Monday, November 24, 2008

In which Jo gets a bit snippy

When one blogs, one gets comments. One also gets emails.

It's amazing what people will say in emails that they won't say in comments. It's like the kid who bullies only when he's alone with another kid, not in front of witnesses. 

Apparently, folks don't like my grammar. They don't like my tone. A couple of 'em really hate the personal posts, while others don't like the posts about Manglement (or the fact that I refer to Manglement as Manglement). A few take issue with the new layout of the blog and get personally insulting in the process. There have been more than a few men (all have been men) who have gotten their socks in a twist because of my silly insistence that perhaps a) nurses ought to think of themselves as professionals and b) health care is one of those things that you shouldn't have to mortgage your life to get. Those guys are by far the worst in terms of being just plain rude. Guys, guys: you kiss your mother with that mouth?

I have this to say:

People. This is a blog.

There are approximately seventeen quintillion blogs out there. Approximately half of those are medical or nursing blogs. The other half, as near as I can tell, are divided about equally between cute animals doing cute things and beauty/celebrity/fitness topics.

The influence of this particular blog on anything going on in the world is proportional to its share of the Great Blogging Pie. In other words, with eight-and-a-half quintillion nursing and medical blogs out there, this one is just not that important.

You can relax, I swear. Nobody is gonna read HN and decide that it's time to overthrow the medical establishment, thus depriving you of whatever it is about your career that you find so important to protect. There is not a secret cabal of coruscating feminist nurses somewhere underground that uses HN as its template for revolution, its manifesto, its creed. HN is not going to raise your taxes, restructure your insurance company, take all the profits you make by inventing drugs and devices, turn nursing into some Amazonian society, or kick your puppy. Especially not that last bit.

Also, I am not undermining your attempts at formalized writing. See above: this is a blog. You ought to be concentrating on blogs that have posts that begin with letters and numbers and leet-speak, for God's sake. 

I am not making fun of you. Well, maybe a little. If you're the sort of doctor who reads a fictionalized account of my day and assumes that the doctor I'm talking about is you, rather than a composite of all the docs I deal with on a daily basis, then yes, I'm going to mock you. Relentlessly. You deserve it for being so damned self-important.

I do not talk to my patients the way that I write. Come on.

If you're so moved, either positively or negatively, by something that I write here, you're welcome to email me. The link's to the right. If you want to fawn, compliment, or give me big props, that's lovely. It gives me a nice warm feeling that lasts about a second, until everything snaps back into perspective.

If you want to send criticisms, that's lovely too. Just make sure they're rational and not personally insulting, okay? Ad hominem attacks will be promptly forwarded to the trash folder.

And if you just want to rant about how HN is destroying the foundations of nursing as a Blessed, God-Ordained Helping Role or how HN is fomenting revolution or how HN is a Feminazi mouthpiece, please, turn off the computer. Go outside. Pat your puppy.

It is just a blog. There are seventeen quintillion of them out there. Keep that in mind.

13 comments:

Allen said...

Seventeen quintillion?

I've told you a billion times not to exaggerate.

GruntDoc

RehabNurse said...

I love it!

Aww...come on, you know revolutionaries read your blog. We're just plotting from within.

I say use the Malcolm X philosophy...by any means possible.

If this means being nice and soft and fluffy and sneaking in your new ideas, go for it.

Whatever works.

Men (and women no less) do it all the time in business and everywhere else.

Why on earth should healthcare be any different? Sure we have different issues and responsibilities, but when the same-old-same-old, good old boy (or girl) thing doesn't work, you have to try something new.

Never, ever, ever give up. (Winston Churchill)

Anonymous said...

I consider you my blogmother Jo. I found your blog last year and read it straight through.I love your personal posts, cooking and product review.
keep Rockin'
Yvonne ED RN

Bardiac said...

Wait... I came for the revolution and now it's somewhere else? Because the whole craniotomy thing was code for how we're overthrowing the banking system, wasn't it? At least that's how I read it.

Oh, and you forgot the third half of blogs that are mommy blogs.

Penny Mitchell said...

Are you shitting me? Has the Great 'Merkin Mindset of "ME ME ME ME IT'S ALL ABOUT ME" shown up here? People have to even tailor their own BLOGS to keep absolutely everyone happy?

Folks: Find your Big Girl/Big Boy Panties and put them the hell on. If you don't like what you're reading here, don't let the door bang your ass on the way out.

What whiny pantload of sniveling little gits the general population has become!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

"There is not a secret cabal of coruscating feminist nurses somewhere underground that uses HN as its template for revolution, its manifesto, its creed."

We keep our secret well, then.

Anonymous said...

Jo,
DOn't hold back. Tell us what you really think.
Les

Elliott said...

I know the secret HN code. "The first thing we do is kill all the doctors." Of course, it will be pretty difficult for HN to get an order written, but vive la revolucion.

Of course there are 17 quintillion of them, but remember the mindset of these guys - if I'm reading it then it must be important.

Anonymous said...

I was hoping this was the underground movement to overthrow our current health care system...j/k.

Sometimes you have to let go of a little steam in a post about what irks you. I completely understand and more power to you!! Keep up the great posts!!

shrimplate said...

Nobody is gonna read HN and decide that it's time to overthrow the medical establishment...

Fuck. There go my plans for the long weekend.

may said...

and just when i thought some people who egt to my blog are some sort of sickos, i read this.

man, people are sick. sorry they (the sick ones) got through you with their innate rudeness :(

Anonymous said...

There's a lot of truth in the saying that the shallow end of the gene pool is the widest. Sounds like some of 'the occupants crawled up out of the mud to annoy you. Don't let the jerks bother you, hon. It's *your* blog, not theirs; if they don't like it, they can just go the f*** away!

Anonymous said...

I guess it's just sometimes annoying that nursing logs are very often filled with anti-doctor stuff, whereas you don't tend to see the same in doctors blogs. So, it can just be annoying to trawl through a lot of pages looking for decent blogging by our colleagues, and find real anger, that's used as an excuse for abuse.
BUt I guess most people do what I do.....you have a look, you see the abuse, and you leave that blog behind for good :(

Dr. Thunder
www.twoweeksonatrolley.blogspot.com