She says it’s her hormones. She says that’s why she threw the calculator at the toilet door. From reception. She says her hormones make her angry. She says it was nothing to do with the patient that asked her if she was pregnant. When she is not. She says it’s her hormones.

The patient then shouts at me, of course. The ‘zero tolerance to abusive behaviour’ smirks at me behind his shoulder. I apologise of course. I apologise that we can’t fit him in to get his urgent wart seen today. I apologise. I apologise. That’s what we do.

I explain you can’t go throwing calculators at doors/patients. She cries. She goes home.

So. I have to sit in reception.

He comes in. It’s hard to tell straight away if his mood is good or bad. He slams his mug down on the table and moans loudly about the ‘wrong coffee’. He looks in the sweet tin and bangs the lid back on as he realises only the coffee creams have escaped the stampede from  the admin team.

His mood is bad.

The other one comes in and walks with a slight limp. His hip is hurting again. This only means one thing. Tomorrow he won’t be in.

I stagger upstairs and close the door tightly behind me. I sigh and lean against the heavy wooden frame. I enjoy the ten seconds of peace before she’s knocking and the other one stands behind all agitated. I ask them both in.

They begin arguing fiercely that they both want that same week off. Why can’t she just be a team player, says one.  There’s no ‘i’ in team says the other. Thinking she’s being imaginative. I say I will sort it out so that one can get to see Donny Osmond and the other should be able to get to the Jeremy Kyle show. I’ll sort it.

He then comes in and starts pointing furiously at my window. I look and can only see that woman outside who has a cat and likes to walk it on a lead. The cat, I say. No. That ******* parking, he says. Pointing at the Range Rover. Oh. I say. Why can’t he just park straight, he says. Before I can make up an answer, he walks out to see his next patient.

Reception call and say the nurse is late. She’s come across an accident on her way to work and is helping out. That’s the fifth time in three weeks. Unlucky I’d say.

Mr ‘had the wrong coffee’ comes in next and tells me that if someone doesn’t ‘fix his computer soon’ he will throw it out of the window. Hardly useful. I tell him to switch it on and off and see what happens. He scowls. He walks out. I then send the 17^th email to the IT department that day.

With that, I look at my phone, it’s 8.40am.

Time to start work.

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