Is it ok to be boring?

A friend posted this on Face Book recently and it got me to thinking, is it ok to be boring? which, in turn reminded me of the time I took my youngest son to work with me in the summer between his high school graduation and beginning his freshman year of college.  Since neither of my older 2 children showed any interest in the healthcare field, I felt I should, at least, expose my last child to the health care field through the lens of my vocation of Nurse anesthetist (CRNA.)

He came to the operating room for the day and was able to observe both a couple of surgical procedures as well as me administering anesthesia.

On the drive home at the end of the day I asked him. "So, what did you think of surgery and anesthesia?"

Now for reference sake; one of the surgical procedures was a rectal procedure.

"As far as surgery goes," he says, "I could have gone my whole life without seeing that and been ok with that!"

"And anesthesia?" I prompted again.

"I don't want to offend you dad, but anesthesia is pretty boring."

He went on to say, "I know you want it to be boring, dad, because if it's not boring then something is going wrong, and the patient is in danger." But still, it's boring.

I went on to explain that the art and science of administering anesthesia requires intense knowledge as how to make anesthesia safe and boring.  A high percentage of surgical patient's greatest fear is the fear of not waking up from anesthesia.  I do my best to have each patient have the most boring and safe anesthetic possible.

And you may ask, what career did my son pursue?  Why, the exciting and dynamic profession of CPA (certified public accountant.)

From time to time, I ask my son in conversation; "what exciting things did you do at work today?"