Joan glanced at the clock on the wall. This meeting was supposed to be a quick check in to make sure that her production team's plans worked with the actual medical staff they were planning to use, but she had assumed that the hospital administration would have better informed at least the chief resident before wasting everyone's time at this meeting.
"Would it be better if we rescheduled to meet another day?" Joan interrupted. She would get paid either way, but this wasn't a productive meeting the way it was going.
"I think that would be best," the chief resident agreed. "I apologize for sounding unprepared, Ms. Harris, but they only asked me to sit in on this meeting this morning."
"I understand, Dr. Weaver," Joan replied. "And I do think we can drop the idea of the doctors having a picnic."
"We wanted to express the idea that these doctors are friendly and approachable," one of the men insisted.
"We get people coming in with gunshot wounds," Dr. Weaver replied. "Being friendly won't help them."
"Our goal is to get people to view our hospital as a first choice rather than as a last resort, isn't that right, Ms. Harris?"
"At the end of the day, I'll produce the ad campaign you pay me to produce," she replied. "But I think Dr. Weaver has a point. If you want a more practical answer, if we actually want to shoot outdoors for a picnic, we have to allow for the possibility of the weather not cooperating, and earlier Dr. Weaver expressed concerns over scheduling if you want to go forward with using real doctors for that."
The man nodded. "You might have a point. Fine, we'll meet again tomorrow afternoon and give everyone a chance to calm down.
Joan noticed the chief resident giving the man a look of shooting daggers as he and the other administrators left the room.
"Dr. Weaver," Joan said. "Are you in a hurry?"
"I have a half hour left on my scheduled lunch break and I haven't eaten yet."
"Can I join you? I think I'd like to hear your ideas outside of the meeting, if you have a few minutes to talk."
Dr. Weaver smiled. "Fine, as long as you don't mind hospital cafeteria food."