Working the system
I had an appointment for blood tests today at 11:30 a.m.
It was inconvenient. It fell in the middle of a workday. My co-workers had to be out of the office for meetings around the same time. We'd have to close the office. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
So I got up this morning and I worked the system. 'Cause I know how it works.
I showed up at the 'specimen clinic' (lovely, eh?) at 8:45 a.m. and took a number. The 8:30 rush was just over and the lunchtime rush hadn't started. The big electronic counter was at 197. I had number 199.
"One ninety-eight!"
"One ninety-nine!"
I sat in the chair in front of the processor. "I, uh, I know I have an appointment this morning," I fluttered. "I lost the letter." (This was a lie.) "I know it's this morning. I think it's at 9:30." (This was a Lie.)
"Oh, that's okay, love," said the nice lady. "It was at 11:30 actually."
"Oh," I said. "I'm sorry. Two hours off."
"Oh, that's not bad at all," she said.
"Not bad at all for me," I said. (That wasn't a lie.)
"No problem, we can take you right in," she said. And I was done and in my office by 9:15.
Half of me feels dead guilty about it. Half of me feels like you have to use what you've learned to navigate the system.
All of me feels like I don't know what to think about having this knowledge. Or having used it to my personal benefit.
ronnie
posted by ronnie at
9:42 p.m.
3 Comments:
I'm with the half that says work the system if the system can be worked. What I don't like are the people who say "The system inconveniences me so let's throw the system out" as in the guy in the Supreme Court decision yesterday.
I find your ambivalence charming. You didn't take someone else's place or, as I understand the story, even cause the system any undue delays. If the receptionist had told you to go away and come back in two hours, you would have. Instead, a slot was available and you were there to fill it. By showing up in the gap between two rush periods, you probably even did the lab a favor.
Or perhaps that's what you can tell yourself as you lie awake at night, haunted by your ethical failings.
BrianFies
Love that bro of mine.
Ignore him. Takes practice. :)
I think it's ingenious. Good for you! Of course, I have no ethics to be challenged.
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