One of the MDs I work with has an old shoulder injury, which she periodically reinjures because she engages in extreme sports and has never gotten the physical therapy her orthopedic doc wanted her to have and, in general, doesn't take care of it the way she should. When I was in massage school, I used her for some homework and a paper, because she was an interesting case. So she got free bodywork from me, and she found out her injury responds very well to trigger point work. Which is all well and good.
However, now that I've been out of school for a year, she still thinks she can just come up to me and whine when her shoulder's spasming and expect me to go into her office and jam my knuckle into it for fifteen minutes. Still for free. She's paid me for one massage in the past year, but has found it more cost-effective to just beg for me to donate my services a few minutes at a time.
And, you know, of the four docs in my department, she's the one I'm least friendly with. She doesn't pop into my workspace to chat like the others. She only seeks me out when she wants something, work-related or personal. Well, today she's in pain and angling for "just a few minutes..." She tried to get me a few minutes ago and I told her to go away, I'm eating. As full of the milk of human kindness as I am, if it comes down to eating lunch or jumping to work on her whenever she wants, I think I'll go with lunch, thanks.
And now, of course, I feel like a bitch, so you know I'm going to do it.
It's right up there with not being able to forgo tipping. I really suck!
xoxo
4 comments:
This sure sounds like the bodywork equivalent of "gimme your lunch money".
I don't suppose it would be of any use to suggest a rejoinder along the lines of "You really need more than just a 5 minute knuckle job... Let me give you the name of a really great classmate of mine who does great work in this area", would it?
A relationship could work that trades 15 minute knuckle jobs for running active interference on your son's behalf against bogus practices that refuse treatment based on insurance coverage, but it doesn't sound like she'd be the kind to reciprocate. (Or that you'd have the urge to ask her for that kind of favor, either). But absent that kind of "professional courtesy", what you're experiencing is extortion, and you need to feel much better about yourself to say something like "Hahahahaha, I bet you hate it when folks are always hitting you up for medical consults at parties, huh".
What I ended up doing was waiting until my after-lunch patient was already checking in, and then went in and told her we had three minutes. The good/bad thing is that she responds so well to static compression/TrP work that it only took me two and a half minutes to get her shoulder to release. And two hours later she was walking around going, "OMG, you're a miracle worker, I feel so much better."
Which is what makes it impossible for me to totally refuse her, as much as her manipulation and her self-centeredness (because, yeah, unlike the other doctors I work with whom I happily do favors for because they happily do favors for me, I know this woman would never in a million years go out of her way to help me with anything) and her refusal to take care of herself properly irritate me.
I know that with minimal effort I can relieve a lot of her pain, and I don't have it in me to let someone suffer if I can help them. Big sucker that I am.
Speaking secondhand (having heard much the same from the offspring) the trouble with doing this sort of thing because you care is that it leaves you open to petty exploitation of this sort.
My unprincipled response is to work up some complaint of your own that falls within her specialty and start badgering her for free advice about it. I'm betting she will be less than forthcoming. That is a good opening for pointing out that your skills also have value.
Some facilities have quid pro quo arrangements for this sort of thing. Maybe yours should consider it?
I'm thinking the next time this pops up, I should say "jokingly", hey, if we're trading professional services, L, maybe you should look in my fundi or something.
Ah, but that would be passive-aggressive.
She ain't gettin' any of my arnica, I'll tell you that. :-)
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