Status as Defined by Lunch
Today, somewhere in England, some actors and some doctors worked together all day to run an exam for medical students.
In the middle of the day there was lunch. The actors and the doctors had lunch in separate rooms.
Actors' Lunch:
Sandwiches, all with mayonnaise and with fillings of egg and prawn, chicken and some unidentified foodstuffs which I didn't try because they were bathed in too much mayonnaise
Fruit juice, tea and coffee, bowls of apples, oranges and bananas
Doctors' Lunch:
Sandwiches with cheese and salad and ham and salad and chicken and salad and no sodding mayonnaise
Bowls of mixed salad of different kinds
Various dips with celery and carrot sticks to dip into them
Samosas and similar
Pieces of chicken and small Scotch eggs
Breadsticks
Several different kinds of crackers with butter and cheese
Gateaux and other desserts (which I heard described but never saw because the doctors had eaten them all)
Fruit juice, tea, coffee, bowls of apples, oranges and bananas
Now then, I know my place, guv'nor, and I know that doctors are Very Very Important People who have worked to earn their status, and the fact that the actors have been working just as hard as they have all day is not at all important, and the fact that some of the actors have acquired a degree or two or even the odd postgraduate qualification is not at all important, because they are not doctors and doctors need Serious Lunches to show that they are Very Very Important People.
(And, it must be said, the doctors with whom I was working were all lovely and made no attempt to pull rank at all, but it must also be said that this was not true of all of the doctors who were there today).
But some of the 'umble actors have learned a thing or two from many years of these kind of exams, and it is this:
Because everyone knows that doctors need Serious Lunches, there will be a lot of lunch provided for the doctors and - as long as you're not interested in gateau or cheesecake - if you lurk in the shadows for twenty minutes all the doctors will have finished and the 'umble actors can descend like a horde of - well, actors - and plunder their leftovers. Haha! And thus is Rank and Privilege preserved, and Honour Satisfied.
Note to all actors who do medical roleplay: Get on to a day run for surgeons. They always have the best lunches of all.
In the middle of the day there was lunch. The actors and the doctors had lunch in separate rooms.
Actors' Lunch:
Sandwiches, all with mayonnaise and with fillings of egg and prawn, chicken and some unidentified foodstuffs which I didn't try because they were bathed in too much mayonnaise
Fruit juice, tea and coffee, bowls of apples, oranges and bananas
Doctors' Lunch:
Sandwiches with cheese and salad and ham and salad and chicken and salad and no sodding mayonnaise
Bowls of mixed salad of different kinds
Various dips with celery and carrot sticks to dip into them
Samosas and similar
Pieces of chicken and small Scotch eggs
Breadsticks
Several different kinds of crackers with butter and cheese
Gateaux and other desserts (which I heard described but never saw because the doctors had eaten them all)
Fruit juice, tea, coffee, bowls of apples, oranges and bananas
Now then, I know my place, guv'nor, and I know that doctors are Very Very Important People who have worked to earn their status, and the fact that the actors have been working just as hard as they have all day is not at all important, and the fact that some of the actors have acquired a degree or two or even the odd postgraduate qualification is not at all important, because they are not doctors and doctors need Serious Lunches to show that they are Very Very Important People.
(And, it must be said, the doctors with whom I was working were all lovely and made no attempt to pull rank at all, but it must also be said that this was not true of all of the doctors who were there today).
But some of the 'umble actors have learned a thing or two from many years of these kind of exams, and it is this:
Because everyone knows that doctors need Serious Lunches, there will be a lot of lunch provided for the doctors and - as long as you're not interested in gateau or cheesecake - if you lurk in the shadows for twenty minutes all the doctors will have finished and the 'umble actors can descend like a horde of - well, actors - and plunder their leftovers. Haha! And thus is Rank and Privilege preserved, and Honour Satisfied.
Note to all actors who do medical roleplay: Get on to a day run for surgeons. They always have the best lunches of all.
posted by Daphne at 9:04 pm
1 Comments:
Has it occurred to you that the actors were being paid and the doctors probably weren't (as a doctor examiner I can assure you examining is usually done for free and as an act of goodwill to future doctors). Perhaps the way to a doctor's heart (and good will in working for free) is through their stomach!
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