What is it about waiting rooms that make them so unlovable??

Someone obviously spent time decorating them.

Someone chose furniture and pictures.

Someone waters the plants and refills the flyers in the stand.

But.

Somehow, however hard they try, it never really gets it, whatever ‘it’ is.

It would make sense if it was ugly or smelly or in some other way unpleasant, but they never very rarely are.

Take this one for example. It’s warm, well lit, not full enough to be cramped and even has the occasional sofa-chair* amongst the normal chairs.

There’s only the faintest of head marks on the walls and the carpet is only worn where thousands of bored feet have occupied themselves.

There are books for the kids and leaflets for the rest. In the room next door there are magazines.

Music from the opposite building drifts across the courtyard and in through the closed windows.

It should be a pleasant place to spend an afternoon. But it isn’t.

So what is it?

* padded, but not squishy enough to count as sofas, and too big to be chairs.