#FridayAfternoonThought Well, it's happened. I have been treated like an 'old lady who is in the way'.
At a medical appointment:
- bustled off to the consulting room
- form to fill in taken from my hands "it'll be quicker if I do it for you"
- coat snatched from me and hung up on the door
- "You've got this appointment because you said xxxx but that's not true is it?" There are mulitiple reasons I had this appointment and a more timid person might have felt they needed to justify why they were taking up valuable NHS time.
It was certainly efficient - because I'd arrived early, as instructed, to complete the form beforehand, I was actually done and out before my actual appointment time!
Don't get me wrong, the intention was nothing but kind. The execution was patronising.
It's no doubt a fine line, depending on who you're dealing with.
It's a skill, reading the room instead of making all sorts of assumptions.
"Bustles" were much in vogue when Eastbourne was built in the late Victorian and Ewardian era. I noticed this week a shop that recently closed down has had the hoardings removed from the wall below the shop window. It's always been a clothes shop apparently "Ladies' dress baskets made to order or repair". Don't you love the correct apostrophe?
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