Activity

Even when our sex was “good”—everyone’s body parts were doing what they should; if you saw a video of us doing it, you’d be like, “hot”—I wasn’t present, nor was I lost in bliss. Most of the time I was some putrid combination of bored, irritable, and dissociated. A couple of years in, when I reques…

Consider, for instance, the pros and cons list. I wrote it at the kitchen table on a gray afternoon, as naturally and casually as a shopping list. Transcribing the circular thoughts that had become fixtures in my brain, I put Aaron’s good and bad qualities in two columns. They were around the same …

The same holds true for quality of patient care. The best patient outcomes require a seamless health-care team, and the best way to get there is to have all the workers in one organization where they can sit side by side and bargain for new and better work systems as well as fair pay. Here is a con…

“An offer to return to work has been brokered with the governor, the speaker, the chair of the County Commission, the mayor …”

I didn’t even get to the details before everyone began screaming and clapping. I called for silence and insisted they let me explain the rest, because we needed to call …

Arnold walked in and got right down to the business of doing our work for us. He chomped on gum with his mouth wide open. The workers made bets about how many pieces he had in his mouth at once—at least enough to make him nearly unintelligible. Health-care workers tend not to like behavior that nee…