I had an appointment with my surgeon for 3.30 pm yesterday and landed up there at 3.20 pm. The procedure in the hospital where he consults is that one registers one’s presence with the receptionist in the specialty area and is then called one after the other on a first come first served basis. There were three patients already ahead of me and I had to register myself and await my turn.
When my turn was announced and I had gone near the door, the receptionist informed me to wait a while longer as a patient had come back with some fresh test results for a continued consultation. She kindly allowed me to sit on a chair at the reception bay and Ranjan seeing me with my bag around my shoulder, decided to take a photograph.
The bag carries a message – Aagaya Jaadugar, meaning The Magician has arrived!
While I was perched on the receptionist’s chair to be called inside the consulting room, one pushy lady decided that she could not wait any longer and tried to break the queue system by opening the door and requesting the surgeon to call her next. The receptionist would have none of that and to the extent of raising her voice in the crowded reception hall, prevented the lady from entering the room ahead of me. When the lady persisted, the receptionist threatened her that she will call the Security Staff and would cancel her appointment for the day, which finally convinced the lady that her antics will not work and she went away muttering under her breath and giving me looks that would have killed someone of lesser fortitude!
I duly went in finished my consultation and came out to find that the pushy lady was not even the next in line after me! Despite my euphoria with the outcome of my consultation, I complimented the receptionist for her excellent work and left. If only we had such martinets wherever queues form!
This phenomenon of breaking the queue discipline is another matter that deserves to be included in my post on Undesirables.