This Reviewer's Personal Response to The First To Say No...

ER (TV series) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is not a review and in no way should reflect anything I've already said about the book, The First To Say No...A Reviewer learns to be objective and not allow personal feelings to words written by another to influence their review, negatively...or that, in my opinion, should be the case...I know I sure try to write by that principle.

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You know, I've been thinking more lately about why some books mean more to me personally. I normally enjoy about 99% of the books I read (and if a book falls within that 1%, I generally don't read it past the first 50 pages, sometimes, now even that many)... My time; my decision as to how to spend it during my later years...

But then, there are still some books that affect me more, because I find something in it relating to my life. Do you read in the same way?

Dr. Anderson obviously has a great love for his profession and for the many individuals who have dedicated their lives to medicine and the ER in particular. Honestly, I would not work for any company that would allow employees to be "manhandled" in any way and not allow them to file criminal charges when appropriate. As one of his medical readers said--it is indeed telling a dirty little secret...

The reason it became personal to me, though, was because of the rage that comes to me because of those supervisors, bureaucrats, CEO's--whatever you want to call them, who have no feelings of empathy or sympathy for their employees and who run rampant in corporate/business America these days...

I had an even more violent reaction, because of the Penn State scandal still going on...Having worked at a university, I had met and become friends with some of the facilities staff there and had attended at least one conference on campus. Unlike others, although some may disagree and I might also if I knew the facts, I don't think Paterno was quite so guilty as the rest...You see, I know that final decisions always are made at higher layers than a director, even one who was so respected and known across the country...It saddens me that Paterno's reputation is now forever tarnished...no matter if, hypothetically, he fought with his supervisors to do something and was overruled... Being fired is everybody's worst fear, no matter what position you hold...

As mine was...

Can you image a nurse, having just been raped, perhaps held down in an emergency room by a drugged out maniac, his strong hand covering her mouth and the other hand plus his body holding her down as he does anything his "visions" create... (And, in the U.S. that druggie could be the son of a powerful, wealth individual who will buy his son out of any problems his actions causes.)

And then be told that nothing can be done because he was receiving medical treatment at the time...

Get real folks! No way should anybody be forced to suck it up for their job! But, tell me honestly, haven't you heard of personal stories from friends, neighbors or relatives where something that has happened at work caused the individual to lose his/her job...I heard a new story as recently as Monday!

Because there are other types of abuse, other than physical... that are not so readily apparent...

It comes from organizational structures that hire people who make decisions based upon the bottom line...
It comes from leaders who have no concerns about what their decisions result in, as it relates to the individuals at that company...
It comes from a political structure that pits political parties against each other, then demands that the selected individuals clean up corruption and mistakes that have been made for hundreds of years within a term of office...
It comes from politicians who make "vested interest" the primary reason for making decisions rather than for the good of the general public...
It comes from supervisors, etc., who make decisions based upon personal power choices rather than having taken time to gather information through investigation, which, when made, results in thousands and millions of manpower loss due to such simple decisions.
It comes from layoffs or other financial choices, or even power choices, which improve the bottom line, without regard that the remaining employees will be overburdened by work and move toward job burnout...

Obviously, I could go on...

A nation who allows criminals to hurt, abuse, threaten, or even murder employees during their work hours and forces it to be covered up...is a nation moving toward the end of its life... Because there are also more ways of killing those employees than just physically... Consider the physical, mental, and emotional damage done to people that you've personally talked to and let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts...

Just my personal opinion of course...