When I awoke at 5:45 this morning, your situation in the dialysis clinic was very much on my mind, captioned with the line from Kafka, "Sie hetzen dich" (They're hounding you.) http://www.kafka.org/index.php?dom not because you are already the victim, but because I think I should point out to you a risk that you should take into account in calibrating your policies. In your memorandum "expectations regarding DCI Boston staff conduct" you fulfill your moral (and legal) responsibility to alert your coworkers and subordinates to a potentially critical dysfunction of your organization. For that you are properly applauded. In fullfilling this duty you are implicitly criticising many if not most of your co-workers who have found it expedient to deny that same dysfunction with which they also have been confronted. Your whistle-blowing may threaten and anger not only your subordinates but also your colleagues to an extent that might conceivably threaten your ability to function effectively in your position. It's a paradox that confronts all executives. Consider the CEO of General Motors who is presently being called to task for failing to intervene to secure the recall of millions of vehicles at huge cost for the correction of a minor engineering defect. I interpret the (relatively minor) dysfunction of your clinic as a natural and perhaps largely unavoidable consequence of a) the imperatives of an inherently complex technology, b) the necessity for employing technicians who, as technicians, can have no meaningful personal relationships to their "patients", c) the unnecessary costs and complexities of amblyopic governmental controls, and d) the ideologically driven incitement of patients to "assert their rights." It's nobody's fault. No one is to blame. Everyone is under pressure. If you blame them, they will ALL blame you for having "caused the problem" for refusing to help them sweep it under the rug. Don't forget Dr. Stockmann as the Enemy of the People. [I will confront a similar problem at the plumbing board hearing, where I must hew a narrow line between forcefully making my case while concealing the absurdity of the legal decision on which it must be based.] I reiterate my advice to you: At this juncture: be passive. Do nothing. Neither reiterate nor retract your criticism. Such a policy will protect you by deflecting attention from you. It will permit prevailing organizational and social forces to assert themselves to redefine the situation. There will be future opportunities for you to say what you think.