Must be sincere, lah

I woke up from GA, feeling nauseaus and the pain. The nurse, in her cheerful voice, asked me: "Pain? With a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 the most painful, how would you rate your pain?" Still feeling giddy, I thought "huh? You want me to rate my pain, like now?" Anyway, I whispered a "7". (In retrospec, I think that was retribution: I grilled my students too hard on the Likert-Summated rating scale). So she consulted the doctor, gave me a jab, all the while very cheerful and empathetic.

My doctor too was very empathetic. Sometimes I wonder for a man, it's amazing that he spoke of these women problems as if he had experienced it before. And of course, he was also cheerful and always encouraging, with abundance sincerity.

My family doctor was another one. He is probably the only one who could listen to The Mom's ranting patiently. After all those, still smiling and said: "Don't worry aunty, you take this medicine first then we see again in two weeks' time, ok?"

I tend to think that it's all in the attitude. How you view your job, how you view yourself, these attitudes all show in your behaviour. I like to believe in the psychologists that attitude influences behaviour and vice versa. But personally, I think a good attitude is the most important thing one must possess. I think one may not like what one does all the time, but the fact that one has been given the job, no matter how one hates it, one has to have the right attitude so that something good can be achieved at the end of the day.

It is especially important in jobs that deal with people.

But must be sincere, lah.

So eventhough I felt the pain, I thought, hmm, ok lah. At least one nurse told Mr Goh: "You should try it yourself. Painful, you know."