scenes from the waiting room

Or "What is up with people?"

I wrote this a while ago but I'm publishing it here because I have a couple of hospital appointments coming up over the next week. I hope posting it will mean I can avoid the sort of person I talk about below!

At the hospital for a Tysabri infusion earlier this year there was a guy sitting next to me who was having a loud phone conversation about how shit his life is. About how progressive his MS is and how few options there were for managing his condition.

But he didn't do it in a self-pityingly morose way. It was like he was bragging about how hard he had it. Like the chronic illness version of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch.

I get that this might have been some kind of coping mechanism. But surely that kind of chat should be reserved for home. Or the pub. Not in a room full of people, presumably with the same condition, who are battling those same persistent thoughts about progression and increasing disability and decreasing life options.

Maybe it's just me.

But there were a couple of young people on the ward that day. Maybe they were recently diagnosed? And they looked shit scared.

Bet that didn't help.

Shortly afterwards I saw an older guy giving himself an ulcer by stressing about how the busy nurses were ignoring him and seeing other patients before him. Which obviously didn't make them see him any quicker.

I mentioned this kind of thing to a nurse when I was getting a blood test recently. I said that surely this kind of thing never happened to her.

She said you'd be surprised how much mouth she gets from patients - about waiting times or the environment in the clinic - immediately before she sticks a needle into their arm. You would think they would check their attitude before confronting a nurse who has the power to make them very uncomfortable indeed.

I try to be a nice patient - especially when having a blood test - so the worst I get is a nurse who jokes that it's her first day on the job. This happens pretty regularly.

I always think it's pretty obvious that those who are disrespectful towards the people who are there to help them - nurses, hospitality staff, shop workers - have never worked in the service industry.

Talking about this with some box office staff at the Arts Centre where I was based earlier this year, one of them proposed a new type of National Service. One where people have to do 6 months to a year working in the service industry. Or what is sometimes called a McJob.

I think that overall levels of empathy would only be increased if this was brought in.

seems legit