The Sheep Look Up

There was a look of genuine surprise on the receptionists face when I stepped around the corner, as if to say "You're still here?" She was chatting with the lady in charge of insurance billing.

"Listen, I really have to get back to work, so I guess I'll just call and reschedule."

"Oh," she says, "Well, the doctor will probably only be a few more minutes."

I've been here an hour now. I glance in the waiting room, the two couples who were there when I went in aren't there any longer.

"I'm already going to be 40 minutes late to work by the time I get back. I'll just call and reschedule."

"Oh, well, ok. We'll see you sometime this week." she says.

I really like this doctor's office. They were really understanding when I didn't have insurance and billed me less than the usual fees, and they've been remarkably patient waiting for and dealing with the medicaid payments now that I have some vague form of insurance. But they always make me wait. And I know that there's some inherent waiting involved, 15 minutes I'll wait, maybe another 5-10 once they move you into the little exam room, just to make you think you're making progress. But an hour, when they know I'm on my lunch break and time is a factor, is just too long to wait. Especially when it appears that everyone with an appt before or after mine has already been seen.

So, I leave and head to the elevators, while I'm waiting I can feel my lip start to quiver. So ihead to the bathroom just in time to stifle my sobbing behind a plastic stall door. Why am I even crying? I have no clue. I'd like to chalk it up to some hormonal, pregnancy, random bawling thing, but I think it probably has more to do with the fact that this happens to me a lot. I'm nice, I'm easy to deal with, I'm understanding, I'm generally soft spoken, I'm a push-over. And believe it or not, I almost never get really upset about anything. It's just not worth it to me, I don't really care that much about most things. At least not outwardly angry. But for about the past year I've been having thses really violent, angry dreams, where I'm screaming and fighting with people, and I wake up all angry and upset. So apparently my subconscious is telling me something about my bottled rage, which I just always assumed didn't actually exist.

But it sucks to be forgotten about. It happens to me frequently - at the store, routinely at restaurants, the doctor's office, any waiting room ever, telephone lines. People routinely forget that I'm there, waiting, or being served. Am I really so unmemorable? Is it that hard to maintain the concept that I'm there? It makes me want to be bitchy. I waitressed for a long, long time, and everybody hates the bitchy, picky people. But they make sure they give them damn near perfect service. Being nice and understanding just gets you screwed, your basically giving people permission to put you last and give you the most lax service and pay the least attention to you. It gets you seen last at the doctor's office. Nice guys really do finish last. Everybody else gets cuts, or Chinese cuts, or run to the head of the line so they'll stop bitching. And I am just fed up with being told time and again thru actions and quality of service, that my time is of the least value.

But, what do I do? I don't like to bitch and complain. I don't like being unpleasant. It's not that I'm too shy to make a fuss. I can be very unpleasant and get what I want when I need to, but I don't like it. It's just that I don't want to darken somebody else's day with being difficult or demanding. When I get unpleasant customers, they're a lot less likely to get what they want, or to get it expediently. Pleasant customers, I help first, I bend over backward to make things work for them. So why does the rest of the world respond only to meanness? Why is niceness turned a blind eye? I can only assume it's laziness. People know nice people won't make a fuss and they won't be so demanding, so they can shaft them without real consequence. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Demanding people are more chic. Screw catching more flies with honey than with vinegar.

And you know what else? I don't think nice people get the jobs. We're too laid back. I think this is why the high maintenance, rude, bitchy people never get fired. It's too much hassle. Much easier to fire the nice guy and send him home quietly. He'll understand. This is why crazy, nasty people get huge settlements for getting fired, even though their job performance sucked.

Life is so unfair. I suppose your just reward is supposed to be in the after life. Behave yourself now, and we'll give you amazing rewards after you die. What a great promise to keep the sheep in line.