Rant #3,866: The Beat Goes On

I had another altercation with a doctor's office yesterday morning.

I contacted them the other day about medication I was taking, pills that I was having a negative reaction to after months of taking these pills daily.

I told the person who picked up the phone to speak to me that I had, on my own, stopped taking the medication, I told her the reasons I stopped taking the pill, and I wanted to speak to the doctor if that was the OK thing to do and if there was anything else I could do.

The woman took down all of my information, and said that someone would get back to me. 

Two days later, no one had.

Usually the doctor at this office doesn't get back to you directly, but he has an assistant who does, but I had not heard from them in any way in the two days since I placed the initial call.

So yesterday, I called them back.

I spoke to the same receptionist that I spoke to the other day.

I told her my problem again, and I asked her why no one had gotten back to me.

She said that she needed a moment to go through some things, and she did find a response to my initial question, that yes, I could stop the medication, and that I should make a followup appointment.

I thanked the woman, but then I said the obvious:

"Why didn't anyone call me up, text me, email me or contact me in any way with this information?"

"Stopping a medication can be a very major decision; it can affect other things. Why did I not get a call from someone in the office about this?"

And finally:

"Why did I have to call you back to find out this information? The office was supposed to call me back, and they didn't. If I didn't call you back, I would still be sitting here not knowing an answer to my question."

I told the receptionist that I was angry, but not with her ... with the office.

"This is why I left the previous doctor I had [who handled this malady] and went to the current doctor, because the other doctor was superfluous to whatever I asked him about my situation. The current doctor knew that, so I find it odd that no one called me back and that you had to provide me with an answer to my question."

I already have a followup appointment with this doctor scheduled for March, so the receptionist said I could keep that appointment, but then I said to her:

"This can never happen again. I don't know if you are the right person to do this with, but I want to register a formal complaint with the office, so that it never happens again. Someone needs to be accountable for this error, and I want them to know that I am not very happy about this."

The receptionist supposedly took all of this down and said she would let them know, but I severely doubt that anything will happen related to this complaint; this doctor has a very lucid practice, lots of patients, so if one patient is upset, why should they care?

Of course, they should, but I have found lately that incompetence is the way to go with just about everything.

I don't know what it is, but since COVID, customer service has fallen to absolutely new lows.

And related to a doctor's office, it doesn't give me any confidence in our medical providers if I ask a simple question and get nothing but double talk, as a described in my post to you about my doctor's visit on Monday and now, this repartee I had with another doctor's office that I use.

I won't tell you what doctor this was, or the malady I was experiencing from my medicine, but it has been ongoing for now more than a year, and I thought this doctor was better than the previous doctor I had.

Maybe not.

But the main crux of this blog post today is that incompetence is key, and it seems to be a disease or a malady worse than anything I have--

And remember, I supposedly have cancer on my scalp.

So yes, incompetency in the workplace is a cancer, one which is easily fixed with competent staff--

But I am sorry to say that since no one is doing anything about it, it is spreading throughout the workplace, just like untreated cancer can spread throughout your body.

I am sure I am not the only one who has experienced this--I mean, the incompetence in the workplace--and it really bothers me, not just because it puts me in a bad position, but because heck, when I lost my full-time job, I couldn't even get arrested, much less get a job--

And these imbeciles are very gainfully employed.

Maybe employees are looking for incompetency, maybe that's why I never got anything.

So be it, but I won't and can't sit still when their incompetency impacts myself and my life and my family and their well-being.

No way, no way at all.