Next segue story

I know I have a sense of humour.  But not everyone enjoys my humour sense. That's OK. If you don't, escape now.

Moving on from my £7 Marks & Spencer’s story last week, there are a couple more rather silly, irritant chuckles I’ve experienced at the expense of the unexpected cultural differences in this part of the world.

Every time I visit these isles I am re-reminded of the fact that the United Kingdom has 60 plus million people living in almost the same area of landmass as New Zealand, but in New Zealand we have only 4.5 million inhabitants.  The mere difference in people numbers certainly means there has to be some very different differences in the cultural way of living.  Whether major or mere idiosyncratic.

It is the idiosyncratic cultural differences that I tend to find either interesting, or intriguing, or just plain funny.  

And yes, whilst the differences are usually petty and incidental at the time, I tend to see the amusing factor later and therefore they lodge into the memory banks as a great, minor story to be shared. If you are British, stop reading now – for fear of you taking offense at not understanding our antipodes funny bone - and I do not wish to offend.

Only in Britain: only in Britain do they keep their garages for the storage of junk, boxes, garden tools and equipment - while their expensive cars sit in the drive or the roadway to deteriorate with the weather.

I find that bemusing, coming from a culture where the sole purpose of the garage is for parking the car that is usually the next most expensive item we possess than the house itself.

(I excuse myself as a hypocritical example here – my vehicle does sit outside in all weather – due to being too large to fit down the side of the house to get to the garage – but that’s an exception, not the rule.)

Another idiosyncratic cultural difference is a commonly accepted one, queuing.   I confess to now love queuing in Britain.  It's fun. No one queues as well as the Brits queue.  They have to, there are 60 million of them, so queues are inevitable - but funny.

Tony and I discovered this in 2010 when we first headed for the Wimbledon ‘queue’.  We were fascinated that as soon as one joins into the one to two kilometre long queue a Wimbledon official immediately hands you a very compact and thick booklet entitled ‘Guide to Queuing’.  

It occurred again this year – I have another copy of ‘Guide to Queuing’.  The 2014 variety.  Not a lot different to the 2010 one I have. It’s quaint.  It’s British. 

There are a variety of other places and services for which one queues here, sometimes for inordinately long periods.  A main post office is an example;  one enters the post office and immediately goes to a ticketing machine to push a button to get yourself a queue number, then goes and joins the queue holding that queue number and seeking the illuminated sign that will, eventually, flash your queue number to tell you which teller number you can then go to.  All that to purchase your ninety-seven pence postcard stamp.  

Some supermarkets have this same system at the delicatessen and butchery departments.  And of course there are the train station queues.  They can be very long queues indeed.

But on this visit to the UK I confess to forgetting that one must also queue at the doctor’s surgery.  One does not enter the waiting room and approach the receptionist to let her know you are there, as we are so used to in New Zealand.  No. One must queue to see the doctor. Not only queue, but when you enter the surgery you immediately proceed to an automatic-teller-type machine and begin to key in your name, birth date and NHS number – it is only once you have done this that you are officially logged into the patient queue.  And then you wait until the illuminated flashing light on the wall at the other side of the waiting room shows up with your queue name and number.  Only then you can go see the doctor. All that without having to speak to anyone in the office or reception.

With 60 million people I guess that is an efficient way to do this. 
                            

Three weeks ago I came back from Italy with a rotten viral bot that infected my eyes, ears, nose, throat and chest.  I tried studiously the grin-and-bear-it self-medicating for the first week, but come week two I knew my self-diagnosis and medications actually required a little more assistance from pharmaceuticals that one would not have access to without a visit to a qualified medical practitioner.  Therefore I found it necessary to make an appointment at the local doctor’s surgery.

Fortunately I was staying with in-laws so requested the contact details of their long term doctor’s surgery and rang the office within one minute of their early opening office hours – 9 a.m.

Explained to the receptionist I was a visiting New Zealander who had returned from Europe with a bot or infection that I would like the doctor to check and give me medication for.  

It would seem they do not have many sick New Zealanders phoning up asking for appointments at this particular surgery, which I fully expected, but it would turn out they do not get many of any non-local people ringing their surgery for an appointment.  

There were a few considerable minutes of having to re-explain who I was, why I was calling, what was wrong with me, who gave me their contact number and details and why it was important to me I could come to their particular surgery as I didn’t have a car and their medical rooms are literally just a short walk away from where I was staying.

The lady had to leave the phone for a few minutes to ask someone more senior what to do with this strange, accented person who says she is ill and wants to actually see a doctor.  Eventually she returned to her phone and it seemed, with some minor reluctance, booked me in for a mid-day appointment.  The conversation ended with my being given strict instructions that I would be required to arrive fifteen minutes earlier than the appointed time so as to have enough time to fill out the paper work they would require for this alien to be seen by an NHS GP.

OK.  No problem.  

Fifteen minutes before the appointed appointment time I entered the waiting room of the doctors’ surgery.

I noted there was a prominent electronic machine in the waiting room corner with a sign on it saying ‘Patients please check in here’ with a directional arrow pointing to the screen; I momentarily debated what to do.  Do I go to the machine which would probably be of no use to me?  Or, do I walk straight to the reception area to speak to one of the two receptionists.  Being a good Kiwi I though who knows…? … maybe as I had rung to make an appointment earlier in the day the machine may be expecting me, so I shall firstly go to the screen and see if it is awaiting my arrival.

A few pushes on the screen button soon let me know that there was no machine expectation of my arrival, therefore it required Step B to be put into action – to  go to reception desk where two very efficient looking ladies were standing behind the counter beavering away with books, files and pens.  

Rather like my Marks & Spencer’s experience I went to the counter and stood there feeling like a square peg for a few moments, with both ladies very aware of my presence but continuing to continue that which they were studiously working on, before one actually looked up and asked if she could help me.  “Yes,” I responded, “my name is Verna Cook-Jackson and I have a 12 o’clock appointment to see a doctor.” 

A most quizzical look responded to my explanation of why I was standing there, preceded by a head shake and then a raising finger pointing me back to the direction of the automated screen from where I had just come from.  “You need to key your details into the machine,” she said.

“I have,” said I. “But that machine is for patients enrolled in this practice.  I am not, I am visiting from overseas and telephoned at 9 this morning to make the appointment and informed the receptionist then of this.”

To which she responded, “You did?' in an almost accusing manner, "Who did you speak to?”  

“I don’t know,” I said, “whoever it was who answered the phone. I didn’t think I needed to take her name.”  At this stage I was feeling a little irritated and awkward as the eyes of the other six people already sitting in the waiting room were all in my direction and totally involved in the two-way conversation between the receptionist and myself.

With a look of frustration the receptionist followed this with, “Well … what did you say your name was?”

Only then did she look into her MANUALLY written appointment book (so what’s the point of all the technology when they use a manual appointment book?!) and run her finger up and down the page to find my appointment listed.  It would appear her book did not have it listed as she shook her head, then lent across to the receptionist standing next to her, pulled her MANUAL appointment book over and ran her finger down that list.

“There is no record of your appointment in our books,” she declared.  

“Well, I know I rang here and I know I made an appointment, and I know I was told to come fifteen minutes early to fill in some forms so it must be somewhere.”  

Then came the inquisition.  “How did you come to ring this medical practice then?”

I responded, PATIENTLY (patience:  adj - something Verna Cook-Jackson has oodles of). “ I am staying with relatives who are patients at this practice, it was they who gave me your contact details.”

“Who are they?” was her tiresome retort.  

I gave her the name of my in-laws.  “What’s their address then,” she responded.  I gave her the address.  “And why have you come to see a doctor then?”   

To this I ssllooowwwlly responded with loud and clear annunciation (in case she may have had a hearing problem) that I had had a bot for ten days and was wanting some experienced medical advice.   “Well just a minute then, I’ll go and speak to our office manager to find out what to do with you.”  With which she disappeared leaving me standing there feeling like a piece of flotsam, to the entertainment of the other patients who were now intent on what was happening.

She eventually returned. “We have found your appointment, if you fill out these forms the doctor can then see you,” and she handed me a form and pen; with no apology, no explanation, not even a smile.

I duly filled out the form.  Handed it back. “Just take a seat and when your name comes up on the screen you go down the corridor to the doctor’s room.”  

I did.  As each eye from the other patients followed me – one could feel their great trepidation of fear that I may actually sit next to them. 
For their awkward sakes, I didn’t.  Plonked myself in a corner feeling reprimanded, scolded and as though I had been sent to sit on the naughty chair.  And watched the screen for my name to come up. 

It was a quarter past the hour of my appointment by now.  On the floor in front of me were two small toddlers playing with old toys that were supplied for their entertainment from a plastic bin on the floor by my corner.  Another small child was sitting on the floor next to them flicking through a book that was among several that the children had taken from the box and strewn on the floor.  They were cute children, enjoying their waiting time.  They had entertainment supplied by management to amuse themselves. They were lucky.

Another forty-five minutes later my name came up on the screen.  That is one hour and fifteen minutes since my first steps into the medical center and one hour later than my scheduled appointment.  

That forty-five minute wait was a long forty-minutes because not only did I sit and watch each one of the previous six patients be slowly summonsed to the doctor’s room, but I had made the mistake of not taking any reading material with me to while away the many minutes. That would have been fine in any other waiting rooms which always have old and tatty magazines or newspapers for patients to read whilst whiling away the time, but this waiting room had not one magazine or newspaper anywhere to keep the grown-ups happy and entertained while waiting.  Only a wall with various pamphlets relating to various medical conditions.  

My wait was so long that out of desperation I resorted to getting up and reading each pamphlet; I learned about Diabetes, Colon Cancer, Warts, Moles, Verruca, Bunions, Diverticulitis, Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Tonsillitis, Cataracts, Arthritis and, interestingly enough, Stress Related Illnesses.

Just as I was deeply into the cause of stress and illnesses, my name came up on the screen. Dumped the pamphlets and almost ran to the doctor’s room where I was greeted reasonably pleasantly by a young, Middle-Eastern looking woman who introduced herself as Doctor Whoever (can’t remember her Middle-Eastern name) and followed that with,  “I apologise Mrs Cook-Jackson for the wait you have had.” 

To which I responded, “Oh, the wait would have been fine had there been any magazines in the waiting room for me to read to fill in the long period, but there were none.”

“Of course there are none,” she sharply retorted, this time not so pleasantly. “This is a doctor’s surgery and we can’t have people with germs and infections coming in here and reading magazines that the next patient would pick up and maybe become infected with.”  Scolding done.

“But….” my mind said, but voice didn’t, “I’ve just left three little children sitting on your general public waiting room floor, playing with dirty toys and books that have been stored in a plastic box on the floor for weeks and played with by heaven knows how many infected children, also sitting on the floor …!!”  

I felt it prudent I shut up, get my antibiotics and scarper.  Quickly.