be the perfect message in a way that repaired his reputation and ultimately helped him and his superior win the election.

Nixon’s emotional appeal persuaded his audience that he was a member of the middle class– not an elitist. Mention of his wife’s cloth coat and his dog struck just the right tone. To top off his speech, he skillfully initiated crowd sourcing by inviting voters to contact the Republican Party to express their opinion on whether he should withdraw from the race.

Read the book to learn the details of this memorable, fascinating episode in American political history.

The Intern Blues

The Book of the Week is “The Intern Blues, The Timeless Classic About the Making of a Doctor” by Robert Marion, published in 2012. This ebook documents the internship experiences of three medical school graduates in the mid 1980’s.

At that time, interns were “on call”– had to work eighteen to twenty-four hours in a row, usually overnight, in a hospital every three days. Every month for an entire year, the interns in this ebook were assigned to a different unit such as pediatrics, neonatal intensive care, or the emergency room, at a medical center in the Bronx in New York City.

The hospital staff was kept busy treating patients with conditions whose causes were poverty-related— people in poor health, and those who suffered physical harm from violence and drugs. Many patients and their families had psychological problems. One intern remarked, “…we have two psychotic crackheads roaming around the ER, we also had two psychotic crackheads who were paranoid and had no idea what was going on, which is a wonderful combination.”

Severely sleep-deprived, along with doing a ton of paperwork and presentations, the interns had to admit patients, keep “…track of names, symptoms, physical findings, lab results, and treatments…” They witnessed life-or-death situations for which they felt they were not psychologically prepared. They had to tell patients’ families that their loved ones had died, make serious decisions on whether to report child abuse to the authorities (which was a whole bureaucratic process itself), deal with difficult nurses and lab technicians, not to mention their supervisors; all this, along with the extremely stressful circumstances surrounding the AIDS epidemic.

On top of that, one of the three interns became pregnant during her internship. Read the book to learn how that worked out for her, and to get an insider’s view of what it was like to be a medical intern a few decades ago.

Dot Bomb

The Book of the Week is “Dot Bomb” by J. David Kuo, published in 2001. This ebook details the business dealings and the ensuing suspenseful power struggle at a dot-com company called Value America between 1996 and 2001.

The online retailer’s intended brand image was to boast maximum selection of merchandise shipped directly from sellers. This delivery-on-demand arrangement allowed the company to remain inventory-free, and thus minimize overhead costs. However, in reality, it needed to use resellers for many of the supposedly infinite products it sold.

Value America’s founder and leader, Craig Winn, was a charming megalomaniac who had grand plans to partner with various major corporations in order to attract investors and make the company worthy of an IPO. Unfortunately, Winn had planned to sell stock to the public just after the peak of the dot-com boom, when brokerages’ confidence in internet companies had started to wane.

After Value America went public, Goldman Sachs issued a report that Amazon.com was the internet retailer with the highest potential for success because it had high sales margins on its then-merchandise consisting only of books; a $30 billion valuation was not out of the realm of possiblity. Goldman went on to say Value America had the worst prospects, with sales margins of 1% and runaway costs. It would have to achieve revenues of billions of dollars in order to make any money.

Toward the end of the story, the author realized “Despite the hype, headlines, and hysteria, this was just a gold rush we were in… a lot of us were kin to those poor, freezing fools in Alaska who had staked everything on turning up a glittering chunk of gold.”

Read the book to learn the fate of the author, his family and the other Value America employees with dollar signs in their eyeballs.

You’ll Never Nanny In This Town Again

The Book of the Week is “You’ll Never Nanny In This Town Again” by Suzanne Hansen, published in 2006. This book recounted the author’s experiences caring for the children of celebrities.

After high school, Hansen received her training at a school for nannies. She knew she was passionate about caring for children. After graduation, an agency placed her in the home of the family of a super-rich Hollywood talent agency executive. Although Hansen bonded with the three children in her care, she was unhappy with the live-in job. The parents created a tense environment, and she lacked the assertiveness to stand up to their petty, controlling attitude.

Nevertheless, Hansen acquired valuable experience that later helped her take care of the kids of movie star Debra Winger, rock star Pat Benatar and TV stars Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito. She discussed all aspects, good and bad, of being a nanny. There is more to it than meets the eye, regardless of whether the children are offspring of wealthy celebrities. Childcare seems to be an undervalued job in our society.

The Deserter’s Tale

The Book of the Week is “The Deserter’s Tale” by Joshua Key and Lawrence Hill, published in 2007. This is the intense story of Joshua Key, who was assigned to an outfit of the U.S. Army that he claims committed war crimes in Iraq.

Finding himself in a financially desperate situation with a growing family, Key decided to join the army. A promise was made to him that he would stay stateside. Instead, after training, he was sent to Iraq early on in the Second Gulf War. When posted in Ramadi, his unit was ordered to raid homes of civilians to search for contraband, weapons and signs of terrorists or terrorist activity, but never found any. He writes that all Iraqi males five feet or taller, regardless of age, were detained by his fellow soldiers. He was never told by his commanding officer where they were taken or what happened to them. The females were terrorized by the unnecessarily rough treatment of the males at the hands of the American soldiers. Not only did the soldiers use scare tactics, but they arbitrarily looted and then trashed the civilians’ residences.

Key says he participated in the attacks, but did the minimal damage he could, while still obeying orders. He writes, “My own moral judgement was disintegrating under the pressure of being a soldier, feeling vulnerable, and having no clear enemy to kill in Iraq. We were encouraged to beat up on the enemy… Because we were fearful, sleep-deprived, and jacked up on caffeine, adrenaline, and testosterone, and because our officers constantly reminded us that all Iraqis were our enemies, civilians included, it was tempting to steal, no big deal to punch, and easy to kill… I witnessed numerous incidents of needless brutality and murders of civilians.”

Read the book to learn what transpired when the situation became intolerable for Key.