I called my dentist’s office a couple of days ago. A woman answered, and I told her I wanted to schedule a cleaning. She asked my name and then asked my phone number. “Oh, I’m not sure what it would be under – maybe my cell,” I said, and the proceeded to give her that number. “Ok,” she said, “Someone will call you back.” “What?” “It’s my second week here, and I don’t know how to make appointments yet,” she replied. She told me it would be within ten minutes, and imagine my surprise when the phone actually rang eight minutes later. I answered, and it was the same woman from before saying she was ready to set my appointment now. I’m sure I had some combo of my head tilting and my eyebrows raising, but there’s no video available to support that.
I re-gave her my name, and she said I was due for a cleaning and an exam. “When do you want to come in?” she asked. “Well, I’d like the first appointment of the day if possible, so whenever that’s open.” “So…when do you want to come in?” she repeated, as if I hadn’t come close to answering her question the first time. “When is the first appointment of the day available?” I asked patiently. “Well, the first appointment tomorrow is 11am,” she responded. “No, I meant the earliest time anyone can be seen – when is that slot open?” “You mean 8am?” “I think you see people earlier than that, because I remember coming in at 7 or 7:30 before,” I said a little less patiently. “Oh, I don’t know our hours yet.” Awesome.
Foolishly, I complicated things. “Last time I was there, I really liked who did my cleaning but I don’t remember his name. He was a tall, nice, African-American man. Can you see when he’s open?” “You mean Dr. Cohen?” she asked. Not wanting to judge a Jewish book by a black cover, I asked, “Does he fit my description?” She laughed and said, “I don’t know the doctors’ names yet.” “Ok, if can you just please let me know when you have a 7:30 appointment open, even if it’s in a week or two from now, I’ll book that regardless of who it would be with.” She searched for a couple of minutes, found Wednesday morning open, and scheduled me. I hung up, shook my head, and wrote the appointment in my calendar.
Half an hour later, my phone rang again. This time it was someone else from that office saying that Wednesday unfortunately would not work because there was no one to do the cleaning then, just the exam. I rescheduled for Monday, confirmed and reconfirmed the time and date, and made the change in my calendar. I’ll be there then, but I’m not supremely confident that anyone will be expecting me.
Here’s the thing: I’ve been new before. I know what that’s like, and it’s a daunting and frustrating thing to have people ask what seem to be routine questions to them but are complicated by a mixture of a lack of knowledge and a fear of looking bad early on in the position. That said, maybe they should wait for their trainees to know the doctors’ names, hours of operation, or the premise of how to schedule an appointment before they’re allowed to call patients to, ya know, schedule an appointment during the hours of operation with a doctor. I know, I ask way too much of people.