BroBible’s Worst Places on Earth: The Doctor’s Office

No offense to him, but everything else about his office — especially, now that it’s cold/flu season — is the worst.

I don’t know if you’ve tried to call the doctor’s office lately to schedule an appointment, but it’s pretty much impossible to do it conveniently. First, you get a recorded message by someone that sounds like they’re on the verge of hanging themselves; then you have to go through the post-office-line slow options like “If you are sick and dying, call 911 immediately” (as if you didn’t know) or “For triplicate prescriptions, dial 9” (I don’t even know what a “duplicate prescription” is, for chrissake). Then when you finally get a human voice on the other line, she immediately puts you on hold. You get the Muzak treatment, while that person does whatever it is she needs to do while you’re on hold (doing a conga line around the office?). Then, she jumps onto your line without warning, and says in the snottiest, who-gives-a-fuckiest voice, “What can I help you with?” What You Want to Say: “Well, let’s see, shitbird, I’m calling the doctor’s office, so it can’t be amazing.” What You End Up Saying Instead: “I’ve got a cold and need to see Dr. X. Thanks!” 

Notice how I haven’t mentioned the appointment itself? Well, that’s because doctor’s offices literally have one day and a single hour available for you, the bro that’s got something wrong with him. And if you can’t make it then, well, you’ll have to wait for, like, a month to get another appointment. So you begrudgingly wipe your busy schedule clean to go to this appointment on that day within that hour. Of course, when the doctor actually takes you is a completely different story.

Let’s say you get to the doctor’s office on that exact Monday at 3:20 p.m. More often than not, you arrive a few minutes early; and no matter how many times you’ve been to the doctor in your lifetime, they make you fill out the same dumb form. You know the one I’m talking about. It has all the information on it that you’ve given them a billion other times; the only difference is, the little line at the bottom where you write what’s wrong with you. And of course, you already told the nurse the issue on the phone. So that form is basically a tremendous waste of your time.

Next, while you’re sitting waiting for your appointment, which is already 15 minutes overtime, there are sick and injured people streaming into the office in varying degrees of poor condition. Some old guy, canes his way in, hacks up a lung right nearby — no arm over his mouth, because he doesn’t have the reaction time left in his spent body. He could have typhoid for all you know. Then this young, athletic-type comes in with a massive bruise on her face — one that’s so sickening to look at, you feel the bile rising in your throat. And then there’s the fiftysomething-year-old woman, who sits right next to you, and begins telling you about her daughter’s new puppy, not asking if you give a shit or who you are. “Die,” you whimper to yourself.

Finally, your number gets called, and you’re led down the hallway and told to sit in a urine-yellow-lit room on the end of a baby-poop-colored examination table. You’re sort of slouching, because there’s no back support on it, and the only thing separating your butt from the last person to sit there is this thin piece of parchment paper. The last time I checked, rice paper didn’t defend against infectious diseases or germs. The doctor enters the room, and you are poked and prodded and lectured for probably 10-15 minutes tops before you’re handed a slip and sent back the way you came. This is after you just provided them with, like, half of your day to get there and be on time. What sort of backwards shit is that?

So the next time you go to the doctor’s office and get that bad taste in your mouth, remember this: Your friends at BroBible have your back, brah. 

[Waiting room image via ShutterStock]