Or: Why I now hate people
This list is cranky, yes, but everything on it has happened a minimum of twice, and usually much more often than that. And this would be 10 to 15% of our patients. But they take up 90% of my time. And they are making me into a home-bound hermit who screens all her calls.
1. You have a 12 minute conversation with your wife on your cellphone while looming over my desk. A private conversation. About everything on your schedule for the next week. And her schedule. And the dog's schedule.
2. You show up 30 to 90 minutes early to your appointment with your whole extended family, taking up all the seats in the waiting room, and then picnic on MacDonald's while the rest of the patients wander around or lean against my desk, because there is no where to sit.
3. Actually, if you bring anything to eat besides a smoothie or a granola bar (ie, it smells), I hate you.
4. You bring all 5 of your children, all under age 8, to your appointment every time, but you never bring anything for them to do, and they've read and played with everything we have in our meager kids basket a million times.
5. You're always late. Always. Even if we schedule it for 15 minutes later than you say you are coming. And then you have to go to the bathroom, too.
6. You smoke half a pack of cigarettes before coming into the office, and then drown yourself in cologne in the bathroom down the hall. Hot.
7. You complain about our lack of coffee/tea/the tea that you like/muffins/snacks. This is a doctors office. If you are here to eat and drink, you've come to the wrong place. We provide tea in the winter as a courtesy, and there's no guarantee it will be your favorite. Oh, and I know you won't thank us for the tea, either.
8. You try to sneak the People magazine out of the office, requiring me to call you on it like you were a child. Then you complain that we, "probably get them for free anyway." Which is false. And even if it were true, your behavior is still completely inappropriate.
9. You consistently call me Amber, or Amanda, or Susan. None of these are even close to my name. I don't expect you to know my name, but you don't have to make it up, either.
10. You show up early/late and demand to be seen immediately.
11. You sit and stare at me while waiting for your appointment. The whole time. Just staring at me. Why? Read, or at least stare at the wall or something.
12. You stay for an hour after your appointment and read the people magazine out loud to me. Even when I'm on the phone or talking to another patient or, god forbid, working.
13. You ask other patients in the waiting room what they are here for. If you don't know why this is inappropriate, you either have Asperger's or are a jerk. The first is forgivable.
14. Every one minute after your appointment was set to start, you ask me if we are running late, or how long it will be. Once in for your half hour appointment, it turns out you'd like to address not just the one problem, but also three others and also you need a letter written for (employer/other doctor/airlines/fill in the blank). You do not see the correlation between these two things.
15. You come into the office and immediately step up to the counter and announce yourself and shove your credit card at me for your copay, even though I am talking to another person already. You are far more important, apparently.
16. You cannot decide when to schedule. The phone rings/another patient comes in, so I excuse myself to answer it/help them. You nod. I begin taking phone call/helping person, you begin rattling off times that work for you. I am not making eye contact, I try to put my hand up, you talk softer, but you lean in. You assume I am super human, and able to process different conversations in each ear. This is false.
17. Same as 16, but you don't interrupt me. Thank you! However, you do stare at me the whole time, rather than looking at your calender, so when I get back to you, you still have no idea at all what "works for you next week, let me just take a look..."
18. You are fiddling with your smartphone to look at your calender. I have other people waiting behind you/on the phone. You then proceed to answer a phone call/read your email/send a text message. You are unaware that this is rude.
19. You call to schedule, we put you in at 3. You call back 5 minutes later, move it to 5. You call 30 minutes later, and ask to move it back to 3. This appt. has since been filled. You sigh loudly and hang up on me, leaving me to wonder when/if you will be coming.
20. Every time you come in, you ask me to explain your insurance benefits. Every time, I explain them to you to what seems like your satisfaction. The next time, we will have the same exact conversation. I seem to be the only one who is listening.
21. You have a conversation on your phone, with your phone on speaker, and there are 3 other people quietly waiting for their appointments. You don't notice.
22. You come in with the flu/strep/something contagious. We are not seeing you for your illness. You fail to see how this might be unwelcome as you cough without covering your mouth.
23. Worse, you bring your sick child in with you. I end up helping her in the bathroom. She has the stomach flu. You fail to even say thank you, or acknowledge in any way that this is above and beyond my job.
24. When you came in/called earlier, I was in the bathroom. You give me a hard time for slacking off at work the next time you see or talk to me.
25. I have to miss work for a personal reason. The next time you see or talk to me, you ask me about it, I politely decline to discuss it. You keep asking me about it, and ask my boss about it too. You make guesses.
26. Related, you ask me if I'm pregnant at least 3 times a year. I've actually lost 17 pounds in the last year. You ask anyway, and you always have follow-up questions: Why not? When will you try? Etc. I've never brought the very personal topic of reproduction up with you or any other patient, ever.
27. You leave a message at 3am about wanting an appointment, but without mentioning a specific day or time. I leave you a return message in the morning, just throwing some times out there. You call back at the end of the day and want to get that 5:30 I mentioned, which is 10 minutes from now. You are pissed when told it's been taken, and say you'll call back later. Rinse and repeat.
28. You hit on me. You hit on another woman in the office. You complain to me that girls are all the same. Nothing about this strikes you as inappropriate.
29. You lean over my counter to try to look at my computer screen, or start to read the things on my desk out loud. You are offended when I turn the screen away or cover the things on my desk.
30. You reach down to my desk to remove a pen, despite the pen holder full of pens right in front of you. You give me a hard time for not sharing my personal pen.
And that's only 30 of the reasons I have for hating people and becoming a homebody. Certainly not complete, but I feel a little better getting that off my chest. Thank you, everyone.
PS. Before you take the time to leave this comment, I'll get it out of the way: Why, yes, I could get another job. I mean, probably not easily, what with the crappy economy and all. Truth is, I do like my job. I love to people I work for, I love the people I work with, and I like most of our clients. It's just that people do things that drive me insane, you know? And that's what this blog is about: me ranting and blowing off some steam so I don't get fired for throwing a phone receiver at someone's face.
Have a nice day.
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