The staff member with many attitudes I mentioned in my previous posts started coming in time. She has a curious habit of coughing twice on entering a room so that people noticed her. I think we can live with that, but I hope she does not put out germs that can infect others, since she does not cover her nose and mouth when she coughs. Every morning she arrives, enters the office, coughs twice and signs on the muster. Then she plops down comfortably to catch her breath. She probably needs that, since she has a lot of weight to carry around, and her car can bring her to the campus, but she has to walk to the office on her two feet, using those same old muscles, with same old lungs oxygenating her blood and throwing out the carbon dioxide generated by the effort, and the same old heart pumping the oxygenated blood to the same old muscles we just mentioned. The sad part is that she continues to rest there or in the staff room while the resident doctors and the staff members posted under her wait for her to start the ward rounds or whatever work that is scheduled that day. After making them wait for half an hour while she does nothing constructive for the institute, she gets up and starts work. Wasting time of others is a crime, because the institute pays for their time, which is wasted, and the patients keep waiting for treatment, which can be given only after our friend with an attitude sees them. She could tell them to do their work and come for the ward round after the half an hour she has to spend sitting down. But she does not do that. I think she feels that making others wait for her establishes her greatness. I think she feels insecure, and has to behave this way to prove to herself that she is indeed great. I will say that she is not alone in this world. There are a lot of people who behave the same way. One of our previous Deans used to call all heads of departments for meetings, and arrive a half-hour late. She wouldn’t even be apologetic about it. And there are the administrators higher than the Deans, who treat doctors and other junior administrators the same, calling them for meetings and making them wait for hours, after which the meeting may or may not take place. And I read in the newspapers that politicians do the same thing when in power.
