...a giant bag of _ _ _ _ _

You (probably) know by now that I am in the middle of writing my next book, “How to be a Professional Worth Hiring.” Today’s post is an example of how not to be a professional worth hiring.

During the last few weeks of December, there was a contract surgeon working at a local hospital, covering for some other surgeons over the holidays. Let’s call him Gary Greensmith (all the names are changed).

Sheryl is an anesthesiologist who goes into a surgical case late one afternoon, and Dr. Greensmith is the surgeon. Sheryl has never met Greensmith before. Sheryl greets him and introduces herself. Greensmith grunts. Then, a moment later barks at the other staff in the operating room (OR).

A couple of other things about Dr. Greensmith. First, he looks and acts as old as dirt.  While he’s probably only in his mid-to-late sixties, he looks and acts closer to 85.

Second, he is slow as f$*& as a surgeon, which is particularly not good on this specific case with Sheryl. The patient is pretty sick, and the longer the case goes on, the greater the risk to the patient.

As already mentioned, Greensmith is slow; he started the case late, and now Sheryl gets relieved by Sam, the night-call anesthesiologist.

The next morning, Sheryl checks with Sam to see how the case went. Sam replied with what you would have expected: slow, and Greensmith was not any more pleasant or easy to deal with than what Sheryl had experienced (patient did fine). The next day, Sheryl is back on call, and she gets called in to do a case with guess-who?

Sheryl gets the patient prepped, and Greensmith comes in. Sheryl looks right at him and cheerfully says, “Hi, Gary!” Greensmith looks at Sheryl like a total stranger and simply ignores her. No reply whatsoever.

I should say at this point, for many decades, medicine, and especially surgery, was very male-dominated. While women definitely now make up more of the physician pool than in the past, it is not uncommon for older, male surgeons to still be dismissive towards females. While I don’t know for sure what was going on at that moment, given all the other indicators, it’s definitely possible he was being chauvinistic as well as being difficult and rude.

At any rate, the next day Alan is the on-call anesthesiologist, and the third one to also end up working with Greensmith. Since Sheryl is going to be on-call again the upcoming evening, she checks in via text with Alan regarding his experience of the day. She wants to know what might be coming, anything she needs to know from the day, etc. Alan sends a one-line reply, “Greensmith is a giant bag of dicks.”

Disclaimer: I have been laughing about this for almost two weeks now. Some of you are probably not going to find it as funny as I did - totally fine! Whether or not you think it’s funny - or offensive - is not the point. Some of you might be hung up on the fact that a possibly-too-old surgeon is still allowed to work. Stick with me, I am getting closer to my point, and here’s the first question consider: How many times have you worked with agents on the other side who seem...incompetent? Or difficult to work with? Or simply, “A giant bag of d@!%.”*

Back to Sheryl, who goes to work the following day, fortunately, there is no Greensmith. However, Dr. G had unknowingly set the tone for the day because much of the OR staff had become so frustrated and pissed off by working with him over the last few days. The running joke that day: if anyone who was remotely being a jerk, someone else would call out, “Hey, stop being a giant bag of d_ _ _ _.”

I don’t know about you, but I know from time to time that I lose my cool, and then I am being a jerk. I’m not being a jerk all the time, but from time to time I can absolutely be one (ask my wife). The hardest part of being a professional worth hiring is noticing the mood we are in. Being a jerk is one of them, but usually it’s a little more subtle. Are we feeling rushed? Are we frustrated? Are we distracted? Are we upset? Are we feeling anxious? Are we feeling all of those things?

---

Separately, and distressingly, over the holidays, one of my wife’s friends had been in the hospital with her teen son for close to two weeks on a sudden cancer diagnosis. It was incredibly stressful the first week while they were trying to figure out what was going on and what treatments were available. The mother almost never left the hospital, staying by her son’s side almost the entire time.

Now, you can imagine that for this woman, when her son is out of the hospital (which he is now, thankfully) and gets back to work, she might be a little mentally distracted. If she were a real estate agent, and you were in the middle of a transaction with her, she could appear like a Goldsmith. And she would have good reason to!

We all have moments in our lives that take us off course a little. But I suspect, like maybe in the case of Goldsmith, sometimes life takes us off course, and then we never recover. Our entire lifestyle mood becomes one of grouchiness, suspicion, unhappiness, melancholy, etc.

---

So here we are, on the first Saturday of the year. For most of us, we look out and see hope and possibility. Maybe a few of us have a little of that “holiday hangover” (not necessarily from alcohol). Or, maybe a few might have had some really challenging circumstances to deal with over the last few weeks.

Regardless of how 2025 ended, what mood can you create and sustain for this whole year?

Let’s say we put moods on a spectrum. On one end is The Dalai Lama, whose mood is consistently described as one of profound compassion, joy, and inner peace, even amidst immense suffering, marked by a resilient, optimistic, and humorous spirit. On the other end is Dr. Greensmith.

 Where do you fall? What can you do this year to move towards the Dalai Lama, or at least as far away as possible from someone referring to you as being a giant bag of d____?.