Telephone Shield

"Sir, there is someone on the phone for you" the servant said. "Who is it?" I asked. Telephones are time wasters as per my management guru Stephen Covey. No matter what you are doing, you tend to leave it to take a call, which may be extremely unimportant. "Someone called XXXX" he said. "He would not say who it was, until I told him who I was. Does not say what his work is too." I was pressed for time, but I took the call. "Who is speaking?" he asked. I told him who I was. "I want to talk to you for 2-3 minutes. Can I meet you?" "Talk on the phone" I said. "No. I want to speak to you in person" he said. "What is it about?" I asked. "I will tell you when I meet you" he said. "Is it for some patient?" I asked. "Ur... no" he said. "Does it have anything to do with the corporation?" I asked. I was asking all these questions so that I could guide him to an appropriate person, instead of spending time on something someone else should be doing. "No." "See, the corporation pays me to work for it. I cannot spend time on other things. Is it reasonable for you to ask me to see you when you won't tell me what it is that you want to talk about?" i asked. "...." "DO you have to have call the most senior doctor?" "So you won't see me because you are the biggest doctor?" he asked. He had started to get on my nerves. My work was left pending. "Senior doctors have a lot of administrative work too, and I cannot spend time if it is to be done by someone else." "What do you do after your work?" "I go home at 4:00 P.M. after I finish my work. Why don't you tell me what it is all about?" "OK. In that case I will talk to the Dean" he said. "You do that" I said. I don't like people threatening to go to my boss when I won't meet the unreasonable demands they make. Perhaps he was a person with intentions to harm me to get even for some dissatisfied patient in the hospital. Perhaps he was some lawyer trying to fix things for his client treated in our hospital. I wonder what God had in mind when he made people like this person. Finally I rang up the senior administrative medical officer before leaving for the day, told him the story in brief, and asked him if he knew any such person. He did not. So I told him that if he should indeed see the Dean and the Dean wanted me to see him, he should be advised accordingly to see me tomorrow or the day after.