Every two years, everyone who works in the workshops has to be seen by our company doctor. Although my position is in the high manager category and I don’t do the manual work at the workshop, I spend a lot of time there, so this year, I have to see the doctor.

When I enter the examination room, she is looking at her computer and doesn’t look at me.

Me: “Good morning, I’m—”

Doctor: “Name.”

Me: “[My Name]. But I don’t—”

Doctor: “Position?”

Me: “Quality manager. I have—”

Doctor: “Hmpf… height?”

Me: *Sigh* “[Height]. I have—”

Doctor: “Weight.”

Me: “[Weight].”

Doctor: “Gee, lady, you are a quality manager and you can’t even live a quality life? Look at your BMI; you are way overweight. You should do something with it. How can you do quality work if you look like this?”

Me: “First, I don’t know how my BMI is connected with my work or with the quality of my life. Second, according to the BMI, I was overweight even when I was a competitive tap dancer because it doesn’t work with muscles. Third, if you would bother to turn around, you’d see that I’m seven months pregnant, so BMI is even more useless than usual.” 

She turns and stares at me.

Me: “So, I’d appreciated it if you’d be so nice as to take that stamp you have next to your keyboard and press it here on this nice paper, which confirms that I’m not blind or deaf, as you can see, and I’ll be on my way. Otherwise, I may start to question how you do other examinations.”

She tears the paper from my hand, stamps it, and throws it back at me.

Me: “Thank you, and have a nice day. Oh, and by the way, I’ll see you next week at the audit. In case you don’t recognize me, I’ll be the one with ‘Main Auditor’ on her name tag.”

When I was seventeen, my period suddenly completely stopped. I wasn’t sexually active, nor had I ever been, so the most obvious explanation went straight out the window. (I have since figured out that I am a sex-repulsed asexual, but that’s beside the point.)

My father and I called our family general practitioner’s office, and once we had convinced the assistant that no, there really was no way I was pregnant unless I was the second Virgin Mary, I got an appointment with the GP. I admit, I was rather nervous. It’s weird when a semi-regular, semi-reliable (I never had regular periods) bodily process just up and quits without warning.

The family GP was a calm, kind man who’d known my family for years, and he listened to me as I explained things before he started on a massive list of questions that, for some reason, only made me more and more nervous, which tends to make me snarky and flippant.

No, I really, REALLY wasn’t sexually active in any way. No, I had no other symptoms, no pain anywhere, or nausea, or weight gain, or weight loss, or whatever. No, I hadn’t suddenly started lactating. ([GP] was trying to figure out if maybe I was experiencing pseudocyesis, aka a false pregnancy). When he ran out of questions to ask regarding symptoms, he started asking questions about what my baseline used to be — what my periods used to be like when I still had them. Once we’d established that they were irregular, long, and heavy, he asked me the following.

GP: “And when you are having your period, do you have any other symptoms besides bleeding? Like abdominal pain or being more emotional?”

Me: *With a sarcastic grin* “Got half an hour? The whole shebang! Abdominal pain, back pain, headaches, nausea, sore breasts, ‘being more emotional’ to the point that I’m either crying all the time or really angry, mood swings, zits everywhere, fatigue… You name it, I’ve got it!”

I did say nerves make me snarky.

GP: *With a sympathetic smile* “Are you sure you want it back?”

That actually got a laugh out of me and brought the nervousness down a bit. After a moment, I came up with an answer.

Me: “Well, no, not really, but not having it can’t be good, either, right? So I would like to know what’s going on.”

GP: “That makes two of us. Now, have you been experiencing any of these symptoms lately? As if you’re on your period, but without the blood?”

And so on, and so forth, question after question, most answered with no. But the ice was broken and I was calmer about all of it.

[GP] ended up referring me for a battery of tests, and when none of those turned anything up, to a gynaecologist. After even more tests that made me realise how vulnerable a woman’s fertility really is, we finally landed, mostly through a process of elimination, on PCOS — which is decidedly NOT fun but has been manageable so far. My period returned after about two years, stuck around for a while after that, decided to take another hiatus of three years this time, and has recently decided to show up again — as I said, not fun, but manageable.

I still remember that joke [GP] made, though. It really took the sting out of a scary moment. Reading a lot of horror stories on this site made me realise I was very lucky to have a GP that actually listened to me. I was sorry to switch GPs when I moved to a different city.

I’ve only just started working at a medical office, and it’s early 2022 when the global health crisis is still in full swing. As we’re a medical office, everyone is required to wear a mask, and for the first three months that I’m working at this job (and for six months prior to that), we have a National Guard presence in our lobby to ensure that everyone is aware of the masks and being screened for symptoms. Everyone gets a mask, everyone is told to wear a mask and how to wear it properly, and there are no exceptions, no exemptions, and no tolerance at all for backtalk: if you don’t wear your mask or wear it improperly, you’re out of there.

I’m working patient checkout when a patient comes up to my desk, and I notice that he is not wearing his mask properly at all: he’s pulled it down under his chin.

Me: “I can help you right here, sir. I just need you to put your mask up over your nose, please.”

Patient: “No.”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Patient: “I can’t breathe if it’s over my nose.”

Me: “You’re still required to wear the mask, sir, as was explained when you entered the building. I just need you to put it up over your nose and I can check you out and get you on your way.”

Patient: “This is ridiculous. Just check me out.”

At this point, he’s raising his voice and getting animated, and I’m getting a little flustered because I’ve only been in this job for a few weeks and haven’t had any mask pushback yet.

Me: “Sir, it’s hospital policy and a requirement at you wear your mask properly. Please just put it up over your nose.”

Patient: “Where is it a requirement?”

Me: “What?”

Patient: “Show me where it’s written that I have to wear a mask!”

Like most medical facilities, we have many, MANY signs about mask usage… but they’re all at the CHECK-IN side of the office because it’s assumed that we won’t have these arguments when someone is checking OUT. At this point, my more experienced coworker comes over to assist.

Coworker: “Sir, it’s hospital policy, it’s office policy, and it’s posted on all the signs that you passed by when you came in.”

Patient: “No! I want to see where it’s written right now!”

Coworker: “We don’t have anything at this desk, sir, but—”

Patient: “THEN IT’S NOT THE POLICY!”

This goes back and forth for several minutes, with the patient getting more upset and irate as time goes by, drawing the attention of everyone else at the office (who are all wearing masks, of course). Finally, I say:

Me: “Sir, you can go ahead and leave. I’ll check you out of your appointment and call you about any kind of follow-up if needed.”

He leaves, grumbling the whole time, and my coworkers and I talk about it, confirming that I did everything right and remained polite. I check the appointment notes and, lo and behold, he needs a follow-up appointment, so I call him and set up the appointment. I finish with:

Me: “And by the way, sir, hospital policy is that you are required to wear a mask for the entire duration of your visit to our office.”

Patient: “Yeah, yeah.”

He hangs up without any kind of fight, but given his confrontational nature, I talk it over with our building administrator and we decide to have our hospital security department on site for his next visit; it’s one thing to shout at a checkout person and another to shout at a tough-looking security person.

Six weeks later, the patient’s appointment comes up and he comes through. Security, sadly, did not get the memo properly due to a reporting glitch, but as luck would have it, I’m working the check-out desk again! The patient completes his appointment and walks toward check-out. Of course — OF COURSE — he’s not wearing his mask, having tucked it under his chin. I smile at him — even though he can’t see it — and wave at him.

Me: “I can help you right here, sir! I just need you to put your mask up over your nose, please!”

Patient: “…forget it.”

And he left! He ended up having to come back three more times, and each time, security was properly on site to enforce procedure, but the patient absolutely refused to speak to me, even if he ended up having to wait ten minutes for the next representative to help him. But he wore his mask properly from then on, and I didn’t have to deal with him anymore, so I call that a win!

Related:
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 30
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 29
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 28
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 27
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 26

Nurses, for the most part, use a rolling computer that we call a “WOW” — workstation on wheels. Normal shifts are 0700 to 1900 or 1900 to 0700. I worked from 1300 to 0100.

Every day when I would come in, there would be a WOW pushed off to the side that was “saved for me”. It didn’t work for some reason, but no one had called IT for it. Our IT was great — they’d come down within half an hour unless they had a hospital-wide calamity — but they don’t magically know that a WOW is down unless you call them.

So, every day, I would come in, drag the broken WOW into the nurse’s station, and call IT. It would usually take me twenty to thirty minutes to start working because I couldn’t see any charts.

My s***ty boss threatened to write me up for taking too long. I pointed out that I was on the phone with IT. She did nothing but still complained that it took me too long to start working.

You got it, [Boss].

After that, I’d come in, push the offending WOW into her office (which was so small that the door would hit the chairs in front of her desk), and leave it. I’d be on the floor at 1300. I wouldn’t take a patient assignment. I’d just help everyone else with their tasks — starting IVs, wound care, splints, etc.

Within a week, we had three new WOWs, which we’d been told we didn’t have the budget for. We also had a note from [Boss] about how the entire shift would be written up if she found a broken one without an IT ticket.

She was let go for many reasons after a year on the job. We did not miss her.

My father once scheduled an appointment at his doctor’s office. He’s a lawyer (he had his own firm at the time), and he scheduled the appointment on an extended lunch break. The doctor’s appointment was at 1:00 pm, and he kept his schedule clear until 2:30 pm.

He called a few days in advance to confirm the time. He also called that day, shortly before lunch, to confirm the time. He showed up as directed, about fifteen minutes before, introduced himself, and waited.

And waited.

Around 1:30, he was called up and admitted to the office… where he waited.

And waited.

Finally, at about 2:00 pm — over an hour after he arrived — a nurse came in.

Nurse: “The doctor will see you shortly.”

Dad patiently (no pun intended) informed them that he had work to get back to and left.

The office tried to bill him for breaking the appointment. He responded by informing them of his (big city law firm) hourly rate and telling them that if they intended to bill him for breaking the appointment, then he intended to bill them for his time if they were that late again — noting that he’d confirmed they weren’t behind schedule before coming over.

They didn’t bill him for breaking the appointment. They also never held him up like that again.