You Disagree With Me = You Are a Bad Person

[anakhouri]

Ugh, a former co-worker on Facebook posted, "You know your outpatient surgery is going to go well when the first thing the nurse says is 'I saw on Fox News last night..."

Um, guess what! My mother-in-law (father-in-law too) watches Fox News and she is an AWESOME nurse and a great, loving person who would do anything for anyone. I can't stand Fox News but I'm not going to label all their viewers as bad people because I can clearly see they are not.

Just because someone disagrees with your views doesn't make them bad people or incompetent at their jobs. America would be a better place if everyone would stop immediately dismissing people who think differently from them.

[siead_lietrathua]

i dunno. it doesn't seem like they are bashing the coworker or calling them bad. just that they find fox news mentions not the best start to a conversation.
you can find a person a shit conversationalist without thinking they're a shit person overall.

[TheHuckster]

i dunno. it doesn't seem like they are bashing the coworker or calling them bad. just that they find fox news mentions not the best start to a conversation.
you can find a person a shit conversationalist without thinking they're a shit person overall.

What?

She specifically says she doesn't think the surgery is going to go well based solely on the basis that she watches Fox News.

When you're going to surgery, the last thing I really give a shit about is whether they're a good conversationalist, especially since I'm often under anesthesia for the whole thing.

[HYHYBT]

How big an AMEN can I add to the first post?

[anakhouri]

Even if she was just complaining about the conversation (though I got the impression she was dismissing the nurse because of her media preferences; this ex co-worker is very liberal), we're all adults. It's easy to deflect the conversation, especially if you're going into surgery, just say you're tired and would like to rest! My son's friend's grandma is SUPER, 6 bumper stickers on her car Pro-Life. I am not. When she brings it up, I change the subject. Not difficult.

[siead_lietrathua]

it's a one-line facebook vent. i read it how it was written, as a vent about a mildly annoying conversation.

"You know your outpatient surgery is going to go well when the first thing the nurse says is 'I saw on Fox News last night..."
"You know your outpatient surgery is going to go well when the first thing the nurse says is 'I HAVE to tell you what my cat did this morning..."
"You know your outpatient surgery is going to go well when the first thing the nurse says is 'My mother in law is driving me NUTS..."

change it to a non-hospital setting.
"You know your shift is going to go well when the first thing a coworker says is 'I saw on Fox News last night..."

it's not calling someone incompetent. the worst thing you can infer from it is that the coworker/ nurse is just a shitty conversationalist.
and nothing about it suggest she did not deflect the conversation.

[TheHuckster]

it's not calling someone incompetent. the worst thing you can infer from it is that the coworker/ nurse is just a shitty conversationalist.

What the heck does one's conversational skills have to do with the outcome of a surgery? I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. The purpose of surgery is to fix a problem with your body which is either life threatening or will become life threatening (cosmetic surgery aside). I gauge how "well a surgery goes" by whether I leave the hospital healthier than I was when I left or I leave the hospital in a body bag.

I consider someone gauging how well surgery's going to go by what the nurse talks about beforehand to be very shallow. You're there to get better, not to have a conversation with someone. Now, if the nurse said something like, "I forget, is the heart on the left side or the right side?" or "We're out of anesthetic. Here, sniff this glue and count backwards from 100." then I'd get worried.

[Ginger Tea]

With the words Out Patients, I don't take surgery to mean under the knife, just as Doctors surgeries are also ill equipped with the trappings of an ER room.

Its just one of those poorly worded medical terms, every time I was in out patients it was like a bigger GP's office.

[TheHuckster]

With the words Out Patients, I don't take surgery to mean under the knife, just as Doctors surgeries are also ill equipped with the trappings of an ER room.

Its just one of those poorly worded medical terms, every time I was in out patients it was like a bigger GP's office.

I know there are some dialect differences between American English and British/Other English on the meaning of "surgery" but in American English it's often (in casual conversation) used for at least some kind of procedure that, at the very least, requires some kind of anesthetic (either local or general). I don't know if this facebook status was from someone in a place where "surgery" means something different from this, and if I'm mistaken, I apologize.

I've had three outpatient procedures requiring general anesthesia in my life: One to reset a broken bone, another to remove a small abscess from my cheek, and another for a endoscopy. I was out of the hospital after just an hour or two, but two of them involved "entering" my body (whether via knife or a camera down my throat). For each of them, I barely remember the nurses who were involved much less what they were saying, due to my fuzzy memory from the drugs they used.

But still, my point remains: When someone talks about how well their surgery went (or is going to go) they don't mean, "How well did you hit it off with the nurses?" they mean "Did they fix the problem that required you to go there in the first place and were the nurses competent at their job?"

[BlaqueKatt]

I know there are some dialect differences between American English and British/Other English on the meaning of "surgery" but in American English it's often (in casual conversation) used for at least some kind of procedure that, at the very least, requires some kind of anesthetic (either local or general).

yup, my tonsillectomy was "outpatient surgery" as was my tubal ligation, my mother's cataract surgery was also "outpatient". All three procedures involved being "under the knife".

[siead_lietrathua]

But still, my point remains: When someone talks about how well their surgery went (or is going to go) they don't mean, "How well did you hit it off with the nurses?" they mean "Did they fix the problem that required you to go there in the first place and were the nurses competent at their job?"

but the answer to that can still be "yeah the surgery went fine, but OMG the nurse was annoyingly talkative"
the nurses's attitude may not effect the actual ability to stitch but it an still irritating. work is not a place to ramble about the news while having a patient awake on the table. the patient probably wants to have your attention on them, or appropriate conversation.

heck, one of my coworkers went for a wisdom tooth removal involving being knocked out. and the whole procedure went fine, with fast recovery even.
doesn't mean she hasn't complained endlessly about the anesthesiologist joking "don't worry, most people wake up". does it mean that he didn't do his job right when it came to application of knock-out juice? no. but it does mean they were shit at keeping their mouth to appropriate comments and tainted the experience.

[Kheldarson]

but the answer to that can still be "yeah the surgery went fine, but OMG the nurse was annoyingly talkative"
the nurses's attitude may not effect the actual ability to stitch but it an still irritating. work is not a place to ramble about the news while having a patient awake on the table. the patient probably wants to have your attention on them, or appropriate conversation.

Right, but the issue here is the implication. Fox News is a polarizing station, for the most part. You either support them or not.

If you like Fox News, and that's known, then the statement in the OP becomes positive because the nurse in question is showing a trusted similarity to you, thus showing a sound judgment in your mind.

However, if you don't like Fox News, and that's known, the statement takes on a negative meaning because it implies a distrust of the nurse because she has revealed an area of less sound judgment in the poster's mind. Just think about the stereotype of the average Fox News viewer. That's the implication the OP statement rests on.

[bainsidhe]

heck, one of my coworkers went for a wisdom tooth removal involving being knocked out. and the whole procedure went fine, with fast recovery even.
doesn't mean she hasn't complained endlessly about the anesthesiologist joking "don't worry, most people wake up". does it mean that he didn't do his job right when it came to application of knock-out juice? no. but it does mean they were shit at keeping their mouth to appropriate comments and tainted the experience.

Ding ding ding! So much this! I am sarcastic by nature and the coworker's comment is something I could very much see myself saying. I recently had a surgical procedure and I was unbelievably nervous. Let's just say the nurse didn't ease my concerns. First the nurse thought I was having a different procedure. Then she asked if I had taken two enimas to prep for surgery. What enimas?? They weren't necessary, which is why I hadn't been instructed to have them. Then she hmmms while trying to find a vein for the IV, and tells me to hold very still because she's about to poke me with a very sharp object. Meanwhile, a patient one curtain over was dehydrated and was complaining about being stuck over 20 times and was she going to die. If I were posting on FB at that moment, my sarcasm would've been running rampant.

Everything went fine, BTW. But if I ever need to go back (may that never happen), I would request a different nurse.

[Jetfire]

I've only been put under once, to have my wisdom teeth yanked out. I don't remember much about the procedure, but I do remember the Dentist and Nurses talking about TV (a sitcom or something) while I was floating. Frankly I found that more reassuring than anything, since it meant that everything was going normally and nothing unexpected was happening.

Then again I was so zonked out I might just be imagining it all.