My husband, Paul, recently accompanied me on a visit to our doctor’s office. After my appointment, as we were exiting the building, he said, “I went to sit at the far side of the waiting room because I wanted to get away from the radio.”
I said, “Did that help?”
“A little. But when I got up I noticed there was a sign that said “Sick Persons Area.”
Uh-ho. Germ city.
Luckily, Paul did not fall ill after that misadventure. But later, I began to notice that this medical office is a festival of signs. And the “Sick Persons Area” may be the most sensible of them.
There is, for starters, a notation that the entrance door opens at 7:05 a.m. Is this to dissuade people from banging on the door at 7 a.m.? One would assume the office staff arrives at 7 and wants a few minutes to get things going before the coughers and hackers—who will soon be directed to wait in the Sick Persons Area—start pouring through the door.
I understand their point. However, as a school librarian I faced a similar problem when eager students were following me into the library when I first arrived, to make sure they could borrow a laptop for the day. Quantites are limited. They were anxious, but I needed to get my coat off and fire up the circulation computer. The solution to this problem was for me to get to the library 15 minutes before I opened the door at 7 a.m.
That is when students expect the library to be open, and you can’t blame my fellow patients if they expect the office to be open at 7 as well. Though I am confused about this 7:05 business, it really doesn’t affect me. I’ll never make an appointment that early.
At the check-in desk, there is a sign that asks patients not to lean on the counter. This is perfectly reasonable. No one who works with the public from behind a desk wants to get too close to said public. I know this because I am a librarian, but it’s even more of an imperative for medical office staff. They are dealing with sick people.
The question is why is this sign needed? Is common sense such a rarity that people don’t know they shouldn’t be leaning on the counter? It’s not a high counter. The only way I, at five feet three inches tall, could lean on it would be to put weight on my hands and arms and incline forward.
That is not a comfortable position and I can’t see why I’d do that. Even if I was being demanding and wanted to see the receptionist’s computer screen, leaning forward would not help. There’s a sliding glass window between me and her, and she’s at least two feet away.
Did a bigger, heavier person try to do this and break the counter? That seems implausible, but I can’t help thinking something significant must have happened to warrant that sign.
There is also a sign at the reception desk that says something like “If my head set is blinking, I’m on the line with someone.” This makes sense to me because I’ve been in situations where I thought a person wearing a headset was talking to me. I was wrong. That is frustrating, and a little embarrassing.
But, once again, I wonder: How many people try to interrupt a receptionist who is not making eye contact with them? Who appears to be engaged in a conversation behind a closed sliding glass window? Who is wearing a headset that is blinking like something out of “The Jetsons”?
Who are these oblivious people? Do they bang on the glass? Do they use profanities? I just hope they are never there when I am.
I suppose I am naive to underestimate the potential rudeness of my fellow earthlings. One of my students, a bright, kind 17-year-old, works at a local supermarket. One day, as he checked out a customer’s purchases, he wanted to verify some produce. “Is this kale?” he asked.
The customer nodded and said, “You don’t look like someone who would know what kale was.”
How totally unnecessary was that?
Perhaps the most astonishing sign at my doctor’s office is the one that states: “Please don’t move the furniture.” My mind is boggled that this sign is needed. Who is moving the furniture? Why are they moving the furniture? Are they so sick that they need to move two chairs together so they can lie down?
Are they obsessive-compulsive types who can only sit in an orange chair that is placed between two beige chairs? Are they allowing their children to create forts with the chairs? Are they moving tables so they can put their coffee down next to their chair, which is the green chair between two beige chairs?
Or did somebody move a chair once, and there is a staffer who is convinced that signs are needed for every possible transgression, however rare?
Come to think of it, I worked with someone like that once.
I have witnessed no bad behavior in this medical office. Maybe the signs work. Maybe there’s only one naughty patient who breaks counters, harasses the receptionists and rearranges the furniture. I never see her because she’s probably there at 7, banging on the door.
Maybe I will have to make an early appointment, just to see if she really exists.
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