Tales of a 25%-of-the-Time Snapper

Yesterday I snapped at the receptionist at my daughter's doctor's appointment. I won't go into all of the details, but the gist of it is I was frustrated about something the doctor had said to my daughter and instead of talking about it to the doctor, I took my annoyance out on the receptionist.

She was a nice lady, sitting behind the desk wearing these darling holiday ornament earrings, a detail I did not notice because I was busy snapping at her, but which I was informed about later in the car by my daughter, who told me I was mean and what the heck, Mom?? didn't you see how nice that lady was trying to be to you, and how cute her holiday earrings were?

um. no?

It's like that time you yelled at the cashier in the Dick's Sporting Goods store because a price sticker was mislabled, my daughter reminded me. 

oh yeah. that was bad.

But those are only two examples, I said, defensively. Most of the time I am a very kind person. Like, I'd say that in 75% of all of my interactions with strangers, waitresses, clerks, volunteers of any kind, the people in line at the post office-- I'm nice.

More like 50%, my daughter pointed out.

Crap. Is that true?

because I know what it feels like to be the waitress or the clerk or the volunteer or the person in line at the post office, the one mailing multiple packages and buying stamps while sensing the line growing behind me, the people sighing irritated sighs and glaring at my back, thinking OH MY GOD lady will you hurry the heck up with your packages!!!!

A few weeks ago I made the girl, who has the very unfortunate job of answering the phone in Ohio Republican Congressman Steve Stivers' office, cry. I have talked to this girl before and she has a very soft, dejected-beaten-down-sounding kind of voice and whenever I call the office and she answers, I try to remind myself that she is only answering the phone and not purposely making laws that will hurt me and my friends and my family members the way her boss Steve Stivers does,

but somehow, these thoughts fly out the window when I am on the phone with her and I end up turning snotty and/or ranting

and I tell myself: Whatever! That's HER problem!! Because she works for the Greedy Out-of-Touch Jerk and anyway, this is HER JOB to speak to Disgruntled Constituents! and she is the only recourse for us to vent our worries and fears and horror because it's not like STEVE STIVERS himself is going to answer the phone or hold a townhall or listen to our concerns, so who else are we going to talk to if we have problem?

But then I hang up, vented out and not feeling any better because all I really did is snap at a twenty year old intern,

which occurs to me must be The Worst Customer Service job in the world these days and I hope Steve Stivers is paying her decent money, or will write her a very good recommendation for her next job, and if he needs any help with this, I can vouch for her. "She--whoever she is-- is extremely polite and well-spoken and patient and handles stressful interactions like a pro!" 

When I was in grad school, I worked at a bookstore. One night, I was standing behind the cash register and a woman dumped all of her books and purchases onto the counter in front of me and I smiled at her and said something like, Wow, you've got a lot of things! as I began to ring her up.

She had this weird look on her face and she snapped at me, something along the lines of, Well, pardon me for taking up all of your time.

It hit me that she'd thought I was making some kind of dig about her purchases, when really, what did I care whether someone had one book or 500? I was still standing there cashier-ing, but I didn't know how to explain this, so I just kept ringing up her books and feeling crappier and crappier.

I don't know what this has to do with me yelling at Steve Stivers' hapless intern or my cruddy treatment of the holiday-loving receptionist in the doctor's office, but something I do know is that it can't hurt to remind ourselves that there are real human beings on the other side of our interactions,

the ones picking out cute holiday earrings or schlepping up the steps of the Capitol to answer the phone or toasting new tax bills that will blow up the deficit and take away healthcare and raise poor and middle class people's taxes,

(yeah. sigh. Steve Stivers is a real human being)

and here we are, all of us, standing in lines and picking up phones and toasting and/or freaking out over new tax bills, but today, at least,

let's try to be 100% kind to the people on the other side.

Fun Times at a Meeting with My Congressman

I am way out of my league at this meeting.

The other women carry binders of statistics, folders of research, handwritten letters and testimonials. Me, I've got nothing. 

Until a few months ago, I didn't know who my Congressional representative was. (Steve Stivers) Until a few weeks ago, I didn't know what my district was. (Ohio District 15) Until I programmed the address into my GPS, I didn't know where this office was. (3790 Municipal Way, Hilliard, Ohio, office phone: 614-771-4968)

Now I'm sitting here in a reception room with a handful of very prepared, professional-looking women, who are waiting to meet with Steve Stivers' District Director. His name's Adam and he's young enough to be my son. He asks us to sign in and one by one we do, with me wondering what they'll do with these names and addresses.

(Hey, I've read a ton of Dystopian fiction! Someone could be building a list of troublemakers in District 15. Next week they'll round all of us up and make us fight to the death in the Hunger Games or dress us like handmaidens in the Handmaid's Tale. 

That, or Steve Stivers' office will email us a bland, yet nice, form letter thanking us for visiting his office.) 

I decide to go with option C.

We sit down in comfy chairs in a room that looks like a boardroom. Again, I am having flashbacks to school board meetings, except this room's got a nice picture of Steve Stivers on the wall. He seems like a nice guy. Adam seems like a nice guy too. He opens the meeting by asking us to go around and introduce ourselves and share our concerns and he'll gladly pass those on to the congressman. 

Since I'm sitting next to Adam, I go first. I start out okay, I think, saying that I'm new at this-- the whole activist thing. I don't know the proper way to go about expressing my dissent with the new administration. The letters, the phone calls, the town halls that my representative (Steve Stivers) doesn't attend--these don't seem to be making a difference. 

And you know what? I'm angry after reading in the newspaper that Steve Stivers called me and people who've been writing and calling "paid protesters." It's not true. And it's disrespectful, I say, my voice rising.  I voted for Mr. Stivers and now, truth be told, I'm ticked off at myself for doing that. I don't feel like he's representing me.

Also, I don't know even know why I'm mad, I say. None of this affects me. I'm probably not going to be hurt by whatever new healthcare plan is passed. I don't have to worry about losing contraceptives. My kids are now out of public school.

Other people will be affected, though, and this matters to me.  

My voice keeps rising. I can feel my face burning and my voice getting thick. What the hell is this? Ugh, am I going to cry? 

Adam must think so. He's shifting uncomfortably in his seat. His head's bowed and he scrawls something on his notepad. (Possibly: ooooh kay this one's a lunatic.) But he says, nicely, that the congressman wasn't talking about his constituents when he said that thing about the paid protesters. He was talking about the people in Utah. 

This is  a lie  debatable, and I debate him, but then I quit and let the other women have a turn.

They speak, one by one, as Adam dutifully nods and occasionally writes something on his notepad.

One has just come from the hospital where her husband is recovering from expensive surgery. She's grateful for Medicare and is terrified it will be taken away. She has a letter she reads about the importance of the ACA.

Another woman opens a file and begins quoting statistics. She hopes that Steve Stivers will take a look at her research and Adam assures her that he will.

Someone tells a story about her nephew who was born with a congenital disease, how he suffered and died and this was before the ACA and the family struggled with medical bills. She starts to cry as she speaks about how we can't go back to that as a country, where people go bankrupt and have to rely on charity fundraisers to pay for catastrophic care. 

Adam interjects now and again to explain the congressman's thoughts, that healthcare is not a right but a responsibility, that the Republican goal is to keep costs down, that the new plan will help with that.

A woman points out that we'll save money if we keep the ACA. Isn't it better (and cheaper!) she asks, to pay for prevention-- things like birth control, drug addiction treatment, vaccines, medications, regular checkups with the doctor, rather than expensive trips to the emergency room?

Sure, Adam says, but Steve Stivers thinks people should be working to pay for their own health care.

But the working poor are the ones most using the ACA, the woman with all of the research folders points out. And not everyone can work. Children, for example. And elderly people in nursing homes. And people with disabilities. These are the people who will be most harmed by the repeal of the ACA.

An hour goes by and I am losing my will to live desire to sit any longer at this meeting.

It's such a sad, bizarre mix of passionate anger and boring procedural stuff, so that one moment someone is talking about the raging opioid epidemic in Ohio (The state is tied with Kentucky, in the top three of overdose deaths this year.) and the next moment, we're discussing the protocol for how the office handles constituent mail. Also, how many mean phone calls Steve Stivers gets each day. (A lot, apparently. But Adam assures us that Steve Stivers has a thick skin. Whew.)

After the meeting, the women hand Adam their letters and folders of research. Another office worker takes our pictures with Adam. He shakes our hands and offers us his card. He really is a nice guy. 

And it really is nice that Steve Stivers opened his office up to us, that he pays nice guys like Adam to answer the phones and read our letters, that he gives his constituents an opportunity to vent their anger and terror in meetings like this one. 

Steve Stivers is going to vote for the new healthcare law that guts the ACA anyway.

I know this. The women at the meeting know this too. I drive home from the meeting wondering why I went. I have no idea what to do next.

So I do the only thing I can.

I write about it.

Steve Stivers, the nice Congressperson of Ohio District 15