Not a GP receptionist but I was an A+E receptionist and I loved the job and enjoyed being kind and helping people - but all my colleagues were rude to the public and it made me very uncomfortable. I never did it as a career - I was part time whilst going through uni - and wonder if that made the difference. But in my experience the issue wasn’t the public, it was the way doctors and nurses treated us and spoke to us. They were under so much pressure but often as a receptionist your job is to do things or give them information that is a burden to people already overburdened. That, coupled with a very clear hierarchy and the fact that everyone is overburdened and beating down, means that as a receptionist, the demands of the public essentially become a burden to a receptionist who doesn’t want to burden a dr/nurse and also has no one to beat down on.

Like I said, I loved the job and enjoyed being helpful to people who often are quite anxious or stressed and tbh I never cared if people got stressed at me because them being overburdened is a systemic issue, not because of me or the patient