Sweet weekends of work

I observed something funny today. There is this doctor I work with who especially detests weekend call. That's kind of comical all by itself; nobody likes working the weekend... not we nurses, not the respiratory therapists, not the kitchen staff, not the other doctors. But apparently Dr. Cardiologist thinks that it is especially bad treatment when he has to work the weekend, because he always makes it known within seconds of stepping onto the floor. So anyway, today at around 2 or so, Dr. Cardiologist had to discharge a patient, a well-understood pain in the tail for everyone involved (but of course much more frustrating to him than to any of us). One of the items on his list of things to do in order to send a patient home is to dictate a discharge summary. Here is where the hilarity ensued. Picture a grown man rifling through a chart, muttering under his breath about how people "change where they put things" every other day. Imagine him literally tearing pages as he turns them, dropping the F bomb. In your mind's eye, see him ripping the phone off the hook and grouchily speaking as fast as is humanly possible into the mouthpiece. And then, let your mind really get away from you and picture him throwing the phone onto the desk, slamming the chart, swearing up a storm, punching the rewind button on the phone. Inch your little rolly chair away from him and try not to fear for your life as he literally growls. Offer to find what it is that he's looking for. Try not to feel miffed as he ignores your kind offer. And then, stifle a GUFFAW as he stomps off the unit, yelling, "This is ridiculous!"

Huh? 

What is ridiculous? 

That you had to work a weekend? Welcome to the real world. That you had to discharge a patient? Congratulations, your colleague in the green to your left has discharged seven today already. That you couldn't find the information you were looking for as you were shouting into the dictaphone? Again, welcome; note that your colleagues handle this with ease; and for your future reference, I'd like to introduce you to the pause button.

Or is what is ridiculous the fact that you have behaved like a five year-old asked to clean his room when he didn't want to, and has reacted to such a nonsensical request by kicking and slamming everything within his reach? I'm going to vote that labeling your perspective of the event as 'ridiculous' is kind of humorously ironic, and I'm going to subtract 100 points from my Assertive Woman score for allowing you to act like this in my presence. For real, if I didn't fear for my actual life, I probably would have called you on your childish behavior, but instead I came home with a good mind to write a letter to your supervisor. Except for the fact that that is the exact opposite of assertive and makes me sound too much like my mom, I might actually do it. 

For Pete's sake, he ought to be ashamed of himself.