The Receptionist's Oath

Each time I go to a doctor's office, I am struck by how unsmiling, unfriendly, and generally grumpy the receptionists are. Their job must be harder than I realize, because they look worse than the patients. Morticians are cheerier than your average receptionist.

Receptionists are like this solid front of thunder clouds, impenetrable, and likely to break any minute on some unsuspecting patient. They must have some code, some oath akin to the physician's Hippocratic Oath, that makes them promise to "never smile or offer a kindly word to those in distress, never to undertake any action that might be construed as comforting, to willfully view each patient as a thorn in one's side, to mutter under one's breath, and to make the office atmosphere generally so unpleasant as to make patients wish they were rather in a morgue."

Receptionists at dentists' offices, on the other hand, are much more cheerful. This is probably due to the fact that they know that every single person who comes in that office is more miserable than they are, and this makes the receptionists happy in a morbid sort of way. They know that torture awaits the patients in the back, which causes them to rub their hands gleefully and make an awful chuckling sound. They can afford to be kind out front, for they know what awaits the patients once they step through that door. They are especially cheerful when the receptionists from doctors' offices come in. Aha! they say. You think you're so smug because you have that oath. Well, we have our own Hypocritical Oath! HAHAHAHAHAHA!