It was a hot summer afternoon about four when I stopped by the post office to pick up my accumulated mail. I had a ‘Hold’ on it while I was gone to visit my kids in Florida.
When I got to the post office there were five people in line waiting and one clerk handling the counter by herself. The line was moving, but there is always the inevitable problem that is going to back up a line – and it happened.
And it happened at a bad time.
More people started to wander in to do their business with the post office before the end of their work days. The line soon backed up out the door and more people were pouring in. As with most crowds, those who got there later started to grumble. “Where are the other people?” “Where’s the supervisor?” “What’s taking so long?” “Is that the best she can do?”
I could hear the comments at the front of the line, so I knew the clerk could hear them, too.
And that’s when ‘the bad clerk’ came out – that was the clerk with attitude. She was the same person who was there before, but she was different. I could see her visibly shift gears and go into slow motion. Everything she did was suddenly slow and deliberate. Then catastrophe hit… at least as far as those in line were concerned. The phone rang!! And that was the end of it. The line went out the front door and into the heat of the late afternoon as our only clerk sauntered over and answered the phone. The call only lasted a couple minutes, but that was enough to start the anger in line.
As I was standing there watching this all unfold it occurred to me we were looking at a civil servant being put under pressure and the resulting slowdown and attitude that accompanied it.
And right then I could see the future of our HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
This is what we have to look forward to when we need service and help under the new system we are about to have imposed on us. Get ready to wait. There’s going to be a lot of it. We’ve been warned by people in other countries of the waits and the lack of care and the denials of care if our life value doesn’t match up to their cost return charts – but the best examples of what we can expect lies in institutions we already have in place like the Post Office clerks. It’s NOT going to be pretty.
When I got to the post office there were five people in line waiting and one clerk handling the counter by herself. The line was moving, but there is always the inevitable problem that is going to back up a line – and it happened.
And it happened at a bad time.
More people started to wander in to do their business with the post office before the end of their work days. The line soon backed up out the door and more people were pouring in. As with most crowds, those who got there later started to grumble. “Where are the other people?” “Where’s the supervisor?” “What’s taking so long?” “Is that the best she can do?”
I could hear the comments at the front of the line, so I knew the clerk could hear them, too.
And that’s when ‘the bad clerk’ came out – that was the clerk with attitude. She was the same person who was there before, but she was different. I could see her visibly shift gears and go into slow motion. Everything she did was suddenly slow and deliberate. Then catastrophe hit… at least as far as those in line were concerned. The phone rang!! And that was the end of it. The line went out the front door and into the heat of the late afternoon as our only clerk sauntered over and answered the phone. The call only lasted a couple minutes, but that was enough to start the anger in line.
As I was standing there watching this all unfold it occurred to me we were looking at a civil servant being put under pressure and the resulting slowdown and attitude that accompanied it.
And right then I could see the future of our HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
This is what we have to look forward to when we need service and help under the new system we are about to have imposed on us. Get ready to wait. There’s going to be a lot of it. We’ve been warned by people in other countries of the waits and the lack of care and the denials of care if our life value doesn’t match up to their cost return charts – but the best examples of what we can expect lies in institutions we already have in place like the Post Office clerks. It’s NOT going to be pretty.
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