So to speak.
Just got back from the doctor’s office. When the good doctor wrapped me up on Friday he said he wanted me back today for an x-ray; normally, I’d have had one right then but their tech was out for the day.
So we called today to verify that for an x-ray you don’t get an appointment, you just walk in. And, yeah, they said, sure, come in any time before 3:00.
So I went right over. And they told me to take a seat. And I did. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited.
And even with good reading material—the latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly which features a cover article on what might happen nationally should Roe v. Wade get overturned (they seem to think it’s likely to make pretty much everyone everywhere on the political spectrum pretty unhappy, but especially the GOP and the pro-life movement in general)—half an hour in a doctor’s waiting room innit the best place to hang out. Especially because, you know, there are a lot of sick people there. And if you’re not when you go in, well, there’s a fine chance you will be when you come out. And that doesn’t make me happy.
So after half an hour, one of the receptionists comes over to tell me that the x-ray tech, whom I’d seen walk by twice, had gotten slammed with a whole bunch of x-rays she had to take right before I walked in. When pressed slightly, she hedges and allows as how it might have been only one or two. And that the second one might have just been called in ahead of me just a minute ago.
So. Half an hour to do one or maybe two x-rays and now there’s another one she hasn’t even started on.
I left, telling her that if my foot still hurt in a week, maybe I’d come back. She managed to look both understanding and shocked, which was kinda interesting intellectually.
Don’t get me wrong, we could not love this place any more. They’re awesome folks, from the support staff to the nurses and doctors, and they’ve been absolutely wonderful to us. For that matter, I really like this x-ray technician, even if I’m kinda weirded out by the fact that I’m on a first-name basis with the x-ray tech at our doctor’s office. [The fact that the office manager looks just like Meredith Baxter Birney doesn’t hurt. At all.]
But, you know, I’m paying them. They work for me. And I’m so damn sick of my employees—my doctors, my attorney and so on—making me wait. Dammit, that’s not the way it should work. They’re not supposed to call the shots (so to speak). I am.
So I walked out. And they won’t get my (and the insurance company’s) money. Will they miss it? I doubt it. Will I suffer because it turns out I need surgery but now I won’t know that for sure? Possibly. Is this stupid and pointless? Probably. But then so’s much of what I do and/or post on Left of the Dial.
And, seriously, I’m just so damn tired of having to wait even when I get to my appointment on time, or being told I don’t even need an appointment and then when I get there having to wait half an hour before even being told it’s going to be a long wait.
So I make my little stand (off-balance, of course, because I can’t really put weight on my left foot) even though I’m the only one who’ll feel the effect and it’s counterproductive but I still do it because there’s no real alternative except to give in and that’s just being an enabler and tacitly encouraging this negative behavior so pervasive in the entire industry, amongst other places.
And so I tilt, both literally and metaphorically.
But I only pay metaphorically.
Comments