I’ve worked as an administrator in academic hospital medicine for 15 years.  I started as just a secretary but through the luck of having an awesome practice leader and boss who cared about what I was capable of and not what piece of paper I did (or didn’t) have, I was quickly able to move up to running the administrative side of our division.

I’m not someone who’s very comfortable saying nice things about myself or giving myself credit, but I know I am good at what I do. I have helped grow this practice from a dozen to over 50 providers. I helped create and help oversee our physician and NPPA fellowship programs. I was a huge part of establishing a whole new (very successful) practice at another hospital – our franchise if you will. I’ve traveled overseas to be a consultant for other hospitalist practices. I’ve taken a hugely active role in my medical specialty’s professional society and have wracked up a ton of “first time an administrator did that or received that accolade within the organization.”

But my annual reviews were always PAINFUL. I mean, the pits. It isn’t that they didn’t agree with everything I said above, and more (hard to imagine I would remain employed at the same place for 15 years if they didn’t ). They had nothing but praise for everything I have ever accomplished and how important I am to the practice, but it was always overshadowed by the negative. Fifteen years of – you are good at what you do, BUT.

You need to stop pissing everyone off in the process.

You need to be nicer.

You need to be more of a team player.

You need to stop acting like only your ideas are good ones.

You need to be more honey and less vinegar.

You need to be more calm, to not lose your cool under stress.

You need to not overreact and make things worse.

You need, need, need, need.

And it would infuriate me.  I wasn’t mean to anyone, I just expected people to do their jobs. I wasn’t uncollaborative and I didn’t think only my ideas were good ones, but we needed to move stuff forward, not spend two months in meetings while everyone else decided what their ideas were and which one we should go with. And how could that not make me lose my cool? I wasn’t harsh or overbearing, I was focused and driven. I. Got. Shit. Done.

And when it wasn’t infuriating me, it absolutely broke my heart. My job isn’t just a job to me. My work – the quality of it, the value of it, the importance of it to other people – is more important to me than anything except my family. It is personal to me. I have chosen to give up the opportunity to climb the ladder for more power and money and prestige because I believe in what we do where I am. I believe in the people I work with. I believe I make a difference in patients lives even if my role doesn’t directly touch them. I put everything into everything I do – stay late, come early, work on weekends, answer emails and texts and phone calls at all hours. Why wasn’t it enough? Why wasn’t I good enough?

I’ve left every annual review wanting bite someone or cry (or already crying).

But a funny thing happened today. THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN. Not a single negative comment. Not one. In fact, nothing but glowing praise AND the indication that they plan to do everything they can to get me at least one more rung up that ladder, while I still get to stay with the practice I love, because they are so impressed and thrilled with my work. It’s hours later and I still haven’t fully been able to wrap my head around it.

I can’t wrap my head around it even though I know why it happened, why today was different.

In conversations with my husband and in some of the stuff I’ve written for my book over the last year, there is no way to deny that the person I was before I started getting the mental healthcare I needed and the person I am now are like night and day. From where I sit today, I can’t honestly pretend that pretty much everything they said in all those reviews wasn’t true. The fact that I am still here 15 years later despite the uncomfortable truth that I was a terror, I was difficult to work with, and that ultimately I wasn’t actually as productive and successful as I could have been if I’d been getting the care I needed all along, speaks volumes of what they really do think of my work. Of my worth. Of my value. They never gave up on me.

I am a different person now. I’m not perfect, and some days are harder than others, but I’m finally getting to be the person I was always meant to be.

There’s a lot more where this came from! Want to read about bunny assassins and loved ones lost and deranged Christmas shoppers and surviving suicide? Please check out the rest of The Tangent Girl Volumes!

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