Not all people are annoying, just the ones that seem to come into my office this week. To help take the edge off we’ve devised a Bingo game called C.R.A.Z.Y., so when stupid/funny/annoying things happen we get to mark a square. We have five different cards with some overlapping squares. Everyone gets a FAINTS and OLD MAN TAKES OFF HIS SHIRT INSTEAD OF ROLLING UP HIS SLEEVE, and of course the FREE square.

The most annoying thing which happened this week is people feel the need to tell me all the things that are wrong with my company, as if I could actually do something about it for them. I’m all for customer service from the time you walk into the office until you walk out again, and that’s where it stops. I will not tilt at the capitalist machine for anyone. I have no power. I have no control. I’m good with that. I bluntly tell them in hopes they would just shut up and go away but they interpret my plastic smile as an invitation to continue. One man couldn’t set up an appointment on our website because he wanted to do it during our closed hours. (not making this up). He complained that he had made several appointments for the same day but his name didn’t show up in the confirmation. Finally he called IT and they gave him an appointment for a time he didn’t want because…..he had already booked them with Name Unknown. Luckily for me the conversation took place on the phone and he couldn’t see me trying to do a Darth Vader neck squeeze at the handset.

Another one came in complaining about how America is all messed up because no one can do their job right. He broke a bone and after three hospitals and two ambulance rides in Hong Kong he was all better and paid less than $100 for his trouble. That, in his opinion, is medicine done right. He was in getting a stool sample kit for a hospital transmitted illness. Irony totally flew over this retired pilots head. He brought our competitions requisition for the super delux stool sample kit he paid for which said in perfectly modulated text the name of a single test. Again, he acted as if I or my colleagues could or would do something to fix the whole grand scheme. As a pilot for a well known airline he assured me if anyone had experienced the same level of incompetence on a flight they would recieve a check for $5,000. In this day and age, if the plane took someone to the wrong destination I can assure you it’s because the idiot got on the wrong plane and the airline would be charging his credit card to its limit for the extra cost of the fare. He brought his son in on his second trip in to assure me I didn’t give him an order for a different test. He ordered him around like some assistant, making him get the information we already had off his phone to prove to me he had an order for a full gastro-intestinal stool sample kit, which had nothing to do with what I asked him to bring in. While I was researching it, again, my co-workers and other patients in the lobby were regaled about how his son is going to be a pilot and how his starting salary is going to be $300k a year. His son was silent and just stood there miserable and cringing at his elderly fathers behavior. I say elderly not because he was old but because he brought up how old he was and how it would be unfair for me to make him to go home again and look for the requisition and bring it back in because of his advanced age.

Maybe it’s just because of my experiences but is the whole freaking world filled with narcissists? Or do I just attract them? I get technology is frustrating if you haven’t bothered to keep up with it, or if you don’t have Geeks in your family to tell you to Google it when you have problems, I get closures are inconvenient but that doesn’t guarantee you a pass when it comes to the necessary information needed to process an order in the medical world with all the mandatory rules and government regulations imposed on labs.

These encounters are stirring up some subconscious detritus adding to my already stressed out nature with the season and work in general. My dreams last night were of my mother, She moved out and sent an ombudsman to inform me she was leaving and it was my fault. I told my sister I wanted to move far away for when she decided the place couldn’t meet her expectations and would manipulate her way back. I told the man she was a narcissist and abusive he just replied, “I know.” But he was still doing his job.

So, what have I learned? People are unbelievably annoying. I’ve lived this and I know this, and all I can do is take deep breaths and keep doing my job.