Hi, Alex.

Hi, Monish.

Today, I have new tech city producer Alex Goldmark in the studio with me.

And Alex, you know how much I love to tell juicy personal stories on this show.

Well, since today, we're talking about ethics and privacy.

Here goes.

The summer after my 18th birthday, I worked in the medical records department of the psychiatric

clinic.

My job was super boring.

I had to photocopy all the notes from each patient's therapy session.

And this was before everything was computerized.

So on my first day, the head of admin pulled me aside to administer a pledge to me, a pledge

not to share anything private that I happened to read while I did all my boring photocopying.

This is like a Hippocratic oath, but for file monkeys.

Exactly.

And I thought it was kind of weird because why would I tell anyone about my filing job,

right?

Until one day, standing there at the copy machine.

Being another file, one page at a time, I realized I knew this patient.

She was my friend's ex.

And I saw my friend's name on every single page.

And I was dying to tell my buddy, but then I remembered the oaths.

...