by Jared Dillian
An account of the author’s experiences as a trader and, to a lesser
degree, the bipolar disorder that got him hospitalized and, ultimately,
drove him to leave the industry to become a writer of market reports.
Fresh out of the Coast Guard, wearing the wrong clothes and a graduate
of the wrong school, Dillian was a fish out of water but soon started
getting the respect of his peers with his manic trading, even as his
fits of temper and rookie mistakes continue to draw unwanted attention.
His account is both brutally honest about his own faults and mental
health, as well as a scathing depiction of trader culture. From the
mountains of wasted takeout food to the flop sweat and flatulence on the
floor, Dillian brings it all to life: the extreme meritocracy where
employees are given free rein to do nearly anything to make money, which
leads to a shallow culture where dollar amounts are the only standard
by which to measure a person’s value, and those with the most money take
the least risk.
Dillian has a way with a descriptive line and
wry wit: a chief trader is “a walking molecule of testosterone,” the
mass exodus to the Hamptons is a useless exercise in sitting through
traffic just to “hang around with the same douchebags that I saw at work
every day.” Still, to me, by far the most interesting part of the book
is Dillian’s account of his stay in a mental hospital after a mental
breakdown and attempted suicide. It is only here, taking a break from
the endless oceans of trader jargon (which, frustratingly, he never
explains), Dillian shows his true self: confused, craving something
real, becoming inspired. For most of the rest of the book, Dillian may
think he’s lampooning Wall Street, but to me, his misogynistic,
egotistical prose shows he’s part of the problem, no different from
those testosterone molecules looking down on everyone making less than
he does.
four stars
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Bedside Manners: One Doctor's Reflections on the Oddly Intimate Encounters Between Patient and Healer
by David Watts
The author, an internist and poet, writes brief vignettes about a variety of patients – the resigned, the anxious, the pathologically neurotic, the demanding and blustering. With the longest at around ten pages and most of them no more than four, these are brief scenes, ruminations on what a patient’s words or actions may actually be saying about their inner feelings.
The last word in the subtitle – “healer” – is aptly chosen, as Dr. Watts attends to not only his patients’ colons and esophagi, but their fears and hopes and memories. Using as his precept “So you’re a doctor, but don’t go around acting like one,” he does a masterful job of checking his ego, putting himself in his patients’ shoes, allowing them their moments of fear or bravado. As the kind of doctor who sees himself as a healer, listener, counselor, and fount of compassion, he also has a few rather pointed and amusing things to say about insurance companies and red tape. As a poet, he is a talented storyteller with a gift for evoking a scene of high emotion in a few lines and ending it on the perfect, ambiguous, moving, or wryly humorous note. I did not like the way in which he eschewed all quotation marks; Watts may be a poet, but this is not poetry, and it was a distracting affectation.
four stars
The author, an internist and poet, writes brief vignettes about a variety of patients – the resigned, the anxious, the pathologically neurotic, the demanding and blustering. With the longest at around ten pages and most of them no more than four, these are brief scenes, ruminations on what a patient’s words or actions may actually be saying about their inner feelings.
The last word in the subtitle – “healer” – is aptly chosen, as Dr. Watts attends to not only his patients’ colons and esophagi, but their fears and hopes and memories. Using as his precept “So you’re a doctor, but don’t go around acting like one,” he does a masterful job of checking his ego, putting himself in his patients’ shoes, allowing them their moments of fear or bravado. As the kind of doctor who sees himself as a healer, listener, counselor, and fount of compassion, he also has a few rather pointed and amusing things to say about insurance companies and red tape. As a poet, he is a talented storyteller with a gift for evoking a scene of high emotion in a few lines and ending it on the perfect, ambiguous, moving, or wryly humorous note. I did not like the way in which he eschewed all quotation marks; Watts may be a poet, but this is not poetry, and it was a distracting affectation.
four stars
Monday, December 10, 2012
The Dangerous Animals Club
by Stephen Tobolowsky
A collection of essays and autobiographical pieces by the veteran character actor, amounting a book that is both memoir and pop philosophy. He’s a witty and self-deprecating story-teller who seems to have an inexhaustible cache of bizarre anecdotes, from his childhood escapades hunting poisonous animals in Texas fields to the surreal experience of working under eccentric director David Milch on “Deadwood,” from the inexplicable and nasty vendetta an acting professor maintained against Tobolowsky when he was at SMU’s drama school to being thrown out of a hotel in France for punching a toilet, from his rocky relationship with his first love who became a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright to being held at gunpoint while shopping and trying to talk the crazed gunman down before police jumped him.
The writing is polished and Tobolowsky can make you chuckle as well as tug your heartstrings, but what I think makes this book stand out as something beyond a collection of actor’s stories is the heart behind it. Whether talking about his reluctant attachment to an abandoned dog that bounds back from the brink of death or relaying his gentle argument with an atheist in a hotel bar, Tobolowsky comes across as a gentle soul who realizes how lucky he’s been, and appreciates the ride. It makes his book a pleasant and affecting experience, not just an interesting or amusing one.
four stars
A collection of essays and autobiographical pieces by the veteran character actor, amounting a book that is both memoir and pop philosophy. He’s a witty and self-deprecating story-teller who seems to have an inexhaustible cache of bizarre anecdotes, from his childhood escapades hunting poisonous animals in Texas fields to the surreal experience of working under eccentric director David Milch on “Deadwood,” from the inexplicable and nasty vendetta an acting professor maintained against Tobolowsky when he was at SMU’s drama school to being thrown out of a hotel in France for punching a toilet, from his rocky relationship with his first love who became a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright to being held at gunpoint while shopping and trying to talk the crazed gunman down before police jumped him.
The writing is polished and Tobolowsky can make you chuckle as well as tug your heartstrings, but what I think makes this book stand out as something beyond a collection of actor’s stories is the heart behind it. Whether talking about his reluctant attachment to an abandoned dog that bounds back from the brink of death or relaying his gentle argument with an atheist in a hotel bar, Tobolowsky comes across as a gentle soul who realizes how lucky he’s been, and appreciates the ride. It makes his book a pleasant and affecting experience, not just an interesting or amusing one.
four stars
Friday, October 5, 2012
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
by Atul Gawande
The author, a general surgeon, discusses some challenges and discoveries of the medical field, and what qualities it takes to improve performance. Drawing on the history of medicine and his own experiences, he investigates not only what makes improvement, but how it is implemented. For example, the simple act of hand-washing nearly removed the risk of “childbed fever,” an infection which killed newborns; but the successful implementation of hand-washing in an institution comes not by diktat but through spreading positive deviance – seeing where it has become acceptable and trumpeting those practices – hoping to turn the deviance into the norm by giving a voice to those already successful at it. He also writes of watching doctors in India campaign to eradicate polio, a gargantuan endeavor which works not through some miracle pill but through diligence, the simple but exhausting legwork of knocking on doors and spreading the word. He looks at innovation, such as Virginia Apgar’s eponymous test, which is so simple and so obvious, yet drastically improved infant survival rates simply by quantifying results and giving surgeons a number to beat. Or Watson Bowes, a doctor of obstetrics who also improved infant survival rates simply by treating premature babies as though he expected them to thrive. Gawande also discusses some other facets of medical culture, such as malpractice, wages, and lethal injection, but these – while interesting – are vaguer musings compared to the book’s overall arguments about the application of improvement.
It’s a compelling book, written in clear, assured, intelligent prose. Gawande posits that success comes not through science but mainly through performance (as with Indian doctors whom he witnessed perform surgeries in impoverished hospitals with very few instruments, make do with what they had and improvise where they could, but in no event just give up). This conclusion is both heartening and demoralizing, the former because it is so simple – merely expanding current know-how and following basic guidelines can improve survival rates dramatically – but it is also demoralizing because it raises the question of why these simple steps are not already being taken, and it makes us realize that our doctors are fallible, sometimes arrogant and stubborn, humans like the rest of us.
four stars
The author, a general surgeon, discusses some challenges and discoveries of the medical field, and what qualities it takes to improve performance. Drawing on the history of medicine and his own experiences, he investigates not only what makes improvement, but how it is implemented. For example, the simple act of hand-washing nearly removed the risk of “childbed fever,” an infection which killed newborns; but the successful implementation of hand-washing in an institution comes not by diktat but through spreading positive deviance – seeing where it has become acceptable and trumpeting those practices – hoping to turn the deviance into the norm by giving a voice to those already successful at it. He also writes of watching doctors in India campaign to eradicate polio, a gargantuan endeavor which works not through some miracle pill but through diligence, the simple but exhausting legwork of knocking on doors and spreading the word. He looks at innovation, such as Virginia Apgar’s eponymous test, which is so simple and so obvious, yet drastically improved infant survival rates simply by quantifying results and giving surgeons a number to beat. Or Watson Bowes, a doctor of obstetrics who also improved infant survival rates simply by treating premature babies as though he expected them to thrive. Gawande also discusses some other facets of medical culture, such as malpractice, wages, and lethal injection, but these – while interesting – are vaguer musings compared to the book’s overall arguments about the application of improvement.
It’s a compelling book, written in clear, assured, intelligent prose. Gawande posits that success comes not through science but mainly through performance (as with Indian doctors whom he witnessed perform surgeries in impoverished hospitals with very few instruments, make do with what they had and improvise where they could, but in no event just give up). This conclusion is both heartening and demoralizing, the former because it is so simple – merely expanding current know-how and following basic guidelines can improve survival rates dramatically – but it is also demoralizing because it raises the question of why these simple steps are not already being taken, and it makes us realize that our doctors are fallible, sometimes arrogant and stubborn, humans like the rest of us.
four stars
Monday, September 10, 2012
Trauma: My Life as an Emergency Surgeon
by James Cole
The author trained to be a surgeon in the Navy and worked with Special Operations and attached to a SEAL team, as well as working as a trauma surgeon in El Paso. He describes his medical training, which took place in the days when interns were on call for mind-numbingly long hours, for days on end, or saw patients for an entire shift without a food or restroom breaks. He discusses the details of operations to address gun shots, stabbings, motorcycle wrecks, attempted suicide by crossbow, and brutal beatings. He also relates the grueling conditions under which he served as a surgeon in Iraq after 9/11. Through it all, Cole muses on the human capacity for evil and for recovery; he also expounds on how the military and medicine have blessed him with the opportunities to do good, an expanded world view, and a sense of empathy.
It’s an interesting book to the layman; Cole does an admirable job of explaining the steps of various surgeries, though he can’t help but deluge the reader with medical jargon. The book could have used a surer hand at the editorial wheel: Cole is prone to overblown phrases such as “sanguineous fluid” for “blood,” uses “so” as “very,” makes minor mistakes such as saying “no more painful than” when he means “no less painful than,” and litters commas without much thought as to their relations to clauses. Absentee editorship aside, this is a very interesting book, a look into two worlds – that of intense life-saving surgery and that of the military – that the layman rarely sees so up close and personal. Cole comes across as proud of his extensive and admirable accomplishments, as he should be, but his authorial voice is reined in, expansive, and empathetic as he provides candid insight into these worlds.
four stars
The author trained to be a surgeon in the Navy and worked with Special Operations and attached to a SEAL team, as well as working as a trauma surgeon in El Paso. He describes his medical training, which took place in the days when interns were on call for mind-numbingly long hours, for days on end, or saw patients for an entire shift without a food or restroom breaks. He discusses the details of operations to address gun shots, stabbings, motorcycle wrecks, attempted suicide by crossbow, and brutal beatings. He also relates the grueling conditions under which he served as a surgeon in Iraq after 9/11. Through it all, Cole muses on the human capacity for evil and for recovery; he also expounds on how the military and medicine have blessed him with the opportunities to do good, an expanded world view, and a sense of empathy.
It’s an interesting book to the layman; Cole does an admirable job of explaining the steps of various surgeries, though he can’t help but deluge the reader with medical jargon. The book could have used a surer hand at the editorial wheel: Cole is prone to overblown phrases such as “sanguineous fluid” for “blood,” uses “so” as “very,” makes minor mistakes such as saying “no more painful than” when he means “no less painful than,” and litters commas without much thought as to their relations to clauses. Absentee editorship aside, this is a very interesting book, a look into two worlds – that of intense life-saving surgery and that of the military – that the layman rarely sees so up close and personal. Cole comes across as proud of his extensive and admirable accomplishments, as he should be, but his authorial voice is reined in, expansive, and empathetic as he provides candid insight into these worlds.
four stars
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