unprofessional behaviour rant

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Friday afternoon, almost quitting time. My two coworkers are having a good chat up front, while I am working away - annoying, not that unusual.

Then this tiny 90-year-old woman looking every bit like the stereotyped Russian grandmother - head scarf and all - shuffles in and both my coworkers deliberately and obviously walk out of the room. I am not responsible for the front desk, but they have just dropped that responsibility - and this frail old soul - on me.

As it turns out, the woman is completely demented/delusional and (later I find out) "off her meds". I very carefully talk to her, taking great pains not to challenge her delusions - she was fighting a political battle, long over. When she was finished, she left peaceably.

This left me rather upset. Certainly, she was no threat to me - I think I could subdue or run away from a 90-year-old grandmother if I had to. However, that my coworkers showed so little respect, so little courage, and so little empathy/compassion for this woman, it just made my stomach turn. I am seriously debating discussing this with the office manager. One coworker has been doing this job for 18 years. She should know better, know how to handle this sort of thing - and the kicker is, she has encountered this woman before so she was just avoiding her so she didn't have to deal with her. That she taught the other more inexperienced coworker that it is okay to pick and choose who you are going to deal with is unacceptable behaviour.

I also have to think, what if it wasn't some tiny frail creature who had come in, but some delusional young person, one who could have been a danger? Would they have just walked away and left me in a dangerous position? In our neighbourhood, it could happen, there are a lot of life's sad cases around. I also have to think - what if in 50 or so years these two become like the frail woman? Would they like to be treated in such a manner? Sigh.

It was nice of you to chat to her; probably not many people would have bothered.

My guess is, your co-worker has encountered her before so she is aware that the little old lady is not prime customer material. Therefore, she feels she does not have to pretend to care, as there is nothing to gain from humouring her.

I could be wrong; maybe your boss used to chat to her but something went wrong, or she heard the story way too many times...

Thanks

Sadly, we are a medical clinic, and our business is supposed to be people (as Dickensian as that sounds) You don't know what a person wants until they are at the front and ready with their question, and even though we all have our personal biases, we can't just dismiss someone out of hand because they annoy us or we can't deal with them - we must find a way, but seeing a problem and running away from it isn't right, and it definitely isn't right to abandon others to their fate - they have words for those kinds of people, and they are not kind words. Certainly we knew she wasn't a patient, but it could have been someone needing help and found an open door. The coworker did actually recognize her, and knew her medical history from past dealings (which is why the coworker "escaped" to the backroom to hide), and you are right, she probably did have one chat too many with the lady and she may have been a challenge/nuisance in the past, but then again, sometimes in a medical setting you are confronted with individuals who aren't quite "normal", at least in the mainstream sense of the word - heck, I am not normal in the mainstream sense of the word . What really ruffled the proverbial feathers was that when the woman was gone, *then* the coworker came out and did some fake compassion, but she certainly didn't have any for me or the lady earlier - I am inclined to believe her concern after the fact was not genuine.

I might ask the doctors to see if they can get us some training in that respect - I know the hospital workers get trained in how to deal with tricky situations. I think there needs to be a protocol set up in our office, too.

I admit we are all human... sigh... just get on with it and continue to work... it's hard but we can try.

Hello grinningcat,

I'm very sorry your co-workers did that. You might want to have a talk with them, and/or to your office manager.

Perhaps you could first try talking to your co-workers, giving them a chance to explain their actions and also letting them know how they affected you, and if you don't have a satisfactory solution for the future you could then talk to the office manager.

I wish you the best of luck!