WHY do people take on jobs that involve dealing with the public when it’s clear they hate dealing with members of the public?

This might be deemed an insensitive question in that, during these strained times, any job might be worth it; even one you hate. But that’s too straightforward.

Even during the boom years of the last government we all experienced people snarling at us through the security glass of some official’s counter.

I recently went to a government office that I won’t name for fear of reprisals; the people behind the counter are scary and they’ll have access to my home address.

It’s one of those where you have to queue outside while those inside in the warm watch the second hand on the clock go around and won’t unlock the door until it hits the appointed hour, to the second. Why? There were people outside and those inside were there. So why not let us in, if only to queue?

Ah, and then the queue involves taking a paper number from a ticket machine and, clutching said ticket, you make your way to a seat, if there’s one left, and stare intently at the repeating advertising screens – advertising what you’re already there for – until you’re sick of that and you start to watch the counter staff instead.

And that’s when you start to worry, hoping that you don’t get the fierce-looking one but maybe the slightly more attractive one (it’s all relative) or the apparently smiley one, until you realise it’s not a smile but a snarl. You start to count up from the numbers being served to your own number, calculating which one you might get, crossing your fingers and hoping against hope – in vain.

Because it’s my turn at last. Excited, I’m determined to be nice and get through to the human being inside the creature on the other side of the glass. And so I smile as I approach and say good morning and ask how they are. They don’t see the smile as they’re not looking up and appear to be deaf but who knows?