A Post For Venting
Aug. 10th, 2011 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoySo as job interviews continue to get me nowhere, I’ve started working more at Dad’s office in order to score some extra cash. Which is all well and good, except yesterday I got reacquainted with one of those joys of office work: the Möbius conversation. In case you aren’t familiar with this barrel of laughs, it consists of getting told off by an angry old person who seems to think that if the conversation isn’t going their way, they should just start over and this time it should work.
Their main points, repeated over and over, are as follows:
1. They are close personal best friends with the doctor,
2. They deserve special consideration for being totally old, and
3. Also for being in pain
Although if you think about it, 2 and 3 don’t really distinguish them as special cases in a neurosurgeon’s office. Most of the patients we see are old and in pain. That’s too bad, but it is not unique.
As for the first point they make, I never tell them I’m the doctor’s daughter. I just let them ramble on about the piss-poor attitude I’m demonstrating when I politely enforce office policy,* and how ten years ago when the doctor did surgery he said “Come back if you ever need more neurosurgery” so that was an open invitation to call him and complain about your latest medical shit, and how once they do get to talk to him my ass will be SO FIRED because of my piss-poor attitude and did they mention he told them to come back and so forth. I am just polite and professional and respond that I will let the doctor know they called,** and every time they repeat their demands I repeat my answers, until they finally get bored and hang up.
Because, you see, if they do wind up needing NEUROSURGERY, at some point they’ll find out that the inoffensive girl they shouted at was in fact related to the doctor, and they will recall how they were total dicks to her every time they talked, and they will wonder if she relayed their nastiness to her dad. Some folks have no shame, but for the rest—never underestimate the thousand deaths of sudden guilt.
I think it’ll be fun working here again.
*Office policy: We are a NEUROSURGEON’S office, and as such, we will not schedule a consult until you can show us a note from your primary care physician stating “I think this patient needs some NEUROSURGERY done.” Because sometimes your physician finds out that you need something else entirely done, and if you brought that straight here you would be wasting the NEUROSURGEON’S time if it turned out to be a kidney stone.
**Another office policy: we will relay things to the doctor and let him decide if you need to talk to him, personally, because he is busy doing goddamn NEUROSURGERY and does not need to hear you whine about The Sciatica.
Their main points, repeated over and over, are as follows:
1. They are close personal best friends with the doctor,
2. They deserve special consideration for being totally old, and
3. Also for being in pain
Although if you think about it, 2 and 3 don’t really distinguish them as special cases in a neurosurgeon’s office. Most of the patients we see are old and in pain. That’s too bad, but it is not unique.
As for the first point they make, I never tell them I’m the doctor’s daughter. I just let them ramble on about the piss-poor attitude I’m demonstrating when I politely enforce office policy,* and how ten years ago when the doctor did surgery he said “Come back if you ever need more neurosurgery” so that was an open invitation to call him and complain about your latest medical shit, and how once they do get to talk to him my ass will be SO FIRED because of my piss-poor attitude and did they mention he told them to come back and so forth. I am just polite and professional and respond that I will let the doctor know they called,** and every time they repeat their demands I repeat my answers, until they finally get bored and hang up.
Because, you see, if they do wind up needing NEUROSURGERY, at some point they’ll find out that the inoffensive girl they shouted at was in fact related to the doctor, and they will recall how they were total dicks to her every time they talked, and they will wonder if she relayed their nastiness to her dad. Some folks have no shame, but for the rest—never underestimate the thousand deaths of sudden guilt.
I think it’ll be fun working here again.
*Office policy: We are a NEUROSURGEON’S office, and as such, we will not schedule a consult until you can show us a note from your primary care physician stating “I think this patient needs some NEUROSURGERY done.” Because sometimes your physician finds out that you need something else entirely done, and if you brought that straight here you would be wasting the NEUROSURGEON’S time if it turned out to be a kidney stone.
**Another office policy: we will relay things to the doctor and let him decide if you need to talk to him, personally, because he is busy doing goddamn NEUROSURGERY and does not need to hear you whine about The Sciatica.
