Congratulations on Your Rolly Chair

Do you know what bothers me, like really sets me off for no particular reason?  Doctors' rolling chairs.  It's a soapbox issue.

Here's the scenario:  You go to the doctor, you're either sick, need a medicine recheck, or a check up.  You have to make the appointment three weeks in advance because every doctor is booked up at least that long.  You finally get to your appointment and you wait...and wait...and wait.  My doctor does the two waiting rooms thing.  You start in one and then move to the inner one.  Once you get to the inside one you feel like you have achieved the inner sanctum.  It Might one day Possibly be your turn!!  Then you go to the room.  Can you guess what you do once you're there?  Yep.  You WAIT.  Bring a book, heck write a book during this wait!

You are paying this doctor a substanial amount of money, whether it is out of pocket or through insurance premiums.  You have some valid reason for being at the doctor's office.  The doctor, you know in advance, is going to be in the room about 15 minutes.  Find a bill, figure up what you are paying per minute of this man/woman's time.

So now that I have sat in the waiting room contemplating all the time wasted in the waiting room and the money being wasted as I sit in this uncomfortable vinyl chair; I am in a perfectly wonderful disposition.  Then comes The Chair.  Why do they have the rolly chair?  The doctor is in there for approximately 15 minutes.  Okay, his/her feet hurt, I could see that, Use a Normal Chair!!!  To me the rolly chair is a power play and I don't like power plays.  Think about it.  This doctor has you sitting in your underwear, wasting valuable time and then they come in to a 10x12 room and start wheeling around like it's the Teacups at Disney World.  I understand they have a diploma.  That's why I'm there!  I'm paying them!  Why are they doing the power struggle thing?  They feel more powerful in a chair with wheels?  "I am the doctor let me zip around here and do...NOTHING" because the doctor can't actually examine you from the stool, they have to get up!  It's like they need the chair for respect.  Isn't the white coat supposed to do that????

So, as I said, the chair thing really bothers me.  To make myself feel better when I come in to the examining room, I sit in the rolly chair.  Then I stare so hard that I dare them to make me get up.  Try it sometime.  It totally throws them.  Some doctors are really kind and will take the sticky vinyl chair across from you and talk to you as you are both human beings, both deserving of a conversation and a certain amount of respect.  (BTW, why are the chairs always sticky?  Do you picture all the various and sundry bodily fluids from hundreds of people that could be on those chairs?  You will now.  Wash your hands.  Wash your jeans.  Wash your butt.)  I continue to go to respectful doctors and I don't have to sit in his/her rolly chair again usually.  Bad doctors take "the tone" and tell you to get up.  Usually a snarky remark comes to mind and, depending on my temperature, promptly exits my mouth.  Those doctors I try to either avoid or make as uncomfortable as possible.  I know, I know, it isn't nice but I'm sick (in more ways than one apparently) and I don't feel like making their life easier at that moment.

I don't understand how they have arrived at the rolly chair power struggle.  They don't hand these out at graduation from med school, yet every doctor has a rolly chair and most have the rolly chair complex.  I have a rolly chair in my office.  It has a nice back and adjustable arms. I have a rolly stool too, but when I go to meetings with vendors or my boss or coworkers I don't take my chair to make me feel powerful, I sit in whatever is available.  I wonder if when the doctors are fighting with their spouse, if they pull out an office chair and say "See, I have the chair, I'm right."  Pulling out the rolly chair is like saying "You can't defeat me. I have the high ground" in Star Wars.  It seems silly, other dude still has a light saber and you could fall from that high ground.  Are you following my simile, it diverged into geekdom for a moment?

Sigh.  I feel a little better now after confessing my long held chair feelings.  Just in case you are thinking to yourself that you would suggest a trip to the doctor for some stronger medication, know that I am not alone in the chair power struggle though process, I learned it from my Daddy.  :)

EDIT:  I might have just figured it out!  Maybe the chair is used in compensation.  Follow me here.  Some men buy great big bikes and really fast cars to compensate for "other areas" in their life. Maybe these rolly chair complex stricken doctors are using their chair to compensate for their lack of medical knowledge or confidence.  So, the ones who let you sit in their chair aren't threatened but rather, feel they know enough about medicine to treat you from the bodily fluid vinyl chair.  The other doctors...well...draw your own conclusions.