So I had another root canal done this morning. Something very bizarre happened while I was waiting. I was sitting in the chair reading the People magazine article about Sigfried and Roy and the tiger attack, when the assistant or whatever she was came in. Two things happened then.
Opposite the last page of the article was an article about the little 2 year old whose mother left her home alone for 3 weeks while she was in jail. I said “have you seen this?” and I summed up the article for both her and the other assistant guy who I like a lot and who has been there all the years I’ve been going. The woman first said that she doubted that the woman hadn’t told her husband. She said the guy probably knew and just didn’t do anything for 3 weeks. I tried to explain that the father had been frantically looking for the kid, yadda yadda.
Then she blew my mind. She said that leaving the kid home alone wasn’t such a big deal (obviously not after the lady got arrested, but before that) and then she said that she used to leave her kids home alone in their crib for 5 or 6 hours! I was so stunned I couldn’t even speak.
A few minutes later I was looking at the Sigfried and Roy article again and she looked over at it. “heh. FAGS!” she said, in a disgusted yet mocking tone. I just about choked.
I told my dentist what she’d said when he came back in and she had left the room. I was just horrified!
There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but I love my dentist and didn’t want to cause a scene in his office. Jeez she pissed me off though! In what universe is it ok to leave babies alone for 5-6 hours? On what planet is it acceptable to call strangers “FAGS!” especially to a total stranger? I mean that’s not just rude, it’s stupid! She didn’t know my position on gay people… the chances of me finding it very offensive were pretty high.
Ok this was a weak rant, but I am hoping you folks could pick up the slack and say the things that I feel in my heart but haven’t the energy to put into words…
I’m aghast. I can’t find the words to express how shocked I am that a mother would find it perfectly okay to leave her babies alone in their cribs (sheesh, when mine were little I’d get up several times a night just to look in on them, I was kinda hoping THAT was normal, not the cavalier attitude that it’s “no big deal”).
I don’t think it was a weak rant at all.
I hope your dentist does the right thing and fires her.
Fortunately she is clearly old enough that her kids are no doubt at least teenagers if not out of the house already. I’d hate to hear something like that from someone I knew had little kids at home. I’d have to report it or something :X
I’m curious as to what your dentist said when you told him?
I might be inclined to tell him that when I come back to visit him I want a different assistant. Is there someone else in the office that could step in or is she your only option?
He looked concerned and thanked me for telling him.
She isn’t the assistant that works with me, she was just wandering in and out for whatever reason. George is the “other assistant guy” I made passing reference to in my post and he is always the one who is actually working on me.
Well, look at it this way - whether or not the dental assistant is a homophobic asshole is a useful thing to know before he or she puts any painful spinny things near my teeth.
She sounds like a total waste of skin. That said, I wouldn’t advocate firing her for telling you that she left her babies unattended, shocking though that may be - you did invite discussion on the topic, and while idiotic, it’s not really hateful.
However, making a comment about “fags” out of the blue based on looking at an article over your shoulder is definitely a firing offense.
She sounds like a very ignorant bigot and a terrible mother, but in retrospect you opened up the conversational can of worms. She didn’t volunteer her opinion without prompting, you asked an open ended question.
There are many people that hold unconventional or obnoxious opinions we may disagree with, and I’m sure many of my co-workers who otherwise might think I am the cat’s meow, would be shocked by some of my opinions, especially on faith related topics. If you don’t want to know keep your mouth shut.
I discovered this once when attending a Chamber of Commerce luncheon and being seated at a table with a group of otherwise attractive, pleasant and successful professional women. I don’t know exactly how the conversation got there (probably my fault), but these four women, who had never met each other before, had some very strong opinions about who should and should not be allowed to have babies. If they had their druthers mandatory birth control, parenting licenses and broad, quasi-fascist eugenic policies would be the order of the day, and they were serious as a heart attack in this discussion. I didn’t request or need this information, but it colored my perception of them from then on.
If I discover someone has crappy mothering opinions and is a bigot through a conversation I have initiated, I will try not to have anything to do with them socially, but I am not really comfortable with the idea of taking these non-work related personal opinions I have solicited, and telling their boss what terrible person I think they are. Suppose one my co-workers or clients discovered I was mainly an atheist and refused to have anything to do with me for this reason.
astro: The main thing I’m upset about is the “fags” comment. The other thing just stunned me is all. It didn’t offend me, it just lowered my opinion of her as a person. I hardly see where my reading an article in a magazine opened a can of worms for her to spew her homophobic slurs.
(oh, and I don’t see how just asking if they’d seen the article was “opening a can of worms” anyway, even if that had been what my major gripe was about.)
As I said, she doesn’t assist my dentist when he is working on my teeth. George does, who is great. She was coming in and out doing something else, like putting away tools or something. It was before they started work on my teeth, while I was just in there waiting and reading the magazine.
And I love my dentist. I swear he is god’s gift to the profession.
hampsters ate my post…
What she said was inexcuseable on both counts. She should be fired.
Q: Is your Dentist, by any chance, dating her/ married to her? {I’ve seen it happen in past Dentists I’ve used…No, I am Not a raving Anti-Dentite.} If he is, he may be slow to fire her for her actions.
