Client Conflict

So I’m a web developer and I often have Zoom meetings with clients. Today I had a meeting with a couple of clients: the project manager and the guy in charge, a medical doctor, top of his field.

We’re in the process of setting up podcasts on Spotify. The project manager asks if either of us is aware of the Spotify controversy. I, of course, because I am The Inmate, know all about this. She starts explaining the Joe Rogan controversy and then makes a comment about “horse dewormer.”

Now I’ve never talked politics with either one of these people, though I did inadvertently flash my Trump coffee mug at them one day during a Zoom meeting because I forgot I had a meeting that day, which is not nearly as bad as what some CNN employees do during Zoom meetings. I do try to keep politics out of my professional life. However, I could not let that comment pass, so I politely explained it is actually called Ivermectin and the guys who invented it won the Nobel Prize for it in 2015. Interestingly enough when I asked the project manager if she knew who Dr. Robert Malone was, she did not, even though the Joe Rogan controversy involved his interview of Dr. Malone.

We got into a discussion about free speech and I explained to them that though they have the freedom to voice their opinions on any major platform, I do not. I explained that my side of the story is always labelled “misinformation”, that good doctors who espouse the views I hold are demonized and in some cases lose their medical licenses.

My medical doctor client was strangely quiet almost the entire time as the two of us argued. When he finally chimed in he believed erroneously that there is no proof that Ivermectin works. It does work. My question to him was simple, even if there was no such proof why shouldn’t I be allowed to try it if I wanted to? His answer was essentially, I’m not a professional and it’s only anecdotal evidence anyway. Again, who cares? I explained that off-label use is very often approved by the FDA and up to the doctor’s discretion also explaining I have a doctor who will prescribe it.

That ended the conversation. I’m not exactly sure why, but I suspect it is because he thinks I am essentially a conspiracy theorist or someone brainwashed by one.

I think the same about him. The only difference is, I’m right.

Okay, look, I’m kind of kidding with that, but not entirely. The difference between my two clients and myself is that I know their side. They don’t know my side. She didn’t even know who Doctor Malone is. We are bombarded with their information every day: “safe and effective”, Tony (Dr. Death) Fauci, the CDC, the FDA (It’s approved, right? No, it’s not.). Radio and television commercials, it just doesn’t stop. But our side is not represented in the MSM. Oh wait, we are represented, but only in a very bad light.

Damn! I am right.