Rudeness is Rife

Why is it that so many people who work in so called "public service" positions are so arrogant and so rude? As far as my remembrance is concerned I don't think it used to be that way. Of course, lots of things these days didn't used to be that way. But, it just occurred to me while I was in the hospital, and while I'm in a restaurant, or at the doctor's office. I've been in several hospitals in my lifetime for one reason or another when nurses were solicitous, caring, always nearby if needed, and friendly. This time, I had a different nurse each day, which I thought was a lousy policy, and each one of them was indifferent to my pain and anxiety. Not only that, one nurse was Charles and one was Barry. I would have preferred a Charlene and a Sherry. Charles was stiff as a board and Barry was a zombie. My relationship with the staff at that hospital made me feel I was in a foreign country. No one spoke English to me even if they knew the language. However, when I spoke English to any of the nurses or aides, it was still as if we were in Swaziland or Montezuma. I never got what I wanted.

Last week I went to my internist's office for an ultra sound of my abdomen because I was getting severe pains every time I took a breath. The nurse called me out of the waiting room and then proceeded to walk rapidly ahead of me to the room without even a gentle hello, how are you. When I walked in, her back was turned to me and she was gazing at a monitor. When she told me to get onto the table, she didn't bother to offer a hand. When she had finished, she said I should get off the table and leave the room, and she started to walk out ahead of me, also not offering to help me off. I said to her "Don't rush me. And I don't like the way you talk to me. I'm not the village idiot." (She didn't need to know the truth). But the bottom line is that people who have chosen jobs that require them to deal with people of all walks of life need to have better "bedside manners". I read a letter to the editor in the paper today complaining about rude stewardesses on the airlines. I believe people who don't like their jobs should seek employment elsewhere. With my expectations of service people, I expect a little civility.

I'm still getting comments about my guest blogger, Mike, who helped me out by writing a blog so my readers wouldn't give up on me while I was hospitalized. Well, one comment today was, "He must be a little weird". I took that as a poor insight...Mike is a lot weird, and that's why we get along so well. I'm somewhat jealous of him because I'm just a teenchy bit weird, while he's the Tiger Woods of Weirdness.

Incidentally, I changed the link to my books just to the right of the blog. If you click on the title of the book, it should take you to the website which lists all the companies that are selling the book, along with the price. It wouldn't hurt you to buy one.