Spreading good cheer

I've been spreading good cheer today. Of course, many in the office tell me to be quiet because they know I'm leaving for a 10-day vacation immediately following work today. They say my good cheer doesn't count. But, those in the hospital were unaware of my impending departure, so they were a little more susceptible to my efforts. Here's how my most recent effort transpired: Knowing I'd run out of my allergy medication while on vacation, I called in my presecription refills well in advance (last week) for picking up today. While I waited patiently in the pharmacy for over 20 minutes to be called to the window, a patient in line ahead of me constantly complained, made negative and jeering remarks about the capabilities of the pharmacy staff, and was just generally a very dark cloud in a place where staff try their best to make it as easy as possible for patients to get what they need. I know this as I used to work in the hospital and even when I wanted to wring a patient's neck or run screaming from the stress, I was still as pleasant and cheerful as I could possibly be. People come to the hospital because they're sick and they don't need the addition of crabby staff members to make their day even worse. However, there is a limit to what staff should put up with. The patient ahead of me had to sit down because her prescription wasn't quite ready, to which she responded by ripping into the clerk. I felt bad for him. She had already been making derogatory remarks about how quickly others got their meds. I was planning what I'd say if she made a comment like that after I got mine, since I had the foresight to call in my refills last week. When I finally got up to the window, the clerk looked pretty stressed. I gave him my ID badge so he'd know how to spell my name and then asked him jokingly if it had been a long day. He said "you must be joking. The day has barely begun.!" I replied, laughing, with "What? It's lunch time, the day is half over!" We joked for a few minutes about how the rule of thumb in the pharmacy is that you haven't been doing your job if you haven't pissed off at least one patient each day. As he put my meds in a bag, he asked "Any Questions?" "No" "Okay, any complaints?" I laughed and said "No, you're doing a great job!" I wished him a good day and went on my way. I imagine the crabby patient waited until I was out the door before making more derogatroy remarks but I also hoped she picked up on the intent of my conversation with the clerk and maybe, just maybe, could keep her comments to herself. ;)

I sometimes "assign" tasks through Outlook to crabby office coworkers so that they have reminders popping up on their screens to "spreadk good cheer". Usually I get at least a laugh.