Tag: Communication

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I like my doctor and his staff (all of one person). It is a small office and whenever I call the doctor’s assistant either answers the phone or she responds to my messages in a timely manner. So my complaint here isn’t a general one, it is about the big doctor’s office which increasingly run medical offices in the USA. I understand that sharing resources, like switchboards, is cost effective way for doctors to handle their office overhead overall but I have yet to encounter one that delivers good service.

The most annoying aspect is they all have an automated phone tree. You know press 1 for billing, press 2 for appointments, press 3 for etc. etc. The phone tree is a great idea gone bad. They are usually too long for me. I have drifted off thinking about something completely unrelated to my phone call by the time the message ends and I haven’t heard or have missed the department I needed so I have to repeat the message and hope I can focus long enough to get my department.

Then, while waiting for the operator to answer, there is the annoying reminder that I really should be consulting the website. Why are you calling when you can consult the website and get all of your answers there. You are just waiting for who knows how long when you could be looking at the website or leaving a message. Why are you still holding, you fucking idiot, go to the website. If I could get the answer from the website, I wouldn’t be calling the office. I always consult the website first because, even at grand old age of 68, I know you are supposed to consult the website first. One reminder would be sufficient, the constant reminders are irritating so much so that if I do get lucky and actually am connected to person, I am usually livid when they answer. It isn’t pretty.

I would take the phone tree up on the option to leave a message if the office would in fact, return my phone call. My experience with phone tree messages is rarely, if ever, do I get a return phone call. Which is odd. If I leave a message on an actual person’s recorder, I usually get an answer. If I have waited for a half hour and reached the point where I realize nobody is going to answer my phone call and I leave a message on the office’s general phone line — I almost never get a response. And I do mean never.

Then there is the baffling experience when the phone forces me to leave a message even after I have committed to staying on the line no matter what. The call gets switched to an answering machine that says — please leave a message at the beep. I am usually so stunned when this happen that I can’t leave a coherent message. I was all right with waiting. Why can’t I wait anymore but you have heard the beep, the phone tree has made it’s decision and you force to leave a message I know will never be answered.

Phone trees might make sense to the budget conscious medicine business complex but it is wretched customer service particularly when a great many of the callers are older and less adept in dealing with automation period. It is frustrating and confusing instead.

I do want to share one secret that works most of the time for me. Press the button for billing. Billing almost always answer the phone and they can usually connect you with the person you need.

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Since I have started writing on a daily basis, I have discovered that sometimes I have trouble coming up with the right word or phrase to actually explain what I am thinking. It happens frequently. I stop writing then and try to think of the right word.

I used to wait and come back to the piece and hope that it came to me. Sometimes it did but sometimes it didn’t. When I struggled, I started to use the best word or phrase I can come up to explain what I mean even though it wasn’t really the word I wanted. This allowed me to complete my blog but it bothered me when I did that because it isn’t exactly what I wanted to say and my meaning is a bit off. It is close but not quite right.

I tried the thesaurus thinking that since I am close, the thesaurus will list the correct word. This usually worked but sometimes, remarkably, the word I am looking for wasn’t there. Then I think that the word I was looking for hasn’t been invented yet which I find unbelievable. I am fairly certain that I am not the first person in 6,000 years or so of history to want this word. So where did it go and why can’t I find it?

It also dawned on me that this is the problem with all human communication. No one can quite say what they really want to say because they are missing the right words to say it. In order to communicate, people have to use whatever words come to them in order to move the conversation along. The problem is when the conversation continues with these not quite right words, are we really understanding each other?

So even when we speak the same language and are understanding the words we say, the person we are talking with may not understand us for lack of the right word It is really quite amazing that we get along as well as we do.