Cash Transaction

2001 found me back in Scotland working for the NHS as a consultant specialist. 
The ladies of the clerical and technical staff were lovely, but being Scottish, considered it their role to make it clear to me that the department hierarchy did not include me. 
(Fortunately this seemed quite normal to me, the only male in a family of seven apart from Harry the dog and my father, a wise man who valued peace.)

Perhaps because receptionists were constantly being harassed by impatient and sometimes aggressive patients*, and because I was evidently such a soft target, the lovely office ladies took delight in reminding me of my subordinate role in their efficient machine of patient management.


 * Aggressive patients, in my 38 years of medical practice, are a unique species only found in the public hospital system. Private patients are almost universally respectful and grateful for the help they receive. No one values something they receive for nothing 

                                            ************

The Wimbledon Championships is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and widely considered the most prestigious. 
It has been held at the All England Club in London since 1877. 

In the pre-Andy Murray days of 2001, it was an event of little interest to the girls of the clerical staff at my hospital, although the spectacle of fit young men running about in tight shorts provided some entertainment for them. Especially good-looking fit young men like Pat and Goran, who were destined to meet in the men's final.

So the TV in the waiting room was tuned to Wimbledon, and patient throughput slowed to a crawl. 
For reasons I am biologically unsuited to comprehend, the office ladies decided that Goran was more deserving of their support than Pat.

It was a classic encounter between two superb athletes, but I was patriotically heavily invested in a favourable outcome for the Aussie, and irrationally irritated by their support for his opponent.

I pointed out to them that Australians had fought and died in Europe in two world wars when they quite logically could have stayed safe at home on the other side of the planet, and that perhaps, even though it was irrelevant to a sporting event, all other considerations being equal, it might have been a good enough reason to at least be impartial.


They asked me which side Australia had fought for.