Before I get to the actual duck metaphor discussion I have to give some backstory.

Columbus Comprehensive Health Center (no link, site has been taken down by us) was the brain child of a friend of ours, Melinda. The basic idea was a much more holistic approach, which included not only traditional western medicine, but practicioners of a host of other modes of treatment: reiki, image therapy, massage, life coaching, ayurveda, homeopathy, psychology, and a few others. Your first appointment with there was an interview in which you basically dumped all your physical and mental issues, the profile was then given to all the practioners to comment on and offer up how they would treat the patient (and obviously not all modes addressed all the patient’s issues). So, you got several opinions and ideas for the issues you brought up. Clearly not your typical doctor’s office visit.

So, Melinda got the center up and running, gathered the various practioners and so on. I think the idea was to hopefully get investors, or failing that find a buyer. It took a while and the center certainly struggled monetarily (Rachel did their web work and we traded services for services to help with the cashflow), but eventually The Ohio State University offered to buy them. The deal went through after a some negotiation and all that. Melinda got a tenure track position at OSU and was director of the center.

Then the crap started, as they say, to flow downhill. To make a long story short there was a great deal of bureaucratic bullshit, ass covering, and plain old two-faced, deciption and fucking over that went on. Really, there’s no polite way to put it, nor is there any reason to mince words about it. Melinda, probably näively, trusted them – and here’s where the duck simile comes on.

OSU, while being an educational institution is, functionally more like a large corporation. (And Rachel and Melinda had some arguments over this which definitely strained their friendship.) They have a board of directors, a management hierarchy, and, as any college student knows, a godawfully retarded bureaucracy. Bureaucrats are primarily, and sometimes entirely self-interested, their operating mode revolves around covering their asses and possibly bucking for promotion. Now, obviously there are exceptions to this, but I am guessing most people will agree this is the norm in most large organizations, particularly in the middle to upper levels of the hierarchy.

So, once the honeymoon was over and the conservative methodologies and paradigms of the bureaucracy set it there was a horrible culture clash with the very progressive vision of Melinda and the center. 300 pound gorillas, being in the main large, might makes right brutes, don’t lose these clashes very often, and this was clearly no exception.

It’s sad and amazing at the same time. Sad because, for all Melinda’s time, effort and sacrifice, she basically got nothing but a chance to sue OSU. Sad because I think her friendship with Rachel was not the only one that was sorely tested and while perhaps some life-lessons were learned on all sides, it seems there will be little else to show for the the time, effort and sacrifice mentioned in the previous sentence, as well some of the same from the other participants in the center. Amazing because, at least from what we hear, the center, now called the OSU Center for Integrated Medicine (OSUCIM, pronounced “Oh Suck ‘Em” around here) will bear so little resemblance to CCHC as to not really be the same thing; in the span of a few months the simian bureaucracy has all but oblierated it.

There is a personal observation I made early on in this saga. The person who seems nominally responsible for the handling of CCHC/OSUCIM, who I won’t name here, I took an instant dislike to. My first, and only interaction with him was via e-mail. There was an error on the CCHC website and I got a somewhat snarky email from this person, which pretty much impuned my ability as well as implying that I more or less didn’t give a crap about the site and the center – which couldn’t be further from the truth. Melinda is a friend and at the time (pre-friendship fraying) we strongly supported the center. So, I fixed the problem, emailed him back to let him no and called him on his insinuations. His response was to reply, Bcc’d Melinda (underhanded of him right there) and act all offended and like he didn’t know what he was doing. Right, either you’re woefully ignorant or you’re too much of a wanker to admit when you were an asshole. Since this person is a doctor, I gave him the benefit of the doubt (not woefully ignorant), which meant that he was a wanker. I was so pissed with this asshole. If he hadn’t Bcc’d Melinda (which was basically an attempt to get me into hot water with her, which it did a little) I would have given him the benifit of the doubt. But, that action cast all his other statement in actions in a much different, and very negative light.

Only one other person, as I later discovered, saw through this guy, one of the psychologists. Suffice it to say that as this person is mostly directly responsible cremating the vision of the center and for Melinda being ‘asked to leave’ (and don’t get me started on bullshit euphemisms for firing someone) I’m feeling pretty vindicated. Small victory, but heh.

Right, the duck metaphor. Just because an entity’s professed mission is something nice sounding (like, say, ‘education’), doesn’t mean that entity isn’t functionally a corporation and should be mistrusted as such. Quack quack.

What now? Now we try to repair a frayed friendship and support that friend – having had her dreams turned to dust she undoubtedly needs it. We all move on with a few pointers on the law of the jungle, namely that it is impersonal at best and destructively self-interested at it’s worse. Rachel suggested, and I agreed, that a care package of dark chocolate and red wine would be a good way to start.