For the Record
People ask me why I decided to come to Liberia to work and the reason is quite simple. I wanted to feel like I was making a difference in this world; that my education and forebrain was worth something beyond a salary and position within the System. Instead of feigning autism, when the woman on the plane asked me in what I believed if not Jesus Christ, what I should have said is that I believe in the feeling substantive action on behalf of others, especially those less privileged, produces. By substantive, I mean people’s lives actually get better from their perspective. And while I acknowledge that it is convenient to be in a profession where working in the service of other’s gets me paid, it is the choice I make. I don’t begrudge anybody in other professions anything. I certainly don’t regard coming to a country I’ve never visited to learn and to experience new things as a sacrifice in any way, save the phone bill to my mom and lack of Korean food.
I worked at the NYC Department of Health for three years. While I was happy to have had the opportunity to learn how to work in a bureaucracy and to write emails without making colleagues I didn’t know angry, I never ever quite bought the Department’s approach. People in the city are eating themselves to death and we want to research why Blacks and Latinos don’t bike? I don’t know. Maybe they are afraid of being run over by buses or speeding taxis? Hell, why don’t white people play badminton? The number one cause of death in the country is heart attack, so the city decides to make an enemy of salt. What? I am not good at a lot of things but in medical school I was an ace in physiology. Some would say we came from the ocean. Like pretty fishies, we humans are able to regulate salt balance within a very narrow range. Humans can consume 1000 milli-equivalents of salt a day, the equivalent of feeding ourselves 3 heaping tablespoons of salt, and urinate it all out easily. Your brain is quick to make you drink when things get too salty and then, wah-lah, you pee. There are six major risk factors identified by the medical profession to cause heart attack: having high cholesterol, diabetes, or hypertension and smoking being an old man or woman or having a family member with the same. Notice salt is not on the list. And anyone who says that hypertension more than genetics or the stress of reading this explanation is the result of salt consumption played hooky in physiology or are hanging their professional hat on one or two studies juxtaposed against thousands indicating otherwise-- like salt water taffy, a stretch.
There’s a very good book called First Break All the Rules. It’s about how to be a good manager/leader, which I regard as one and the same thing. The authors interviewed thousands of managers and their subordinates to figure out what made a productive satisfying work environment. They came up with this:
1) I know what is my job
2) I have the resources to do my job
3) I have an opportunity to do what I am best at every day
4) My supervisor cares about me as a person
5) Someone in the past two weeks has praised me for my work
6) Someone at work encourages my development
7) At work, my opinions count
8) The mission of the work makes me feel my job is important
9) I see my colleagues committing to quality work
10) I have a best friend at work
11) In the past 6 months someone has talked to me about my progress
12) I have opportunities at work to learn and grow
Well when I looked at this list after it hanging in front of me for no less than one and a half years, I realized that the only number that applied to me was 1 and maybe 4! It wasn’t enough! In addition, since I wasn’t getting the other 10 items on the list, I wasn’t in the position to deliver the list to those I was supervising, which was unfair. I have always believed that things come full circle; just like deja vu or Hindu brand reincarnation or being born and dying wrinkled. At the Department I felt like I did 20 years ago as a Berkeley Organic Chemistry student who was ostracized by nerds in goggles with glasses underneath because my chemical yield was too low or because I tried to speed up the evaporation process with my Bunsen burner and nearly burned my eyebrows off. The things I worked really hard on and cared about few of my colleagues valued. But outside in the community I was receiving good feedback for my efforts. I needed a change. I needed to recalibrate; to remind myself what I care about; to work on less icing and more cake. So here I am in Monrovia, Liberia going after the perfect 12.
