Thursday, November 03, 2005

The Paper Chase

When I was in my mid-teens, my mom had a job working in the triage area of a small hospital on the weekends. I am not sure why/how she got into this, since she had no medical training, but that is neither here nor there. One of her co-workers was not a native English speaker, and every now and then she would come out with some malapropism that my mom would latch onto and turn into part of family lore.

The one that came to mind this morning was: "All these paperworks, they bust my brain!"

(Technically, this is not a malapropism so much as it is just a mangling of the language. A mangluage, if you will. But, I digress.)

Holy Jeebus, am I the only one who is going a little nuts with all the damn forms I have to fill out lately? I have a dispute with my bank, I've been comparison shopping for car insurance, I filled out a job application online (which took FOREVER with cutting and pasting my resume into their data fields), and every week there is some new damn form I have to fill out for Viva's school.

The latest in the onslaught is the Explanation of Benefits we get online through our health insurance. I don't understand how we can be paying insurance premiums, using a preferred provider recommended by our insurer, making co-payments at the time of each visit, and still end up being charged $89.95 for an office visit. Does that make any sense at all? What the hell do we pay for insurance for if we actually have to pay to see the doctor??

End of rant. I just realized I am sounding a bit like Andy Rooney. Thankfully, my eyebrows are slightly more well-groomed than his.

1 comment:

bloggist963 said...

OMG! I went to two job interviews last week and my wrists still hurt from the number of forms I had to fill out. This was after the initial applications, resumes and cover letters.

And I just hate that these companies have so much information on me. I don't remember having to give out so much information before.