Are you sure?

I've worked within the bureaucracy of a municipal government agency for many more years than I'd like to admit, and even more than I ever intended. Early on, my job was kind of fun. I spent a few years getting to know the details of an operation that provides an actual service, and the sometimes colorful characters who provide these services "in the field".

Eventually, I got pretty good at my job and was promoted up the administrative tree. The further up the tree I went, the more I became something of a bridge between between the field, and the bureacracy that "supports" it. This, too, was interesting for a while, but it eventually had a corrosive effect on my soul.

Yes, it's true. It turns out that bureaucracies are indeed full of lazy, spitelful, CYA-obssessed, and above all incompetent, well, bureaucrats. Bureaucrats, it turns out, are not frustrated idealists just waiting for someone out of a Frank Capra movie to inspire them to process forms quickly and simplify their procedures. And did I mention that they are often incompetent? More so than you ever dreamed? Well, they are.

This is where the soul-deadening part comes in. I've become so accustomed to the first answer or explanation (and usually, the second or third ...) someone gives me being false, quickly rendered in order to get rid of me, and completely contradicting any facts brought to bear on a conversation, that I can no longer simply accept what someone outside of work tells me. I assume that any answer to a question is some combination of deceptive, ill considered, and wrong. I cross examine every interlocuter with a series of "are you sures?"s and "perhaps you really mean?"s, and "consider the exact opposite of what you just said and imagine for a moment that that were true instead"s. This sort of thing may have served Socrates, well, but in the modern world, it just gets you branded a pain in the ass, and doesn't get you any closer to figuring out why they're threatening to cut off your cable service.

Recently, I have had something of a reawakening to the possibility of competence. A little over a year ago, my son Alexander was born. A prenatal ultrasound had revealed that he had a clubfoot, but we had been reassured that our son would not turn into Richard III and that the clubfoot could be treated non-surgically with a near certain prognosis of correction and normal function. Still the clubfoot was on our minds, and after he was born, it was evident.

The morning after he was born, it became apparent that something more serious than the clubfoot was wrong. The first time he tried to breastfeed, he choked and turned bright blue. Alex was quickly moved from the hospital nursery to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where he underwent a series tests.

It turned out he had a congenital abnormality of the digestive system and trachea called an esophageal atresia and tracheo esophageal fistula (EATEF) as well a minor spine and kidney problem. These problems taken together are a syndrome called "VACTERL" The EATEF part of the deal was "incomptible with life" but completely correctable with surgery.

To make a long story short, the surgery was successful, and Alex came home from the NICU five weeks after he was born. Over the following year, he has grown rapidly and turned into a very cute, active, bright child. There have been a number of complications and scares along the way, and he still requires close follow-up by an army of specialists, but to all outward appearances he is completely healthy and thriving. Obviously, he's also the best looking and smartest baby born in New York in the last several decades, but that goes without saying.

Along the way, I have probed every doctor as I would an accounts payable clerk in the agency where I work. Instead of sullenness, obfuscation, and failure to act, I have been greeted with clarity, compassion, accurate diagnoses, and optimistic prognoses that have all worked out they way the medical professionals said they would. I have met doctors who return calls at any time of day or night, patiently answer every question, laugh at my inappropriate jokes, and most importantly, treat Alex carefully and compassionately.

For all the good this has done Alex, it has also taught me to once again to value the opinions and abilities of other people. So these fine people have given me two gifts -- a wonderful, thriving son (who before the middle of the 20th century could not have survived), and they reanimation of a small piece of my own soul. I still yell at accounts payables clerks, but every once in a while, I allow myself to expect a co-worker to do something right the first time. They haven't lived up to that expectation yet, but I have hope.