I recently went along with my wife to her doctor’s appointment.  I tend to dread this event because of one key element.  Her particular doctor never holds his schedule … EVER.  This is not a 10 or 15 minute inconvenience.  If you actually see him under an hour past your schedule slot, you might as well go play the lottery because the planets are aligned.  On this particular day, it was not the schedule issue that caused my major portion of annoyance.  Instead, as Linda was checking out with the receptionist, the doctor’s accountant caught my attention.  To be honest, my life runs at a pretty hurriedly pace.  This includes my walking pace, my reading pace, my speech cadence and my inability to actually just sit down and watch a TV program.  Linda classifies this as an O/C disorder but I view it as getting the most out of each and every day.  This disorder (if you must) causes me to be more sensitive to inefficient actions of others.  This particular accountant was standing over a desk and reading pieces of paper.  Once read he would proceed to slowly rip it lengthwise into about 7 strips.  Then he would take each strip and tear it again into about 10 pieces.  Once a strip was completed, he would then gather up each of the pieces and stack them neatly on top of each other until he had a neatly organized pile of paper.  Imagine this at a pace of 10 seconds for each long strip and another 10 for the cross rips.  Once stacked he would slowly place them by hand in a garbage can and then start the whole process over again.  I watched 3 of these cycles which literally felt like fingernail scratches on a blackboard (does anyone actually know what a blackboard is anymore?).  Linda completed her business and we exited the office.  I explained to Linda what she forced me to go through (prompting the “disorder” label again) and explained how Office Max has ads about every Sunday for shredders which are a) faster and b) far more efficient especially if you get the cross cutting ones.  The bright side of this was I completely forgot about the hour delay in seeing the doctor.

While I am on the subject of annoyances I have a survey question.  Who is the more annoying marketing spokesperson?

• Paul Sherman (from the Sherman Store)
• The Mac Guy
• The Progressive Lady

In case those marketing organizations are reading, I refuse to even watch, much less purchase the product, based on their condescending tone.  Guessing I must not fit their target demographic.