A haunting mystery

My departure from the NIDDK in 2021 was less than smooth but I really didn’t expect hostile behavior on their part. The best example is that within a few weeks after my official departure date, I was invited to participate in a author phone call for a manuscript based on work done by the PLUS research consortium that I had initiated and led for over 5 years. On the call, I was immediately informed that this call was an official PLUS call and I had to leave it immediately which I did.

The very next day I received and email from the NIDDK Ethics officer requesting a Zoom Call to review the rules associated with departure from the government which I well knew. Being on a phone call to discuss the manuscript of work already completed hardly needed to be an ethics violation but the person that replaced me was apparently very threatened.

I declined the invitation – left off the Fuck You!!!! and never participated in another phone call about anything regarding the NIDDK. I grieved for months over the loss of what could have been with the PLUS Research Consortium if my boss had not been such a fucking bully.

In September of 2022, 18 months after I left NIDDK, there was a box outside of my door. I initially thought it was the delivery of the dog food I was expecting for Carli, but it was not heavy enough. When I opened it, there was a 2022 NIDDK Directors Award glass trophy.

There was no letter explaining this in the box. My first response to this was that I was being punked or this was a cruel joke. I went to the NIDDK website to see if there were any postings about the NIDDK Employee Appreciation awards which happened every fall. Nothing. I went back through my emails to see if I had ignored something that might offer an explanation. Nothing.

I received a few other of these trophies for group acknowledgement of primarily administrative and didn’t really mean that much. In my post-retirement grieving process I had broken off of the others in the dumpster one afternoon.

I had deserved recognition from the institute for leading the PLUS Research Consortium to forming a team with a shared vision and commitment to building a new area of science in a new way but it never happened. This group of scientists had delivered in a way no other group had done yet. It was remarkable and everyone who was a part of it or observed it, knew it – except leadership.

While I have no idea if that is what the award is for, I have not destroyed it and will believe that it is the long overdue recognition of all that it took from me personally (with the support of many, many others) to keep the PLUS group moving forward.

However, the emotions it stirred up when it arrived almost made me wish I had never received it. Surely there would have been time for someone to send a letter of explanation. BUT in case it was not for PLUS or was somehow a mistake, my own explanation stands – it is for PLUS.