"It's our Job"

 

The 2003 film Boudica- Warrior Queen is one I can't watch too often because it will give me one of my legendary "Boudica moments"; and I can't keep having those. It's worth seeing though, even if you only do so once. It's a very good dramatization of one of the most significant events in history, one that changed the entire course of Britain's future, or even maybe that of the whole world. The reasons why I think this are complicated, but they're all in the background link below. One of the best aspects of the film is Michael Feast's performance as the Roman general Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. Not very much is known about Suetonius outside of the facts reported by the historian Tacitus, that he led the military response to Boudica's rebellion; but in the movie he is given a very interesting personality. He does his duty for Rome like any other good legionary, but privately he is filled with guilt, self-doubt and sympathy for his enemy. There's a scene in the evening just before the Battle of Watling Street where Suetonius is talking to his aide-de-camp and the following conversation takes place:
SUETONIUS: What a primitive way of settling disputes. All that slaughter. Better to toss a coin then we could all go home.
AIDE: And you and I would be looking for employment, sir.
SUETONIUS: Good. I'd like to learn to build a straight wall. (Chuckles) Look at them. They're fighting this war to save their people, to keep the right to their own land, to preserve their religion and the right to practice it; and we're fighting it because... we're here and it's our job and... Professional pride really. It's not enough is it?... I'll turn in now." (Both men stand)
AIDE: Goodnight, sir. And a glorious victory for the emperor tomorrow!
SUETONIUS: (Over his shoulder, cynically) Hmm. Quite.
Source: https://youtu.be/YNF7WGQYmd0?si=0qm6muxGruzrIOHA&t=4854.

What's interesting about this dialogue that it reminds me very much of the general difference between management and the healthcare providers, both hospital portering and civilian. People who get into medicine, nursing and other PAM's often do so out of passion. Their work becomes a part of themselves in every way, as I myself say here: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/its-not-job.html. People attracted to administration are very different. They tend to be very unscrupulous, not positively evil; just amoral, detached, indifferent. This is why it was so easy for me to predict which porters were most likely to be promoted. For them life is very simple. They do things, get things they like and avoid things they don't like. The kind of Hamlet-like introspection, dilemma and hesitation that I constantly experience is not only unknown to them; it is incomprehensible. There's a new phenomenon in popular psychology known as the "NPC", a computing term that stands for "non-player character". In a computer game an NPC is any character not controlled by a player and is instead generated and activated by the game's own program. The NPC therefore has no mind or personality. This has become a metaphor for a certain personality type, often illustrated by the Wojak meme with a simple line drawn face. NPC's are not to be confused with psychopaths. NPC's do have a conscience and can feel empathy, but they cannot act on it. This is because they have no internal thought dialogue and so are incapable of changing their minds about anything or generating an original action without an external mental stimulus. In the film, Suetonius jokes about building walls, but he is clearly in the wrong job. He forces himself to suppress his own conscience in order to function in the Roman army. I call these people "pseudo-psychopaths". He is clearly no NPC, but his aide-de-camp is. Managers can switch on and off their robotic nature depending on whether or not they are on duty, which is interesting. In the social club some of them behave like anybody else and are even good company. This makes it obvious that being robotic and mindless is not essential to running a hospital, even though many people will claim that it is. There's simply something about the modern healthcare system that seems to demand it of people. My own confrontation with this mindset was very revealing. It was in a strange way a bit like the Boudican revolt with myself on the side of the Britons, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/01/ten-years-on.html. This difference between myself and most other people I know could be the very reason I experience Boudica moments.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2025/02/boudica-portal.html.