To the Editor:
I read with great interest Dave Krasne’s Op-Ed article about Wall Street bonuses. While I agree with his ultimate premise, I found parts of his article somewhat irritating.
I, too, have a job with “days on end of working into the wee hours, the months on end without a single day off, the never-ending ‘fire drills’—when a client wanted something and wanted it now, whether it was 7 p.m. or 7 a.m.—that kept the stress and adrenaline levels high.”
My clients, however, are called patients. My abnormal hours are termed “call.” I receive no bonus, only missives from contentious insurance companies.
In my occupation, stress levels also run high. There are no 22-year-old analyst bonus babies in my field, only people with an average of 13 years of postgraduate education and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars of educational debt.
I am what is called a physician.
Kenneth Crystal
Roslyn Heights, N.Y., Jan. 27, 2009
Note from KBJ: Who made this man become a doctor? Who is preventing him from moving into a line of work that would make him happier? I am sick to death of people complaining about the costs and consequences of decisions that they made.
