Front desk medical assistant responds to boomer woman who criticizes her way of working and managing the clinic, so she proves the woman is lying: 'I figured I’ll keep her here a little longer and see how she likes it when her time is wasted'

María Cetra • Writer

Sep 30, 2026 6:30 PM EDT

Some people just lie for the fun of the game, don't they?

Lately, there has been a rise in the amount of entitlement that "boomers" think they have towards front desk employees. Or maybe I'm just noticing it more. It is no news to discover that older people act and think as if they deserve more just because they have been on Earth longer. And I'm all in for respecting our elders, especially for the path that they have paid, but that doesn't mean that they have the right to be mistreating younger people for the sake of getting heard. In situations like the one below, I think that the elders are acting the way that they do because they are afraid of admitting that they don't know how to do something. Let's take this story as an example: the woman probably didn't know that the system that guides the call to a receptionist to get the appointment with the doctor was not an answering machine. Let that sink in. It doesn't seem impossible for that to be the case why she never actually called the clinic.

With this, I'm not trying to justify behavior or conduct that is far out of line. This woman is wrong because even if she was confused or did it without knowing, that doesn't mean that the people working at the front desk deserved to be treated like that. Respect is something that you give out to everyone. And admitting when you are wrong can get you really far in life. There is no point in acting all defensive when you can simply ask for help. But I do think that all this proves something that older people are afraid to say. And that is that the world is advancing too fast. Yesterday they were learning that the TV had colors. Now, how the internet works, and tomorrow, how everything is AI. It's too much. I get the progressive side of all these new systems and technologies. But it is important to notice that most adults are not used to any of this and that it may be way too much to accept and learn at their age.

I work as an administrative medical assistant at an Orthopedic specialty office. On Fridays the only providers in office are Physical/Occupational Therapists. Their appointments are spaced out by 45-90 minutes meaning less patients checking in/out compared to days when the surgeons are in clinic. Fridays are usually pretty quiet and we know exactly who is coming in, when, and why. There are of course a special few patients who

A personal assistant handling calls from customers. Individual pictured is a model used for illustrative purposes. — *A personal assistant handling calls from customers.*
*_{Individual pictured is a model used for illustrative purposes.}*

seem to use this day to be energy vampires instead of letting us catch up on work, and they never have an appointment scheduled. So today when an unfamiliar boomer aged woman started walking in I prepared myself for the interaction. Keep in mind I pride myself on becoming familiar with all of our regular patients and I haven't seen this woman in the 4 years I have worked here.

I smile and ask how I can help her. She begins by immediately criticizing my fellow coworker and me. Claiming that she can't get us to answer our phones, she's called multiple times, and OBVIOUSLY she's in extreme pain so this is unacceptable! Although she did not answer my question, she seemed to be done with the tirade of complaints and was now looking down at me waiting for

me to begin apologizing or something???? *Side note. My coworker and I manage the front office in addition to answering ALL scheduling calls. Not only are we extremely diligent about returning any voicemails left after hours, but we are literally unable to reject or miss incoming calls during business hours. It doesn't matter if 100 people call at the same time, the phone will

continue to ring until every call has been answered. At the time this entitled woman was there we were sitting in a completely empty waiting room and the phones had been especially slow. Safe to say we didn't miss her today. Well while I was waiting for this woman to tell me why the h I she came here or was even attempting to call us in the first place she took the opportunity to

inform me that she has been a loyal patient for years, long history with multiple doctors (every Dr she name dropped hasn't practiced here for years). Still trying my best to be helpful I asked if she had our current office number due to her obviously not being seen at our facility for a long time and the fact neither myself nor my coworker, the only other scheduler, had ever received a call or voicemail from

her. She mumbled that she called "the same number from years ago" Okay.... I asked her if she could call the number she used when she tried calling before. I figured we can either provide the correct number or determine if the issue was due to technical problems with the phones. She refused and said she just needs to schedule an

appointment and she will update our numbers from the info on our reminder cards. Fine...... I schedule her appointment...the reason she came in which accounted for maybe 2 minutes of a 15 minute interaction... Hand her the card, she looks it over and rudely announced to me that this IS in fact the same number she used. At that point I was over feeding

this energy vampire. She tried to start droning on again about her history of treatment at our office and how she missed how it "used to be". She stopped periodically to give me this dumb expecting look, so I took each opportunity to reroute the conversation back to her original issue about scheduling over the phone. She eventually became bored of me attempting to resolve her issue instead of fawning over her

medical records or something??? Idk what she expected. I could tell she was attempting to pull away and leave but I figured I'll keep her here a little longer and see how she likes when her time is wasted on pointless. conversation. I'm asking for details like dates/times from her calls, if she remember what she left in her message, if she remembers who she left a voicemail with, etc.

Patients sometimes leave messages to schedule with the MA's or billing department by mistake. This shameless entitled wench then proceeds to tell me, "Well I didn't know which doctor to schedule with so I didn't leave one." So this woman who spent several minutes making a point to us that she knew ALL of our doctors and has been seen here SO many

times didn't know which doctor she even wanted to schedule an appointment with?? In addition to that fact, my coworker and I schedule for all providers. We are the only schedulers. And we are the first option to connect with when patients call. So this woman either lied about trying to call us in the first place or if she did call, when the automated system prompted her

to click on an option to be connected with our department for any scheduling/provider/insurance questions she just hung up?????? Then she chose to come all the way to the clinic, lie to us, get caught in the lie, and then try to claim ignorance??? I fixed my face to reflect to her that I think she is an absolute moron and sternly asked her, "So your issue with contacting our

office was because you never actually contacted anyone in our office?" She mumbles something about being in the area for another appointment and just decided to stop by. Then she left without so much as a thank you. What is so wrong or lacking in these peoples brains that they will go out of their way to shamelessly lie, manipulate, and attempt to intimidate the people

who are literally ONLY there to assist them. She could have just come in, asked to schedule an appointment, and left like a normal person but nooooo. She felt the need to construct some scenario so that we would feel bad for her?? Fear her?? Or just to make us feel like we're doing a sh job???? I don't get it.

*A computer, a notepad, a pen, and a cellphone on a table.*

PenguinDrake You handled that with way more patience than she earned honestly, most people would've called her out the second she started the fake tirade instead of walking her through the whole thing calmly first

OmegaLantern That's one thing I've noticed with people. They lie, ALL THE TIME, simply because they're able to. Even about stuff that doesn't matter. Even if it hurts their own position, they will always lie about sh. People can't be trusted for anything

Vegetable-Cod-5434 From someone who juggles multiple medical appointments each week - Thanks for the work you do. I watch the receptionists at my doctor's office get chewed out on the regular and feel so sorry for them. You're receptionists, not miracle workers or magic genies. Especially when the doctors run late!

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Front desk medical assistant responds to boomer woman who criticizes her way of working and managing the clinic, so she proves the woman is lying: 'I figured I’ll keep her here a little longer and see how she likes it when her time is wasted'

Some people just lie for the fun of the game, don't they?

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