I had a blood test at 11.50 today, booked on Friday. At least, i think it was 11.50, it may have been 12.10 but we erred on the side of caution and left at 11.35 for our doctors which is 10 minutes up the Parkway from here, on a good day. The Parkways in Pboro are a set of dual carriageways that form a sort of drunken diamond around the city, making it, technically, easy to get quickly to any extremity of a very oddly shaped city. The down side of the Parkways is that whenever there are short term roadworks in one bit of it, the City Council seem to be compelled to dig up the exact same stretch of road on the other side too, sometimes also the town centre too, so that there is no escape from the traffic at all and no rat-run. You just have to sit in it.
Had a swerve to avoid an accident on the edge of a sliproad that is on a corner and so narrowly avoided going into the back of a traffic jam, 800 yrds from some roadworks that are new this morning (and unannounced) that are charmingly placed 2 miles along from the set they’ve nearly finished that have been creating 6 miles of tailback for the last 8 months. Even better, the traffic jam started just after the last junction prior to the one we wanted so we were trapped in it, no escape.
I got Fran to ring the docs to tell them we were stuck and as she couldn’t negotiate on my behalf, said i’d come in anyway and either have the test late if there was time, or rearrange. I couldn’t turn round, so i figured i might as well do that. We sat in it for a hour; it literally took 60 minutes to do 6 miles, 50 of those were covering 800 yards and when we got to the slip road, it was obvious they had shut the entire parkway with an extremely overworked diversion trying to happen around a roundabout. *Snort*
I got to the docs, walked in and it was the sourest of the receptionists on duty; the others are nice but she REALLY lives up to the stereotype. I came in and said “sorry, blah, blah, roadworks, blah, blah… am i too late to be fitted in?” She didn’t even look at me, just said “Yes Meredith, you are too late” (I had to resist the urge to immediately say “MRS RAYMOND ACTUALLY!!” she got my back up so much.) |I tried, as i normally do, just to be friendly and communicative, i certainly wasn’t expecting to get seen and i didn’t cause any fuss, i just thought that while i was booking again that perhaps i could have a passingly friendly human chat. But no, no eye contact, no “urgh that sounds awful ,what was causing it?” There was no one else in the queue at all, no one i was holding up and she wasn’t even finding me a new appointment, she was pretty much just blanking me. Eventually i got a new appointment, by which time i was fuming, slammed out of the surgery and phoned from the carpark to make a complaint about her startling lack of common courtesy. The office manager just said “Well, i’m sorry, she is like that, but we can’t do anything about it, it is just the way she is.”
I dunno, i know we have to be careful these days and not sack people for reasons they might sue for, but if you can’t communicate, can’t put people at their ease, can’t be polite, friendly, helpful or even just professional – is a surgery reception really the place for you? I’d have been disgusted to have been treated like that by a bored 16 year old at a supermarket checkout but at least i’d think they had a point. I’d be ashamed of myself if i was so rude. The manager seemed to be suggesting she had real issues with it, and heaven knows i’m not unfamiliar with people who struggle to communicate and i’m far from brilliant at small talk myself but if you can’t even be civil, even if (i don’t know, i’m surmising) you were say moderately autistic, should you really be doing that job?
I was so angry and upset by her attitude that i was shaking and nearly in tears by the time i got to the car park, she treated me like a i was a naughty schoolchild who should know better than to be late for class; it really offended me. Which is annoying, as i was relatively sanguine about missing the blood test and the hour in the car.
Then we drove home and went the other way round town where we discovered, true to form, that they’ve closed the other side of the parkways too. And in an hour, i’ve got to go out again. Grrrr.
Urgh. This is one of my rants too. I really hate people who simply fail to do their job well or with good grace. I spent years sitting at checkouts, waiting tables, putting out stock on shelves and I get really cross when I happen upon people who do those jobs and do them with anything less than a helpful, customer friendly attitude. If someone hates their job they need to find a new one, not inflict the rest of the world with their issues. Doctors receptionists do seem to be a particular breed of rude, unhelpful, slightly power crazed people IME.
grr, a rant well deserved I think!
I’m someone else who can’t stand poor customer service having done it for so many years myself so I’m with Nic. If you feel up to it I’d put in a written complaint, if they get enough complaints in writing they might be forced to do something surely? She sounds like a complete nightmare. And ((hugs)) for the roadworks, we’ve had fun here recently with them moving the junction onto our main almost motorway, no-one can figure out where to go *rolls eyes*
I think a sensible suggestion would be that a role is found for her in the back office as she clearly does not have the communication skills to be customer facing.
On the other hand, experience tells me she is a perfect doctors receptionist.
I wonder why some people are in these jobs if they so obviously don’t like dealing with the public. I hate that too – being made to feel small.
They’re not God, but just doing a job like everyone else on this earth!
I’m in my early forties now and find that I stand for this kind of thing less and less as I get older.
my mother used to be a doctor’s receptionist. She was very good at it – the doctors never had any trouble at all. :/
Lol…. 😉
I think it is the fact that i’ve done jobs like this and managed to be perfectly polite that really gets me; if i can smile at the end of a long day, surely she can? All she had to do was say “I’m really sorry we can’t fit you in now, i know you’ve had a wasted journey” and it would have been fine. I hadn’t deliberately gone out of my way to annoy her!!!! I was annoyed they couldn’t, i wasn’t even annoyed about the traffic, i just wanted her to be civil and human.
I remember her starting, she’s never been great at the contact side of it and even today she left me standing 2 minutes while she sorted prescriptions in my view.
Grrrrr.
vile woman – the receptionist at ENT at Lincoln county used to be the same & I relish the fact she seems to have disappeared from that particular role …) a few years ago when I was waiting for my appointment I was turning off my mobile phone… I suddenly became aware that someone was standing over me – “I said please turn off your phone!” she said.
“Oh sorry – I didn’t hear you…” (I genuinely hadn’t heard her)
She glared at me and stalked off behind her desk – and pointed – “there is a sign here – that politely requests you turn off your phone and I did ask you – TWICE!”
“Funny that in an *EAR* Nose and Throat department you may have to consider people may have hearing difficulties (she had the courtesy to look unsure) – and actually I was turning it off when you “told me off” but thank you for pointing out your poster”
I gave her air quote marks and a couple of people laughed 🙂 and you just know she wanted to say, it’s not a poster it’s a *sign* like kids when they say it’s not fair..
It was good 😆
Silly women that think they need to be like this 🙄
giggle at greer. yep, write a complaint. i think rudeness is not permissable.
What is it about doctor’s receptionists?
Granted, they may have to listen to people’s woes all day, particularly when you’re trying to persuade them that you really do need that last appointment for your broken fingernail, but surely caring, understanding and sympathetic should be standard requirements for a doctor’s receptionist?
I think Nic hit it on the head when she said that they are power crazed.
“The doctor is God, and I can give you access to God, therefore I can treat you badly and you still have to be nice to me, or you won’t get to see God until a week next Friday”