Today they gave me a little wedding present, a $100 AmEx gift card. Very kind of them.
Also, I was forced to join a committee on “Colleague Engagement”, i.e. getting people excited about their jobs/workplace so they don’t leave for a better job. (Yes, I realize the fact that I am on this committee is irony-laden. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.) Before the meeting started, one of the committee members told two great stories - one of which was when he was on rotation as a doctor, they used to have “liver rounds”, as in, go out with coworkers after work and get loaded. He switched to another location where it was announced that there would be “liver rounds” at 10 a.m. He was a little surprised that the other doctors wanted to get started so early, but he was game, and showed up. Alas, it was an actual program, studying the liver, with slides and whatnot.
His other story probably isn’t as amusing told now, but I’m going to try anyway. It was about a new doctor that really wanted to get into a department at his facility. In order to do so, he tried to bribe the department head and members with a box of really good cannoli. He shows up for some function with the cannoli, and the department head goes to town on the box, eating one after the other. About halfway through, he looks up and says, “Who brought these?” Someone says, “Oh, that guy”. He says, “What? He’s not in our department. He has to leave.” The other person says, “But he brought the cannoli!” And the department head says, “It doesn’t matter, he has to leave.” The guy grabs the remaining cannoli and takes off. Months later there is some kind of skit night, and one of the skits involved people playing the department heads, and the guy who played that department head did nothing but shove cannoli in his mouth and yell “CANNOLI! I NEED MORE CANNOLI!”
Well, I tried. I still think it’s funny.