Sexism and Racism.

Racism & sexism

One of the strange things about Stripperland is that people tell you what they really think. Some combination of alcohol, that they will probably never see you again, entitlement and the fact that you’re a stripper (so they don’t have to respect you) shows you a side of society that can be really depressing. It’s also interesting to work in different clubs and see how different the beliefs of different areas are.

Sexism:
Before being a stripper, I was not too fussed about the word ‘feminist.’ I knew feminism was important, and I certainly worked towards equal opportunities for any gender, and I could describe ways in which sexism had already affected my life. But I didn’t think sexism and misogyny was that bad, except for the occasional old dinosaur who hadn’t got with the picture yet. I also  bought into the 'feminazi' strawman.

And then I started working in strip clubs.

I think the scariest behaviour I commonly encounter in strip clubs is men who don’t listen.
They tell me I’m attracted to them, they tell me I’m wet for them, they shush me when I stop them from breaking the touching rules. Some of them have tried to sexually assault me with fingers and mouths, but they don’t see it as sexual assault. They see it as being intimate, as getting with a girl who wants them, even as I’m there yelling at them that I don’t want them, they can’t do that, and they can fuck right off. I have never been raped or penetrated at work (mostly because I’m on the ball), but I learned from this that most rapists don’t know they’re rapists. These are the same men who roll their eyes when feminists talk about entitlement, who are perfectly normal people most of the time, who’s friends swear black and blue as they get kicked out that he would *NEVER* do that.

Most guys aren’t that bad. I only encounter one or two of them a night. I’m far more likely to encounter more subtle forms of entitlement. For example, men who get angry at me because I don’t want to sit around and talk to them all night when they’re not paying me. These guys come to the strip club to see boobs, but refuse to pay for them. They are literally there to take advantage of our nudity and waste our time. They see that as a successful night. Their excuses include that they’re broke, they can get nudity and sex for free elsewhere, that it’s a waste of money, etc. These are all perfectly valid reasons not to dish out money for luxury entertainment, but expecting me to provide these services for free means that they don’t respect me enough to value my time. I doubt that behaviour would go down well at their work. These men also seem to think it’s perfectly OK to grab a boob or a butt as I walk past or try to talk to them, despite knowing they’ll never pay for it. 
Occasionally, I encounter a combination of the behaviours described above. Sometimes I don’t even have to set eyes on a guy for him to be convinced that I am desperate to fuck him.

And then there’s the little things. The assumptions that make themselves apparent in conversations. That I must be stupid or desperate to do this job, that I have no self-esteem, that I just like easy money. These micro-aggressions are hard to describe, but are like an over exaggerated version of what I get in day to day life as a paramedic. The subtle versions in day to day life are a lot easier to internalise and harder to notice, but they’re there – no matter how much some people want to believe they’re not.
And of course, not every guy who walks into a strip club does these things, because y’know… #notallmen.

Then there are the women. Women are often the worst behaved people in a strip club. They honestly believe that because they are female, the rules don’t apply to them. They touch, then then try to ‘out sexy’ us by dirty dancing with the boys, and then they trash talk us, often in front of our faces. It’s sad, because these women directly teach the men around them that we don’t need to be respected, because we’re strippers.

It has occurred to me that I have traded social status for financial security, although people often overlook how financial security brings a different kind of social status.

Anyway, I rant about sexist stuff all the time. What I actually want to talk about at the moment is racism in Australia.

A funny thing happens in strip clubs. A combination of being well spoken and having to be heard over the music often makes people think we’re English. Being a city girl, if I go and work in a rural club, this becomes very pronounced. I kept tabs on how many people asked me about my accent one night recently. I spoke with approximately 52 people on a Saturday night. 39 of them asked me about my ‘accent.’
I rarely detect any hostility in the question, but their responses when I tell them I was born in Australia are really telling. One of the most common responses is relief and they say things like ‘That’s OK, then’ or ‘Thank God.’ It’s very clear that they like and trust me more because I’m Australian. If that’s not racism, then I’m not sure what is.
I also dance with a lot of girls from around the world. A Gorgeous French girl I work with was telling me about her experiences in Mackay, and how a lot of men wouldn’t talk to her because she wasn’t Australian. This doesn’t seem to be as big a problem in the big cities, where accents and exoticness are often fetishized. Perhaps the city folk just aren’t as racist as the country folk – this would match with my experiences as well as voting data surrounding policies like immigration. I was in a club with her once when she started speaking in French with an English girl, and one of the (very bogan, local) strippers started yelling at her to "Not be rude, speak in fucking English"

Usually I try to make my posts relevant to paramedic practice, and you’re probably reading this going ‘well I’m not a stripper, how is this relevant?’

The thing is that none of this is unusual. People are just more likely to tell you these things to your face in a strip club. As soon as you change the perceived power dynamic, people behave. Society says it’s not acceptable, and those who break these social rules are deviants and weird. But racism just is not weird here, it's surprisingly common. These people are our patients, our society and sometimes, us. And this is how racism and sexism lurk just under the surface, and this is important to know as a paramedic.

And don’t forget, paramedics are people who can also be guilty of this. I definitely see the same forms of racism and sexism in some of the paramedics I have worked with over the years. But they don’t think of themselves that way, they see themselves as people, as proud Australians, as truth tellers, as gentlemen who’s job it is to never hit a woman (I could rant about that line alone for ages. Why can’t it be never hit a person? Or never hit a person who is weaker than you?)
We won’t all like every patient we get, and many of us are inherently unaware of how we might have less trust for someone of a different culture or race, but seriously… I’d like to think paramedics can be better than the behaviour I see in a strip club, even without the professional standards board to keep us in line.

And yes, this is an idealistic view, but that’s no reason to be lazy about it.

Enlightenment

You meet all sorts in a strip club.

Several months ago, I met two brothers in a strip club.
It was their first time, and one of them was very excited for me to perform for him and his brother.
During the dance, I got to chatting. They were both married and having a night out. Their wives didn't know they were at the strip club, as the Mormon faith didn't approve of such things...

Needless to say, I showed them the light!

Imagine this...

Imagine this.

It's summer and you're working in a small town where the club has it's own accommodation for dancers. The accommodation is really nice. It's a gorgeous house surrounded by an 8 foot concrete fence, making it very private. It has huge verandas, luxurious outdoor furniture, an immaculately kept pool with a villa next to it.
It's mid afternoon and you have dragged yourself out of bed, into the pool, as do the other girls. It's private, and you've all performed faux cunnilingus on each other anyway, so everyone is naked. Girls are sun tanning, fake boobs are floating in the water. Bottoms pop up as girls dive. It occurs to you that this is the stuff that wet dreams and playboy fantasies are made of.
Except for one thing...

EVERYONE. CAN'T. STOP. FARTING.


These lithe water nymphs are farting in front of each other and laughing when it smells bad. Sneaking up on each other in the water and letting go of depth chargers. Discussing customers we have farted on over the years (One girl deliberately farts on guys because she thinks it makes them get a longer dance) and generally just being grotty human beings. It's glorious!

Sometimes it's only one or two girls with the toots. Sometimes it's all of us.
Once you've changed a tampon and checked the string in front of your workmates, then stood in front of the mirror and checked yourself for stray toilet paper, got close and personal with sweaty ladies and their odours, farts just aren't a big deal anymore. Being up all night is rough, so when you wake up manners aren't a high priority. Being comfortable is. And having a giggle is a bonus.

So there's no lesson to this post folks. Just an insight into what strippers really get up to in our time off.

TOOT TOOT!

Dancing for people who have disabilities.

Recently, an amazing young woman named Stella Young passed away.
I have been fortunate enough to see her speak and do comedy several times, and there was a lot I loved about her. There's not really anything I can say about her that hasn't already been extensively covered in the media, but that's not why I loved her so. As a disability activist who helped develop the National Disability Insurance Scheme and was a proud member of the LGBTI community, she was a wonderful voice campaigning for acknowledgement that 'crips' (her word, not mine) are sexual beings too.

I hope many of my readers would be familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
For the unfamiliar, it's a theory regarding what a human needs to survive and reach self actualisation. In the world of disabilities, this hierarchy is often used as the gold standard to measure care outcomes.
Despite being invented in the 1940s and not having a great body of evidence behind it, Maslow's hierarchy has stuck around because it is a useful and easy tool with which to assess a persons life and needs.

A quick google search will get you dozens of versions of this pyramid. The one above is taken from Wikipedia. Compare it with the two below, which are both from the first page of a google image search for Maslow's hierarchy.

Do you notice anything different?

Sex has disappeared. Sex, considered a basic need by Maslow is not mentioned at all. Sexual intimacy is turned into 'intimate relationships' or also not mentioned. For some people, intimate relationships implies a close friendship, but this is not what Maslow was implying at all.
In these sanitised versions, sex just isn't talked about. And that's a sadly accurate reflection of what's happening in the world of people who live with disabilities.

The sexual and intimate needs of people living with disabilities aren't often discussed or addressed in our society, despite sexual intercourse and sexual intimacy both being listed on the Maslow's heirarchy of needs.
This is a difficult conversation to have. The idea that humans have a right to sex seems at odds with everything we have learned about not feeling entitled to sex. And when disabilities are involved, new grey areas surrounding consent, abuse and appropriate use of public funds emerge.
It seems obvious to me that this is an area where sex workers are needed in our society, yet many people continue to buy into the notions that sex workers are all trafficked victims - and that sex work itself is immoral and dirty.
Fortunately, both advocates for people living with a disability and sex workers who specialise in working with disabilities are starting to make headway in this discussion.
For anyone interested in seeing both what empowered sex work looks like, and the difference sex workers can make in the lives of people who live with disabilities, I'd like to direct you to a movie called Scarlet Road.

But I'm a stripper, not a full service sex worker. I provide company, entertainment, fantasy and gratuitous nudity. My services are considered a luxury reserved for those who can afford them. Does this mean disabled people don't deserve to access my services?

People living with a disability do come to strip clubs. Some of them save a portion of their disability allowance (which doesn't even keep them above the poverty line) so as to enjoy some kind of fantasy and intimacy with women they could never flirt with outside of this environment. These people are judged as wasting public funds.

Some people are fortunate enough to have a wealthy family, or are able to work, or acquired their disability after amassing a reasonable amount of wealth. The non-judgmental eyes of a stripper is one of the few places they can go to live out their fantasies, especially in places where full service sex work is illegal. Surely, in an age when governments and services are focusing on enabling people living with a disability to live as normal lives as possible, they're entitled to partake in the same services as everyone else. I think they are.

Over the years, I have danced for many people with disabilities.
I've danced for the deaf, many of whom would argue that being deaf is not a disability.
I have danced for men in wheelchairs, and navigated clubs that don't have disabled access in order to find a space to do it.
But the most memorable ones for me are the men I have danced for with Acquired Brain Injuries (ABIs).

Two men in particular stand out in my memory. Both have severe ABIs that affect their daily life, both chose me to spend time with in a strip club. Both reminded me that there are a lot of transferable skills between being a stripper and a paramedic.

Dancing for men with ABIs is hard!
The normal fun, exciting, bubbly pace of a stripper is difficult for them to keep up with. A lot of strippers don't realise they have an ABI and describe them as 'that weird, creepy dude.'
And so once again, my life as a stripper and my life as a (soon to be) paramedic cross over.


Not everyone knows what to look for in an ABI, so the first step is spotting it.
Both of these men had interrupted speech patterns and required extra time to process their thoughts and decisions. Adding alcohol doesn't speed this up. Both of these men required extra time and space to decide if they wanted a dance from me. When time is money, and sales training tries to rush people into a decision, spotting the difference between someone who wants to waste your time and someone who actually does need time is important.

Keeping things simple:
Don't overload them with information and decisions. Speak (relatively) slowly and only give them one question at a time.
I've seen both dancers and paramedics make this mistake many times.
A great example of a paramedic making this mistake was when we were going to transport a woman with a TBI and a flare up of her chronic condition. The paramedic said something like 'Don't worry, we'll take you to the hospital where the doctors can sort you out. You'll want to bring your coat because it's cold outside. Do you have everything you need like your wallet and keys?'
It was obvious that our patient couldn't keep up with all of this information and quickly became confused. She got her wallet and asked if we were going to the hospital.

Setting clear expectations:
Remember, this person doesn't process information easily. Take the time to explain the rules of the dance and give them time to process it. With patients, take the time to explain what's going to happen next, and give them time to process it. Then tell them about the next step, and let them process that.

Reflective listening, sympathy and empathy.
We all learn about these, we all think we're good at doing these, but this is a difficult skill and most of us suck at it. When someone is describing their daily challenges to you, challenges that you have never had to face or endure, get away from saying 'I understand' or 'I'm sorry' or redirecting to a happier topic. Don't minimise their hardships. This person wants their feelings to be validated, but validating feelings while not allowing the conversation to become too negative is a fine line. The 'It could be worse' option is also really insulting, unless you know that person well.
'That sounds really difficult, but I'm glad you've kept your sense of humour' or 'You have been really unlucky, but we can still enjoy our time together today' allows you to acknowledge and validate their feelings without allowing the conversation to turn into a pity fest.

Unfortunately, due to the anonymity of my blog, I can't talk about where I originally had to practice and get good at all of this, you'll just have to trust me. Conveniently, this approach works well with most patients, especially confused, affected or those who don't have great English. So remember, slow down, keep it simple, acknowledge their struggle and find something positive about meeting them today. It takes practice and reflection, but you'll be fine.

The therapeutic slap.

Paramedics often joke about the therapeutic slap.
For any non-medical people reading this, it comprises of a sharp blow to the face, used to treat whingers, time wasters and hypochondriacs.
As a stripper, I often get to implement what I call a ‘therapeutic whipping’. While I’m sure the legalities of a therapeutic whipping are murky at best, it’s usually put down to being part of the adventure of a strip club. In fact, our standard buck's show (Stags, for you Americans) involves some "lesbian" action, followed by riding the buck like a pony, whipping him with a belt - preferably his, but friends are always happy to both provide one and hold him down if he doesn’t - and then sitting on him whilst using shaving foam to set his butt crack and nipples on fire. 
You know you’re studying to be a paramedic when you clear contraindications such as aspirin, warfarin, back problems and recent surgery before doing this. You know you're a stripper when you can make it a part of a great show. However, not all therapeutic whippings are used to sadistically beat up bucks in front of their friends. Often, if you’re having a bad night or if someone is being rude to you, they can be wonderfully cathartic.

A case study in the use of therapeutic whipping:
It was early on a Saturday evening. So far, around 20 girls had started and not a single client had yet walked into the club. As usual when it’s quiet, we separated into our groups of friends and were catching up on gossip (gossip is a big part of both stripping and paramedic communities!). If ever there were a case for strippers not being victims, it’s in the way 20 pairs of predator eyes fell upon the first group of guys that walked into the club that night.
Not wanting to scare them off too quickly, we allowed them to get a drink and get settled, then slowly started taking turns approaching the guys and attempting to get a dance.
A short time later, one of the guys left the group and approached me, asking me to take his friend, the birthday boy for dance and paying me discreetly. Obligingly, I approached the birthday boy, reached out my hand and gave him a theatrical and commanding “Matt! You’re coming with me!”
Matt was a skinny, tattooed, ego toting, sideways cap wearing young man celebrating his 21^st birthday. I was less than impressed when the first words out of his mouth were “I’m not paying for it”. After assuring him that it was already paid for, he was much more amenable but hardly excited about being dragged into the lap dance room. On the way, I tried to engage Matt in conversation and create a connection.
“So, I hear it’s your birthday! How old are you turning?”
“21.”
“Cool! Are you having a good day so far?”
“S’alright”
“Awesome! So what do you do?”
“Tattoo artist”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“S’alright”
By now, I’d figured out that Matt was not particularly interested in talking, nor did he appear to be particularly interested in anything. So I decided to just give him a great birthday lap dance and then let him take his three syllable responses back to people who seemed to enjoy them.
Usually in a dance, you start in your lingerie or costume, then slowly take it off, piece by piece, to elongate the tease. This particular night I was in lingerie, I had removed my top half and was sexily bending over and shaking my butt at young Matt. Matt was looking as unimpressed with me as he seemed to be with the rest of the world, but I was determined to give him a friendly, happy, sexy lap dance anyway (yes, even strippers can take pride in their work).
He seemed so keen on not communicating, I was genuinely surprised when he pointed his chin at my G-string and told me to “Take ‘em off”.
“Excuse me?” I said, startled at his rudeness.
Again he repeated the chin gesture and said slightly louder to “Take ‘em off”.
I’d been removing my clothes for money for almost a year by the time this happened, so I not only knew that I wouldn’t be spoken to like that, but also had inspiration on how to handle it.
I smiled sweetly at him, helped him from his chair, gently turned him around and put his hands where he had been sitting. He seemed confused.
“THAT IS NOT HOW YOU SPEAK TO A LADY. TRY AGAIN!” I demanded as I used every bit of strength I could summon through the grace of pole dancing arms and my 6 inches of stilettos to give him the mother of all spanks on his ass. It hurt me to deliver, but it definitely hurt him to receive. I was also somewhat amazed at the ferocity of it.
Matt was tense and quiet for a moment, and I started to worry maybe I’d *actually* injured him.
“Babe…?” he asked, nervously.
“WHAT?!”
“Take ‘em off… please?” he eventually asked in a small voice.
“THAT’S BETTER! SIT DOWN!” I demanded as I delivered one more blow to his ass.
He did as he was told, and so I finished the lap dance making sure that I took my sweet time to take my underwear off. After I returned him to his friends, I had a giggle with the other strippers about it. They then took it upon themselves to smack his butt and tell him to “Say please!” whenever they saw him for the rest of the night.

One of my lecturers often says that if it felt good to say, you shouldn’t have said it. This is usually true in stripping as well as paramedicine, but sometimes strippers can get away with it…

Ramping

Ramping is currently a huge issue in Australian ambulance services. As health budgets are tightened and emergency departments get busier, ambulances are having to wait longer to hand over their patients. The flow on effect to the ambulance services has been devastating, but no one wants to admit it. Crews are now tied up at hospitals rather than available. Ambulances are having to travel longer distances to get to patients, because their local resources are ramped. Paramedics are getting busier, without down time, and sometimes without meal breaks. And as a result, patients are waiting longer for their ambulance, and are more likely to get tired, hungry, inexperienced crews. Unfortunately, another side effect of the crazy workload is that paramedics are burning out and moving to greener pastures. Everyone in my degree has been warned that the average time for graduates to stay in the service within my state is three to six years. Considering it takes four years to become a qualified paramedic here, it’s not surprising that students are talking about their backup plans before we even graduate. 

Here’s a surprise for you – strippers have ramping problems, too!
If you have read the rest of my blog, you will know that Australian strippers make their income from lap dances, and very little (if any) comes from ‘tips’. So we sell (‘hustle’) lap dances. Once we have a client for a lap dance, we take them to the lap dance room or area, but on busy nights, this may be full. Then we have to wait. The time we spend waiting is not time we are paid for. We can’t take that time out of the lap dance we have sold, and it’s time during which we can’t make money. We’re effectively in limbo until a room becomes available and we can complete the transaction. On quiet nights, this is never a problem. But on a busy night, I’ve lost up to 1/5^th of what I could have made to ramping. Ramping time is also risky. During this time, the client could change his mind, in which case all the time I have spent hustling and waiting is wasted. Or he could be drunk and become abusive or grabby towards other people in line, and get kicked out. 

So what can we do about ambulance ramping and response times? The simple answer is to open more hospital beds and provide more ambulances, but fixing things costs money that no one wants to spend. However the unions, professional bodies and some politicians apply constant pressure to make these things happen. As for strippers ramping? Well that’s not a public health issue, but a union would be helpful. I’ve heard a stripper union exists in Australia, but to date I’ve heard nothing about them, I can’t find them with a google search and if they were active, there are much more pressing things going on in the industry that they would have to give attention to first.

Showgirls, Paramedics and the Diva Complex

In Stripperland, showgirls are usually the girls at the top of their game. To be a showgirl, you have to be hot and have a good stage show. If you have won a title such as Miss Nude, Miss Centrefold or Miss Penthouse, you’re almost guaranteed to receive the perks of being a showgirl. These perks include clubs paying you to visit or do your shows, as they advertise your presence to help get customers through the door, and generally being treated like a star.
Unfortunately, being treated like a star, being at the top of the game and having a huge disposable income can get to some people, and thus divas are born.

Of course, not all showgirls have a diva complex. And not all strippers have to be a showgirl in order to develop a diva complex. And most strippers are really friendly and approachable. But being a showgirl is definitely a huge predisposing factor, kind of like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

At my home club (the club I work in most regularly), we have a new showgirl. Normally a showgirl can at least fake being classy, but this special lady who I affectionately refer to as Potty Mouth is one of the most loudmouthed bogans I’ve ever met.
New management brought her with them, in stark contrast to the huge refurbishment and ‘classier’ image they are attempting to create for the club.
Potty Mouth is friendly enough to the other dancers, however the other girls aren’t quite sure how to handle her. She appears to have no filter between her brain and her mouth, and spends an unseemly amount of time telling people she’s glad she’s now a showgirl, she’s not a stripper she’s a showgirl, and threatening the bar staff that if they don’t show more cleavage, management will fire them – and she knows, because she’s a showgirl!
Potty Mouth also can’t hustle and instead relies upon the shows that management reserve for her. Her idea of a seduction is to yell at someone “Don’t be a fuckin' pussy, grab my tits!” She has no title, no stage skills, and thinks she’s talented because she does more extreme shows than anyone else in the club. What she doesn’t advertise is that she does the more extreme shows because she’s the only registered sex worker in the club, and it would be illegal for the rest of us to allow clients to fuck us with a dildo on stage. I do feel for Potty Mouth, as while she’s clearly not the brightest girl in the club, she enjoys the work. The new management have put her in a really awkward situation that’s bound to blow up eventually.

My next favourite diva is Parrot.
Parrot doesn’t work in any of my clubs anymore, which is a welcome relief. Her special talent was annoying everyone in the club. Parrot is the only person I know of who has managed to piss of the door girl, the bar staff and security before setting foot in the change room. She’d yell and snap her fingers at anyone who wasn’t a client to bring her a drinks waitress, carry her bags, or do other things for her. She’d open her bag in the middle of the change room floor and spread her stuff so that no one could walk into/around the change room without stepping on it. She was rude. She was hot. She could hustle. She broke all the rules. And she got under Amazon’s skin.
Amazon is a huge, fit, tank of a woman with a temper. Parrot is a tiny, loud, fit girl with a drug problem. When their egos collided, something was bound to happen.
I was in a lap dance one night, when suddenly someone started screeching. It sounded like a parrot was being raped (hence the nick name Parrot). Amazon had finally snapped.
Amazon used Parrot's hair to pull her off a client mid lap dance and throw her across a room. It wasn’t much of a fight, as Parrot’s only defence seemed to be rupturing tympanic membranes. However it was an awkward few minutes while security arrived to pull the girls apart. Both were sent home, but only Amazon was allowed to return. Apparently assaulting another stripper was still less drama than everything Parrot had done. 

Divas always seem to have a friend or two ‘on their side’. Someone who tells them what they want to hear, and generally validates their point of view. This adds to the drama that surrounds them.
I was recently visiting a club with a friend. I’ve worked at this club a few times, and it’s usually pretty friendly, however I was disturbed to find that my things kept getting moved from the corner of a bench where I put them. One night, one of the showgirls came in (late) and explained that it was her spot. So rather than start a scene, we moved over as much as we could to let her in (there’s not exactly a lot of room). Apparently this wasn’t enough, so when she moved my friend's stuff in front of her, my friend pointed out that if she just asked it would be fine, but touching her stuff wasn’t cool (it’s a pretty big no-no even).
Cue drama.
My friend was then ‘helpfully’ advised by one of Showgirl's fangirls that Showgirl had been at the club for ages, does good shows and is friends with all the managers, so it’s best to stay out of her way. My friend responded that we all had to use the bench space, and if she just asked before throwing my friend's stuff around, it would be fine. I then had the first hand pleasure of watching the fangirl start the gossip. It was like an episode of Mean Girls – or so I assume, as I’ve never actually watched an episode of Mean Girls. Every dancer that walked in got the goss about ‘how the new girl kept trying to take Showgirl’s spot’. One of the dancers also pointed out that we all have to use the bench and moving each other's stuff without asking isn’t really cool. But that wasn’t enough to stop the DJ from hearing about it, and asking my friend what had happened later that night.
As tempting as it is to glitter bomb her locker (yes, she has a locker too – but that’s not enough) it’s not worth the drama. Being friendly, staying out of trouble and not being a drama queen is what keeps me welcome in so many clubs without being a showgirl. 

So, as fun as these stories are, how do they relate to paramedics?

I’m a student paramedic. Everytime I go on a placement, I’m the new girl, the noob, the one who hasn’t finished learning or earned any ‘respect’ in the job yet. So if there’s a diva around, it’s almost a sure thing that I’ll either get in their way or they’ll blow me off.
Anecdotally, IC paramedics seem to have a higher rate of divas than ALS. However flight paramedics seem to be the real showgirls of paramedic land, and I can see the similarities – they’re at the top of their game, in the public's eye, and a disproportionate number of them seem to be really, really good looking (thanks, Zoolander – your vernacular is astounding). I’m not saying that all flight paramedics have a diva complex, or that there’s not good reason for them to have it. What I am saying is that when you’re at the top of your game, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that being good at your job does not make you good to work with.

So I'm politely requesting that no matter what kind of paramedic or stripper you are, make sure you make some space for the newbie, and create a good reputation for yourself in the process.