Peace Negotiations at the Doctor’s Office

November 2, 2009 - Conversations, Mindful Living - Tagged: , , , , , , , - 8 comments

I am writing this on the berry directly into Blogger, so please pardon the spelling errors and grammar flubs.

I am here for an annual check-up and it seems that tempers are high and patience is low.

A walk-in patient was taken in before a woman with an appointment. The woman with an appointment very aggressively challenged the walk-in’s husband (still seated outside in the common area). A combination of ‘your wife shouldn’t have gone in before me’ to ‘she was an emergency case, you don’t get to make that call’ was fine, though annoying.

Suddenly, it became ‘shut up’ to ‘no, I think you’d better shut up’, too loudly and aggressively for any good to come of it.

Clearly, we’d just stepped into the Middle East peace negotiations.

I am seated in a slightly separate area, though we could all see one another. As soon as the ‘shut up’s were introduced, I put my book down and went over to calm both cartoon characters down since the nurses and admin assistants were merely watching in fascination.

When I first threw my hat into the ring, the husband turned his aggression toward me. Thankfully, I somehow pulled the right comments out of my ass and he laughed and I was able to sit next to Woman-With-Appointment and cool both of their shit down.

No more than 5 minutes it took to confirm they weren’t angry at one another, but rather the administration. Also, that it was Monday and no one wanted to start their week off being told to shut up. And that it was rude to do so, under any circumstance where the players are above the age of 7.

When they focussed their attention on The Man rather than one another, I excused myself to come here and tell you, because I think there’s an important lesson to be learned: honestly, and without tongue in cheek, if peace is what you want to find, then peace is precisely what you’ll get.

There’s usually almost always common ground, if you’re interested in finding and owning it – even with the greatest of asshats. We just need to care enough, and I sometimes find it easier with a stranger who I don’t know from a hole in the wall, than with someone I know personally who has hurt either myself or someone I love.

As the Woman-With-Appointment left, she said “thanks for stepping in…I was getting nervous because I don’t think he was going to stop“, and as the husband was leaving, he flipped me a thumb’s up and offerred a “you did good, kid“.

Score:
Maha 1
Week 0

*Sigh*. I wish COACH ERIC TAYLOR (HI!) had been here to witness my – clearly – supreme negotiation skills.