I know why the caged musician does a line of cocaine

This past month one of the people I've been working with who is very nice but completely different from me (who we'll call SFD) has taken me and another person I work with to tons of places I wouldn't normally frequent. These past few weeks have almost been a study in seeing what the anti-Doc Green would be like. I ate a fancy steakhouse last night at a dinner paid for by a pharmaceutical company which was a first. Of course, SFD knows the speaker who's been flown in to give a talk, and so I get to eat dinner and talk with the speaker who is a very influential member of the medical research up North.

I never go to Steakhouses because aside from fish, I don't eat meat, so that was a little unusual. I also don't generally take gifts from salesmen, especially not expensive dinners but I was given special invitation thanks to a request from SFD and felt obliged to go.

Today I was whisked off in a sports car to a high end jewelry store to try on diamonds that cost upwards of $100,000. Even though I was in scrubs from being at work because I was with SFD I was treated like royalty everywhere I went. Including the fur shop we went to where SFD got me to try on mink, rabbit, you name it. Then I listened to stories about boats, yachts and sailing and more stories about $22,000 bottles of wine.

I have a feeling I am way out of my element entering medicine. I mean I don't know anybody that wears fur or expensive diamonds. I think turning the A/C to 78 degrees is splurging. I really appreciated getting to have the opportunity to see a different side of things but it seems like to network with a lot of the old docs you have to play golf or sail or be something that reminds me of some larger than life WASPy stereotype.

I'm a little disappointed in myself that I never said hey I don't eat red meat or I don't think furs are cool, etc. but if I had it wouldn't have made any difference I would have just been excluded. I guess I know how actors and musicians who come from humble roots end up snorting coke off a bathroom sink and bankrupt. How can you not get swept up when your superior is literally putting thousands of dollars worth of fur on your vegetarian back?

I have to say though trying on some of those diamonds was fun...