Dear Receptionist Person

The fact that you only make $6 an hour is no excuse for your glaring lack of professionalism. The office in which we work is staffed with no less than three people who hold doctoral degrees, not just the one whose name is on the door. When you speak to one of us directly, please feel free to call us by our first names - we all have to work together and we prefer to keep things collegial. However, when speaking to patients or agencies about us, please refer to us by our correct professional title: DOCTOR Insertlastnamehere. We all worked very hard to earn those degrees while you were off smoking hashish in the woods somewhere frying your brain cells to the point where they no longer function adequately. To refer to us by our first names undermines our professional credibility with both the patients and the agencies that refer business to us. Between the paper thin walls, shabby worn-out 1980's furniture and the appearance that it is a public health clinic rather than a private psychology practice, this office has enough professional credibility problems as it is without you adding to them.

When I make a request in a polite fashion (speaking slowly because your brain is fried like your overbleached hair that's far too long for a woman of your years), don't take it as a personal affront and go whining to the boss, "Do we really have to do that?" Yes, you do because that is what a professional office worker does. If it's necessary to tell you again, I can't promise to be so nice. Then again, you probably won't understand a word I have to say because of your limited vocabulary and insistence upon behaving like some cutesy little 7-year-old girl - even though you're 52.

Oh yeah, and it's a PSYCHOLOGIST'S office. Why the hell do you and the office manager wear nurse's scrubs? It's not like you ever even touch the patients.

Every day I come up with a new rule about what my practice is going to be like. It's shaping up to be the opposite of whatever you are.