TITLE: THE TRIAGE DESK

Today at work, I was on the elevator with a nurse and a visitor. Mid-ride, the visitor suddenly collapsed--her body crumpling sideways, legs twisted under her, head lolling. I dropped to the floor, straightened her limbs, gently pulled her legs out from under her. The nurse supported her upper body against the elevator wall. After maybe a minute, the visitor regained consciousness--groggy but coherent.

The nurse stayed with her while I ran for a wheelchair. I headed to the Emergency Room.

At the ER triage desk, a woman sat behind the counter, entering something into the computer. A patient was seated next to her. I approached, waited a beat for acknowledgment. Nothing.

So I spoke up: "Excuse me, I--"

She cut me off sharply. "I'm helping a patient right now. I'll be with you in a minute." Her tone was clipped, laced with condescension. She didn't even glance up. She kept mousing around, pretending to be busy, asserting dominance through delay.

After about forty-five seconds of her orchestrated stalling, she finally looked at me.

"There's a woman on the floor in the elevator. I need to know where the wheelchairs are."

She pointed--not urgently--to the vestibule.

I retrieved one and sprinted back. By the time I returned, someone else had already brought a chair and was helping the visitor out of the elevator. I returned my unused wheelchair and started walking away, but something gnawed at me.

I turned back.

Not out of anger--yet. Out of principle. Out of the growing conviction that people like her are allowed to skate by on micro-tyranny too often. I wasn't going back to pick a fight. I was going back to practice *clarity*. To say: **I saw what you did. It wasn't okay.**

As I approached the triage desk again, I passed an open side doorway and locked eyes with her. In that instant--before I could even round the wall to approach her from the front--she bolted from her chair and exited through the side door. A brief, panicked escape.

"I need to speak with you," I called after her.

"I'll be back in a minute," she tossed over her shoulder, pretending to be en route to some fabricated task.

She looped around and reappeared--unapologetic.

I spoke calmly, quietly: "I interrupted you earlier because it was important."

She replied flatly: "I get that." Her body language screamed dismissal.

So I pressed again, now struggling to speak as the anger finally set in--slow and chemical, not theatrical.

"I understood you were with a patient, and I wouldn't have interrupted you with something frivolous. Do you understand?"

A quick, insincere "yes."

I turned and left.


POSTSCRIPT: WHEN MANIPULATION MEETS CLARITY

This wasn't a power struggle--it was a collision between clarity and performative obstruction. The triage woman was not overworked, not overwhelmed--she was protecting a very specific form of soft control. People like her rely on the fog. They don't thrive by doing their jobs well; they thrive by controlling tempo, tone, and access.

When I approached her the first time, she didn't assess the situation--she assessed *how she could retain superiority*. When I returned to confront her, she *ran* because clarity disarms that entire structure. She needed to re-establish her script: "I'm important, you're impatient."

But I didn't play along. And that disrupted the dance.

These people rarely have breakdowns--they calcify. They survive not by growing, but by doubling down. But when systems become more logical--when AI and task routing erode the power of tone, favoritism, and passive-aggressive delay--they'll find their old tricks don't land.

And maybe--just maybe--that's when the reckoning begins.

Until then, I'll keep returning. Calmly. Without spectacle.  
Just enough to say: I see you. And I'm not afraid to speak.