Borderline

Back on the interview trail, I ran into quite a few interesting applicants. Even blogged about a few of them. But while those people were quirky, none of them were flat-out mean or distasteful. None of whom I had complete misgivings about possibly working with.

Except one.

There was one girl, who was so hung up on her awesome prestigious school, that she would work it into all of her introductions. "Hi, I'm Casie from Hopkins." "Oh your name is Mary? I go to school in Maryland. You know...Hopkins." One time, she didn't even bother with her name, but rather just shook the fellow applicant's hand and replied with "Hopkins."

I swear, to this day, that applicant probably thinks that's her name. Hopkins.

She was at three of my interviews.

But she was insufferable starting with the first. At that one, the program director had memorized our names, and greeted us warmly when we walked in the door as he poured us cups of coffee into real mugs. I was impressed, to say the least. Casie was less so, far less so. "It's pronounced KAY-see," when he called her "kass-see."  He quickly apologized, as normal people are apt to do, but she wouldn't let it go. "I don't know why everyone pronounces it wrong! It's not that hard," she responded, ending her sentence with laugh, as we all stood there in stunned silence, seeing as she had just reprimanded a rather distinctive figure in our field.

The All-About-Casie show continued. Halfway through the hospital tour, she held up her hand and asked the chief resident - in falsetto - if she could use the little girls' room. Of course, he replied, expecting her (as we all did) to just excuse herself and go, and continued on with his discussion of the psych ER. She held up her hand again, "Haha, but wait! I don't want to miss out on the tour! I mean, I need to know about the psych ER too if I'm to rank this program highly, right? So do you mind just waiting? I won't be more than ten minutes!"

You'd think it couldn't possibly get any worse, but it does.

We then got in a van to continue our tour at the other training site. The car was filled to the max, and the road was bumpy. The girl sitting between me and Casie started to feel ill, and she started dry-heaving, as discreetly as humanly possible. Feeling her pain, I asked if she was okay and started to turn AC vents towards her. That's when Casie noticed. "Oh hell, are you feeling sick?!" The girl in the middle nodded imperceptibly, as she turned a darker shade of green. "God, are you gonna puke? Because this suit costs a motherload, and believe me, I will make you pay for the cleaning costs if you get it dirty." I was staring at Casie in shock when she finally addressed me, "And hun? Do you mind not turning those vents towards me? You're drying out my contacts."

I never blogged about her, because well, she wasn't entertaining. She was just flat out horrific. The only redeeming factor about her was how vocal she was about wanting to stay in Maryland, at her home program. Because her husband had a very lucrative job with the government. And all of these other programs were safety programs for her, because hey, given her resume - her perfect resume, mind you - she could go wherever she wanted. I mean, do you know who she is? Do you know who she's worked with? Who she's done research with?? It also helped that she was half Alaskan Eskimo, and therefore, programs would be begging her to rank them first. Of course, and that's not even mentioning her sparkling personality.

So imagine my face when I walked into LPS training with all the psychiatry interns from programs in the area, and sitting there was my dear friend Casie. Cue disbelief and horror. But you know what? People act strangely during interviews. Interviews are a strange trip. I know that I said and did things that were questionable. So I figured, let bygones be bygones, and let's make new first impressions, right?

With that in mind, I introduced her to another psych intern, whom I had just met in the elevator. "Casie, meet Mandy!" Mandy smiled warmly and extended her hand, "you're from Hopkins!" having seen the info sheet with all our names and medical schools. Casie smiled indulgently, "Oh my goodness, why does everyone keep bringing that up? We're all equals here. No need to go on and on about my pedigree."

And with that, I became quite ecstatic that even though we're in the same neighborhood, I'll most likely never need to see or interact with Casie ever again. Thank the heavens. Seriously.

I mean, seriously!