Officious receptionists

It's not just in Tehran or North Korea that you get beaten like a dog for speaking up for yourself.

It happens right here in Adelaide -every day.

It's just that the treatment is verbal here rather than physical.

I called into the Doctor again to ask if my prescription was ready.

I said..this is a prescription the Doctor made out in error last week

So, after going through the "name, date of birth, address" routine worthy of George Orwell's "1984" I was told in a voice loud enough to intimidate me.

'Your prescripion is ready. That will be five dollars!

As is normal with these vampires, the tone is that of a command, using inappropriate falling intonation, not a request.

So rude!

I said

'No, I'm not paying five dollars.This was a Doctor's error!

"All prescriptions are five dollars!" she said raising her voice deliberatley to a threatening level so that everyone could hear"

"I'm not paying it1" I said, and plucked my prescription from her grasp. She tried to grab it back.

Her colleague intervened - the one with whom I had had the exact same conversation the previous week.

She was conciliatory and the whole thing ended in a muddle with fudged reconciliation all round. I didn't have to pay.

These receptionists treat people like dogs.

Who was it said 'People consent to their own oppression'. He /she was right.

I can't understand it.

I thought this was supposed to be a place where people stood up for their rights.

How it has changed in the past ten years.

It is worse than many other countries where I have lived and which are criticised by Australians as not being democratic.

There may not be "Democracy" in these countries but the receptionists are polite-and so are the police usually.

I don't think I'm going to last for very long here.

Am I the only one who finds it difficult to get any pleasure here?

Where is the joy in such living?

Perhaps another embolism is on the way to put me out of my misery.