The waiting room

I recently had some “car trouble”. My heart sinks whenever this happens – not only because of the expense, or the hassle, or the stress, but because it means, yet again, I have to visit a mechanic.

Despite my XY chromosomal status, I may be missing something important genetically, because I am not what you might call a “car person”. The miracles of the internal combustion engine will forever be a mystery to me.

If someone tells me they have a new car, I have one, and only one, question: “what colour is it?” Nothing else is likely to interest me – what type of car I have is roughly as interesting to me as what type of washing machine I have (I think it’s a Hotpoint, for those keeping notes).

I understand, in an abstract sense, when spark plugs, clutches, carburettors and “big ends” go wrong, this is a bad thing that is going to cost me money, but I have no more understanding of what it actually means than I have in the mating rituals of unicorns – and I would be way more interested in learning what makes a unicorn horny (if you take my meaning).

Last man standing

I remember one incident, seared into my brain with the cruel clarity of embarrassing memories, where I was standing in line in a petrol station (I almost don’t want to tell the story, because it seems stereotypical and sexist, but I’m going to, because it actually happened – and I know this because I was the person it happened to).

The queue, other than me, comprised three women, with a female attendant behind the counter. Suddenly, a lady popped her head through the door, looking frustrated and pointed back to her car on the forecourt.

The car was orange.

“I’ve run out of oil,” she said. “Does anyone know what type it takes?”

There was a pause, and suddenly I realised all eyes in the shop had turned to me; the only male in the room. I wanted to rail against the sheer sexism of the moment – don’t we live in more enlightened times? Why would I be the only person in the room that knew, just because I’m a man? Nevertheless, the staring continued for an awkward eternity, while I shrugged, looked down at the floor, and wanted to die.

After a very, very long pause, the attendant smiled at the woman and said: “I’ll call my boss.”

Clueless

All this puts me at the utter mercy of mechanics. The moment I turn up on their forecourt, I am anxious: anxious about how much all of this is going to cost, and how little I know about cars, whether the mechanic is going to be condescending or rude, and whether they’re going to take advantage of my lack of knowledge and recommend something that really isn’t necessary.

I really have no way of knowing – I am completely powerless in a way I am not in most other situations in life, and I’m basically desperately hoping I manage to get through this with some dignity, some money left over and, ideally, a fixed car.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Familiar feelings

It can be easy for us to forget, as we work our way through the long, dark evening surgery of the soul, fully booked and bursting at the seams, that almost every person sitting in the waiting room is anxious about all the things that make me hate going to mechanics, with the added stress there’s a living creature involved.

Even if they’re just there for a “booster”, they’re worrying whether it really is necessary, if they’re going to be sold something that they have no way of objectively judging whether they need it or not, or that the vet will find something wrong.

It’s stressful being a general practitioner. It’s hard work – mentally, sometimes physically, and frequently emotionally – and it can be hard to keep in mind that it’s pretty stressful for everyone in that waiting room, too.

Like my trips to see a mechanic, nobody really wants to be there, and everyone is hoping they’ll make it through with their wallet, their dignity, and their pet intact.

People are strange

Every single appointment marked “just not right” – the ones that make you grit your teeth and hope you can wing it in the consult room – starts with a worried owner beginning to get concerned about their pet, maybe having quiet conversations with loved ones about their fears, until they phone the vet and end up sitting in this stressful place, with the phones ringing and dogs barking, and their pet trembling, hoping the vet isn’t going to be rude or angry or rushed; hoping everything will be okay, and it doesn’t cost as much as everyone says it might. Above all, most of them are wishing they could be anywhere else.

The general public are a strange bunch – I’m one of them, and I’m one of the strangest people I know. Clients can be angry, emotional, stressed, hysterical, argumentative, unbelievably poker-faced, impassive, obstinate or plain unreasonable.

Clients, we say, make the job difficult, not the patients, and we say that because it’s true. Clients cause us to lose sleep and drain us emotionally, make us laugh and make us cry, but they’re only human, and they’re humans in a stressful situation – that doesn’t always bring out the best in us.

Remember the mechanic

When I see a client’s name on the waiting room screen with my initials next to it that makes me want to pull some of my remaining hair out, or pretend that I’m in the middle of an op or sick, or get the receptionist to tell them I have unexpectedly left for Paraguay, I think about what it feels like for when I have “car trouble”.

I remember, as well as all the other responsibilities being a general practitioner entails, one of my most important jobs is to diffuse the anxieties that have built up in the client for this difficult trip to a stressful place. I remember the most important lesson I have ever learned: above all, be kind.

Honestly, if you can keep this in mind for every consult you’ll ever do then you’re a better human that I am. I can’t ask that of you. But, just like I do myself, I can ask you to think about a situation where you’re stressed and uncomfortable, and I can ask you, just like me, to try.