Message To The Friend Group
Dearest friends,
Although it feels as if The Ruby Jubilee was lifetimes ago, I think of that time in my life nearly daily. Being with you all has brought so much joy, inspiration and memories that are held close to my heart. I am writing this because, as you all know, I am lengthy with my words both verbally and through novel sized text messages.
Whereas my preference is to cultivate independent conversations with each of you, I believe this will suit mass preferences – to be spared – the repetitive, long winded, circulation of a longform answer as to how I am. This may be projection or assumption but I believe some of you, if not all, have felt some distance from me. Obvious in delayed responses and non-typical lack of details of my day to day or simply a retracted energetic presence.
Truthfully I can’t put words together to explain the events that unfolded since my return to Chicago from London’s magical Ruby Jubilee. I’ve given sparse details to each of you here and there but not the full picture.
Now I write this from a safe and healing place of abundance. I have not been able to respond to messages, I have about 11 pending texts and voice notes and social media tags and messages from you all that I do not want to ignore and want to respond to fully. I want to respond focusing on you and light heartedness. I do not want to talk about what I am about to say, but I will time. I’d rather just move forward and not have this be the focus of our conversations or take away from fun conversations cause I need lightness right now.
On Tuesday, the 9th of September, I fully walked away from the job that you all heard me complain about. It was not planned but it was, in a mystical sense, a divine intervention that stopped me in my tracks. I’ll share the details later because again I can’t find the right words.
However, I fear the follow up questions to these actions as in the past I felt confident in walking away from jobs without financial backing or something else lined up and I know this time will bring the same questions. I do not want to have to explain myself but I also want to provide details but the details are complex. So I need to say please don’t see this as me shutting any one out, this is all going to be revealed in time.
This is all good though – I need you all to trust me on this. My past similar actions were not supported with true confidence but false confidence. This time I am fully confident that I made the right move.
Everything I discussed about my job was difficult but I wasn’t sharing everything because I did not want to burden you and come from a place of complaining and being ungrateful. I also did not see, myself, how bad the situation truly was. It is only from leaving that I finally acknowledge the abuse I was enduring. Had I not been placing emphasis over the last few years on self care and growth, I would have remained blind and accepting of the toxicity.
My previous employer was in fact abusive towards me and others and created a toxic workplace beyond typical job stresses. Over the last few months I finally stood my ground with her and created boundaries that I would not bend. In retaliation she became more abusive, exposing her true self, which included constant harassment outside of my work hours. This took a major toll on my physical health and energy levels. Everything leading up to the events of last weekend were uncalled for and escalated to where I was able to capture the harassment and threats with written documentation via email and text messages.
After finally walking away I was able to see the full picture of what was being done to me and how it affected my life, both mentally and physically. Prior to that I served as a voice to protect the other team members and the patients, not recognising the disrespect I allowed from her to myself. Thankfully, I was not alone in this journey, another team member also walked away at the same time due to the events of this woman also harassing her, pure bullying which also included scare tactics from written emails by a lawyer.
Together we were able to get enough proof of the toxicity and manipulation to leave with documented proof for legal recourse. We have started the process of reporting her to individual authorities but my compiled information exposed a full picture of unethical and illegal actions from her which hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew it was bad, but while in the cloud I could not see just how bad it was. I am now seeking a lawyer and intend to fight for justice not just for myself but for future employees and the kind and loyal patients that I had the pleasure of getting to know.
Non-dental professional friends have heard many of my outlandish stories from dentistry and dental professional friends have their own share of stories from narcissistic and authority driven people in our workspaces. However, everything experienced with this woman takes the cake.
I don’t hate her, I am grateful for the lessons. What most of you don’t know is that my goal in dentistry has always been on the side of consulting. Over the last couple of months I have been gearing up to start my own consulting service as an independent contractor. With the antics I was dealing with at the office draining and taking my energy and focus away from actively scouting jobs in London, I was also in the very early stages of working on my consulting material. This caused conflict with my move to London because I hesitated to take on another patient-facing role, which resulted in me recently deciding that maybe staying put in Chicago would benefit me to allow me to work on my material without any setbacks. With that new focus I scaled back my work hours and pressed harder for my boundaries to be respected, that is what triggered the woman – who I am now referring to as the Venus Flytrap of dentistry – to ensue harsher bullying and manipulation techniques.
What she has given me in hindsight is a gift. While many administrative professionals in America are seeking shelter in the guise of remote work from home dental billing and insurance coordinating jobs, I did not see that as a fit for my passions and skills in dentistry. Alongside that, as much as I know about the business and marketing aspects of dentistry, I still did not feel that suited me. My strengths are in communication and education as an addition to consulting.
What I have been stewing on is material that helps practices in areas other consulting companies do not. That is with the focus on the internal communication and structure of the dental practice for the Dr. and team, as well as with the patient base in the form of new patient acquisitions and case acceptances.
The last few years I have done extensive research and my own training on learning to mediate conflicts within a team and focusing on effective communication with the foundation of systems and structures in place, fair systems and structures. You also know that I have been chipping away at writing my books and proactively seeking to swap careers into communications via broadcast media and journalism. Recently I was given a scholarship for the NYU/Rolling Stones Modern Journalism certificate course, and with all the distractions I haven’t even been able to share this news with everyone but it comes at the perfect time as I embrace this new addition to my career.
This does not make me a victim or a survivor but a voice and this encourages me to embrace my role in dentistry that I am now having to carve out for myself outside of conventional roles that already exist. Simply put, dentistry and writing are who I am and I am not giving up one for the other at this time. I am new to this and it will require more learning to hone my writing craft but I am more than up for this challenge.
So with departing from my previous job it brings me joy to share the news that I am not going back into dentistry as a front desk administrative or management role. I am pursuing my contracting services and writing career full time. That’s where I fear the backlash questions that I know are meant well and out of care and concern, I cannot give you the answers you want to hear at this time. I was not prepared for this to happen NOW but I live with certainty that I am supported by the universe and all the events that happened to lead me to this point were on purpose to carve out this time for me to focus on my writing and my own business.
I have spent the last few days piecing everything together and focusing on taking care of myself. I may be a little distant for the next few weeks but I am still here if any of you need anything. I just won’t be able to give as much as I would like as my time and energy is now focused heavily on legal action, and working on writing my book and consulting material.
Hopefully you made it to the end as I will very soon be responding to your messages and again I want to focus on you and the positive new changes in my life and not talk about the negative and harsh details of what happened or concerns of how I will financially support myself right now, just please trust me. I can’t tell you how I know but I know things are in my favour even if it will be a little tight initially.
With that I want to say that although I previously stated in my last two blog posts that I would stay in Chicago and that I would not publish the “Letters to Bands” book… I take that all back. Letters to Bands will be written and published under a different title and as a companion book to the Ezra Furman book I started writing earlier this year. And I will not be staying in Chicago, I am focused on leaving America but I don’t know if that means relocating to London. I want to go where my work and books will be supported the most.
I am still planning to visit for Christmas/New Years but the tickets will be purchased last minute once revenue begins to stream in. The good news is that now being freelance this opens me up to being able to visit longer!
To give you an idea of what we are looking at legally, below is a summary of some of the areas of concern in which I am reporting. This isn’t everything, someone else is taking care of the clinical reporting side in terms of patient neglect and incompetence. There is also the insurance fraud portion that is not entirely included on the list. I won’t take on all issues but there are a couple that I will focus on with the help of a lawyer of course.
Be well my friends, I miss you dearly but look forward to this new chapter of my life and spending it with you all.
Love,
Julian Rose
Title VII (religion) & retaliation, and ADA (harassment related to ADHD/medication and religious discrimination).
Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act and FLSA (timely pay; proper PTO and raise implementation).
ERISA / Illinois insurance laws (failure to disclose contribution amounts, deduction schedules, and coverage terms).
Chicago Paid Sick Leave and Paid Leave Ordinance (2024) (failure to implement accruals; retroactive denial of benefits).
Illinois Personnel Record Review Act (820 ILCS 40) (denial of access to my personnel records).
OSHA (unsafe/unlawful directives; retaliation).
HIPAA & Dental Board rules (tampering with patient records, ethical breaches).
Illinois Eavesdropping Statute (720 ILCS 5/14-2) (unlawful audio recording).
Obstruction of justice (instructing staff to lie; withholding evidence).
Illinois unemployment protections (constructive discharge tactics).