ACCEPTING THE MISTAKE

Recently I had been waiting in the lobby of a corporate hospital. It looked very chaotic with people looked restless, some in sober mood, some looking cheerful, some anxious faces, among them I noticed a gentle man walking restless in the corridor. After few minutes he called up an assistant and asked her when he can get the report and how long he should wait, he got an confirmation as ten minutes. By hitting his fore finger on his watch he said “I will wait for ten more minutes, not more than that, enough of this agony” . From their conversation it is understood that he was waiting for the last one hour and he also waited for 2 hours day before to collect the lab reports.

As I was absorbed into the surroundings around, 15 minutes passed away, I was wondering how the gentleman would react now. He looked at the watch and called up the same receptionist and with a controlled aggression he said “can I meet your boss”. She got puzzled and with a blank face she said “Please wait for ten more minutes”. He was in no mood to listen to her, with a red face he shouted at her “call your doctor!!!”. With in a minute she called up the doctor out, gentleman explained his problem and enquired what exactly the issue was to give back the reports. To my surprise doctor listened care fully and with no hesitation accepted it was his mistake and said the reports were misplaced day before evening and requested if he could wait for another 10 minutes. The moment doctor accepted his mistake the entire episode has calmed down and what could had been blown to proportions became normal. Immediately gentleman said “that’s ok, please do the needful asap” and allowed the doctor to go ahead. After 15 minutes he had the reports in his hand.

I was wondering how things turn out once one accepts his mistake. Many a times nobody wants to take the responsibility and blame everybody else to avoid the pain of owning the mistake. I walked out of the hospital thinking that after the doctor apologized, the gentleman would had waited even for another one hour with out any complaint. That’s the power of accepting the mistake and with this learning i would like to be in doctors shoes when ever i need to correct my self....