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Yesterday I was sitting peacefully in my office with 4 of my other coworkers.

A woman bursts in the door.

I don't even look up because if a woman is bursting in the door it's either Laura, who wasn't at work yet, my boss, or Sarah, a girl who sort of oversees our databases. I think, not too sure what she does. I see this woman making a beeline for me so I think "Sh8t, my boss" and start to close out the email I'm composing to Jam.

As I turn to look at this person, I realize it's not my boss. It's a person without a hospital ID, carrying a file folder. She stops at my desk and says "I'm supposed to meet Dr. X and he's not in the room he said he'd be in and now I can't find him and I need you to help me." I look at her dumbfounded. 1. I barely know Dr. X. I know who he is, he's the pr!ck who walks through the halls with his nose in the air and does not acknowledge your existence unless you have a MD. He also helps himself to seconds and thirds at our weekly conferences when there's barely enough food to feed the people who show up firsts. Other than that, I know nothing about him. 2. This is a private office, we're not anyone's office assistants, this is NOT our job.
In trying to be nice, I say "I know where his office is, let me point it out to you." I take the woman down the hall a ways and say "it's up there on the right." She walks away without a "thank you."

I return to my office and close the door with a groan. Everyone talks at once "can you believe that" "seriously?" "oh my GOD!" I say "this is why we need to keep the door shut!" Actually, this is not the first time we've had people barge in making demands. We've had people open the door and say "I printed something to your printer" barge into our office and start rifling through documents on the printer. We've had people want to use our phones or email someone or page someone. Once a woman barged in because she needed a tissue. Another time someone wanted the code to the bathroom, other times people want to know where the bathroom is. We even had a woman bitch us out because we didn't know where Dr. G's office was. She pulled a nutty right in our office screaming "WELL DO YOU OR DON'T YOU KNOW??!!!" It's all because we're right next to the conference room and I guess people assume that because we work in an office that's one big open room and not personal and private that we're receptionists or something, I don't know what. It's annoying too because our building is not that big and a square. If you can get to the Smith building and get on the right floor, you'll find what you're looking for.

Just as we settle down, the door bursts open again. Guess who's back? That's right, it's CRAZY. Again, she comes right to the edge of my keyboard, all up in my biz. "Yeah he wasn't there, page him for me?" Behind Crazy, Rochelle's jaw drops. "Ummm ok" I say. I open the intranet and start looking at the home page because I have know earthly idea how to page someone. "I'm actually not quite sure how to page someone" I say. The woman shifts her weight from foot to foot and kind of whines "you don't." She sights. Luckily, other Allison jumps in and says "Here, I'll do it" and Crazy migrates to the edge of her keyboard. "Ok," Allison says, "you want to page Dr. X, alrighty, and what number would you like him to call back?" "Oh ha ha" laughs Crazy, "I don't have a phone here. He'll need to call one of your extensions." At that point, I've had enough "LOOK" I shout, "wouldn't this be something that the reception desk at the front should be handling?" "Yea.." starts Allison, but Crazy interrupts her "No, no now I want YOU to do it. I want him to call me HERE at this extension." Rochelle's jaw drops again. "FINE, " says Allison, paging Dr. X

Because Dr. X is a jerkstore he didn't call back for 10 minutes. For 10 whole minutes Crazy stands in our office, right in the middle, shifting from foot to foot, scrutinizing our pictures, our files, US, everything. Finally Allison's phone rings. The conversation sounds like this "Yeah, I have her here.....excuse me??.....dead silence dead silence foreverrrrrr....Fine, 3rd floor Fine." She says to Crazy "he wants you to go to the third floor, he'll meet you at the elevators there." "How do I get there?" she asks. We explain where the elevators are. "Ok Thanks!" she says.
We shut the door again and hope she doesn't come back. Allison then says that Dr. X wanted one of us to walk the lost soul to a different building a block away so she wouldn't get lost. 'That's why I was silent for so long. That' s not my job. I want to be helpful, but there's a limit, and that limit is getting my coat on and walking some woman two blocks to meet Dr. X when he was supposed to meet her here. We don't even work for him!!"

As if that wasn't enough, Dr. X calls back 5 minutes later demanding to know where Crazy is. "She's not HERE yet" he says. "Well," says Allison "I'm sure she'll make it." She slams the phone down.

I think we need to get a sign for our door that says "PRIVATE."