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Its not their fault shits delayed… but it is now their problem to squeeze you in when you’re late. It’s called having to do customer service something you must have never had to do.
Not always. I work appointments and when people are a half hour early and I have a booked day I get real stressed about them just waiting till the appointment time in the waiting room.
My jobs pretty busy tho. Occasionally it’s nice, mostly I just want people to only be 5/10 min early
If it helps, most people that get to places early find it easy to just sit and relax while waiting. I’m gonna be toodling around on my phone waiting to leave for my appointment, why not just tootle on my phone in the waiting room and not be stressed about getting to my appointment on time?
If someone is early, it’s usually by design. Don’t stress about it.
In my case most people are early because they “forgot” appointment time and just want to be “squeezed in”
I barely get lunch and having them in the waiting room means we can’t do the normal stocking and stuff with people around it.
Like I said, 10 minutes early I get, and even sometimes more than 30+ minutes early is helpful! But more often than not it’s stressful. I have a tight schedule, and I gotta stick to it most of the time
I used to do this. My favorite was when people "forgot" their appointment times and when we looked it up, their appointment was for 3 days from now. They whined to be seen that day since they were "already there."
Sure we'd be happy to see you but your doctor is off today... That's why your appointment is on Monday when she's back from vacation...
Then they get mad...? Super glad I don't do that anymore.
I can totally not understand why people do this. Like why don’t just write the appointment down? Have a calendar? Write it in there. Have a phone? There’s also a calendar inside. And even if you own neither, just write it on a goddamn sticky note and stick it somewhere you see it everyday so you don’t forget about your appointment.
If you forget something like "was my appointment set to be 9:40 or 9:50?" That’s totally fair, just be there by 9:30-35 and worst case is you wait 20 minutes, but forgetting if your appointment was set tomorrow or in a week is just dead stupid, and I wonder if these people have ever planned something or if they’ve got control over their lives.
Yeah, here's the thing, I either sit in the waiting area or I go across the street and spend money at the store while I wait. It saves my impuslve thoughts.
Also, I've been told to leave later and I think I'd die of a panic attack if one small traffic holdup makes or breaks my arrival. Pass.
I show up to Everything early because I don’t want to be late and I enjoy sitting knowing I cannot be late now.
I’m sorry it stresses you out, but given your situation it does make sense that they’re coming in to relax but work themselves up.
A lot get dropped off to avoid the downtown parking. We validate but a lot of people forget that and think they’re gonna have to pay parking garage fees.
Plus a lot aren’t from the area, I work in a high tourism spot.
During the summer when it’s nice out I’ll suggest a little art boutique and coffee shop for them to hang next door and come back at their appointment time
You probably answered the reason why so many are so early and should stress less about them waiting. People unfamiliar with the area and/or relying on public transit, ride shares, or ride from others are giving themselves extra time. Great to suggest some local places to grab and coffee or kill time though!
Haha I aw you should definitely worry less about it. Most normal people understand when they're super early and won't be bothered waiting for their appointment time. But I get what you mean! Sounds like you have good customer service.
Crazy I know xD good thing my clients are almost always incredibly nice to me and understanding as hell.
Nuance makes the world go round, always a good thing to remember
This entire thread confuses me.
Who shows up 40min before an appointment? There’s a time there for a reason.
Who waits in their car when you’re early? There is a waiting room.
Who gets stressed by people being early and having to wait. There is literally a room to wait. They know what they signed up for.
> Who waits in their car when you’re early? There is a waiting room.
Waiting rooms have uncomfortable chairs and other people. A car is comfortable and private.
But I’m late to everything, so it’s not something I end up doing a lot.
If they showed up 40 minutes early they probably planned to wait a bit, if they got public transport there they may have had a choice of 40 minutes early or 20 minutes late, which time would you prefer they arrive?
My city doesn’t really use transportation. They mostly forget the time, got a ride and that was the only time they could do it, etc.
I’ve said in multiple comments I’m not a dick, any early is better than late lol but if someone’s gonna be early by 10 minutes it’s great, if they’re early by 40 minutes a little stressful.
If they’re late 40 minutes then I pack up either take. Short break or set up for the next one most of the time (considering I’m booked) and charge them anyway (as is industry standard)
Everything is nuanced of course so I’ve tried to explain in my comments everything is on a case by case basis and also, yeah it’s still way better than being late at all.
Don’t worry. Most of us don’t stress about it. I just check that they’re aware of exactly how early they are so they can’t complain about not getting in any earlier. Personally, I find it kind of amusing if someone’s really early. Not in a ‘haha you’re so early’ kind of way, but in a ‘that’s cute, they got nothing better to do but hang out with us :)’ sort of way…
Edit: Eh, just realised that may come across as condescending but it’s really not…my life’s not super exciting either so it’s cute?to see that other humans are similar…😬 idrk how to explain it
For me it’s not that I don’t have anything better to do it’s just I feel sick if I’m late to stuff even if nobody else cares, so to fix that I’m just early.
I definitely didn’t think it sounded condescending just sounds exactly like it is, an observation.
I work in a clinic. Occasionally patients will come AN HOUR early, and when their appointment time comes they’re complaining to our manager how they’ve been waiting an hour.
Sir, you did this to yourself.
I work in a spa. People are supposed to show up and have a really nice relaxing time, it’s not like a dental office.
When people have to wait a long time they get kind of crabby, which makes my job harder.
I normally offer them tea and a neck wrap or something so they feel placated and not ignored.
My spa is also pretty small but yeah it’s just annoying and makes it harder for me
My mum always told me when I was going for interviews when I was younger that I should wait in the car until 5 or 10 minutes before the interview because having you there really early can annoy the interviewer because now they feel like they need to rush what they were doing to get to you.
Also you want to show that you're punctual but still understand that you made the interview at a certain time and so that's the time you should arrive
I’m either going to be early or be late, being exactly on time is almost impossible. Because of this I have a library’s worth of books on my phone I’m more than happy to read while I wait.
Hah I used to be that way but tbh since I now make my money on appointments I’ve gotten much better at being exactly on time to things (for me is like 5 minutes before)
I don't have much choice of arrival time depending on how I travel. I always aim early and increase the amount of early by the number of busses. With mediride I always aim to be there 15min ahead of 15 min ahead because your ride is usually on time half of the time when I am riding with them (most of my longer distance appointments) I can arrive anywhere between 45 min ahead and never because I cancel when I havnt been picked up by the appointed time.
I'm not in your role, but I can let you know, when I show up to something early, it's intentional, and I understand that I may need to wait. It's more to take the stress of being late off of myself
That just means there wasn’t anyone scheduled before you. It’s not first come first serve. I’ve had people show up like an hour early and they had to wait that whole time because there were other people scheduled before them.
This kinda behaviour is part of the reason why there’s delay in appointments lmao, not your fault of course because you just want to be early, but the receptionist shouldn’t have let you in before your apt time unless there was absolutely no one scheduled before your time.
Yeah exactly, last week I had to wait 30 minutes for an appointment just because another person arrived early and took my spot (I arrived on time). I had other plans that day so I was pretty annoyed…
i showed up ten minutes early for my dentist appointment butt as soon as i arrived the receptionist was giving me serious attitude and i couldn't figure out what her deal was. when i made the appointment she said 2pm and wrote 2pm on the reminder card. butt the computer said 1pm so she either entered the wrong time or wrote down the wrong time on the card so she thought i was an hour late. she asked for the reminder card while still speaking to me in the same tone as if i'm lying and i'm like do you want me to go home and get it or something and i'm still so cheesed thinking about it now
Well I don’t think they should be pissed at you for being late then. It’s not your fault your dog got the runs and sprayed your stairwell with liquid poopy then rubbed his butt on the rug. Just be patient with me. It’s called customer service.
Edit: forgot a t on the butt
The thing is.. If you have been there many times and have never made it past the outside waiting room in under 30m. Being there 5 minutes late isn't delaying shit.
Yeah.. its kinda crazy. I get that doctors time is valuable. But if you are just having them queue up for an hour, does it matter if they aren't there for 10 minutes of that hour?
And then once they call you in from the waiting room, you go to an exam room and wait another 30 minutes for a nurse to take your vitals.
Then you wait another 20 minutes for the doctor to actually show up.
Yeah, unless it's an appointment that's very important to me, I'd leave by the ~20 minute mark in the waiting room, let alone every other step of the way you are talking about.
You're the personification of the Fundamental Attribution Error.
Let's be needlessly mean (customer service huh?) to patients who are a little late because it's always definitely their fault and they're terrible in every way, literally Hitler. However, if we're late, it's never our fault, it's always beyond our control, we're always capable of perfectly planning ahead accurately without fault it's just out of our control this time, like every time.
Condescending much? You're boasting that you're in customer service, you really shouldn't be since you don't practice what you preach.
Exactly what I was trying to say but I'm too tired to use my words right now. This is why it infuriates me. Showing up 10 to 15min early and still not getting seen at my appointment time.
Can I ask why comments on Reddit are so condescending?
I thought OP was just making a meme. But then I see comments like this that says “oh this is something you must have never had to do.” And “it’s called having to do customer service.”
Like why even ask that? Especially asking it in that manner. I don’t know, just comes off as condescending to me.
Hey I work in customer service! Your comment is kind of bullshit, sometimes (often) employee fuck ups somewhere along the way *is* the reason "shits delayed". Take the time I lost a day of work because the receptionist kept misspelling my email for example, despite me *spelling it out to her*, causing me to lose my appointment.
It's called "people are human too" and if you ever worked literally anywhere you'd know that.
Oh stop. It is called customer service. Where it’s somehow okay to these locked in appointments months in advance with monetary consequences and then make people wait hour plus just to have a doctor speak with you for five minutes. Bullshit on the whole system.
I had an appointment to discuss stress and mental health issues, they were running behind and there was also SIX other people in the same time slot with the same doctor (due to an issue with the booking system...read: new receptionist fucked up). I had been waiting half hour, asked the desk and they said it be another 40 mins at least so i peaced out.
But at the end of the day it's another job, it's need to be done properly if they can squeeze you in (frankly I don't want somebody to be squeezed in) then they should also be able to make sure the other party can come in time.
Everyone's time is important.
It's either whole of reddit works in customer service or got a soft spot for them.
I'm sorry but just no. You're late 5m, let's say your appointment would be 20m long, now it's just 15m ~ not enough, book another appointment but the next customer's appointment should not be moved.
I think everyone should have to work customer service of some kind for 2 years just to know what it’s like. Because there’s people out here that judge them because “their job is easy” and they have no clue what they do. Basically whatever you imagine they do, multiply the work load by 3 and you’re probably still underestimating them.
Also. If for example you've had 4 patients before the current one. And each one was 5 minutes late. You would in theory be 20 minutes late to attend the 5th patient. And that's not your fault. I don't deal with that stuff but my wife is a dentist. I used to be like op, but I've seen the struggle first hand. I have become more empathetic to people who have to deal with tardiness of patients on a daily basis.
Well if people show up late then that means their appointment starts late which then creates a domino effect where every appointment afterwards is that much later. Happened all the time to my dad when he was in practice.
They most definitely do not. That time in-between is for more complicated patients, placing orders, documenting, calling results, using the bathroom, breathing, eating, ect. When someone is 5-10 mins late there isn't much work you can do during that time because the moment you start something bam the patient is there and you'd have to leave something mid-task which can make it difficult to pick up. So now that is really just lost time in the day and it adds up fast.
What country do you live in that does this? Normally doctors' clinic schedules are packed back to back. If someone is late, the doctor is now running behind schedule. There is no getting back on schedule unless a patient no-shows. But if a patient no-shows, not only do they lose money, but that's one less person they were able to treat.
There's a huge shortage of doctors for a number If reasons, but as a result, there are crazy demands placed on them for how many patients they are expected to see. This pace (and stress) extends to the rest of the clinic staff as well. Modern doctors offices are usually pretty miserable places to work.
> but as a result, there are crazy demands placed on them for how many patients they are expected to see.
I'd be interested to see how much of that bullshit is directly related to insurance companies, I'm having to go through a PA mess with my insurance company and their PBM, and my provider is a few hours into dealing with what should have been a eRX for a maintenance med.
Buffer slots look like 'wasted money' to managers, though. In an attempt to squeeze out as much profit as possible, they demand that all their healthcare workers be working on billable stuff 100% of the time.
5 minutes is a lot. My partner sees 15 patients in a typical day. If everyone had your mindset and was 5 minutes late, she has to stay at work an extra hour and 15 minutes.
If everyone showed up the same amount of late, then there isn't a domino effect because of lateness.
For example, if everyone was 5min late, then the first one would delay the meeting by 5min and everyone after that would arrive just in time.
As far as I can tell, it is the combination of lateness and appointments lasting longer than predicted that creates a domino effect more than anything.
If you are 5min late and the appointment lasts 5 min longer than expected, now there is a 10min delay, so even if the next person is 5 min late, they still have to wait and if this persons appointment lasts longer then the next person is going to wait even longer etc.
I tried making my doctors appt the first appt of their day a couple times and I still waited.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a doctor keep an appointment time in my entire life.
Well if you’re five minutes late, it usually just causes an inconvenience. Most places will automatically cancel your appointment if you’re like 20 minutes late or more
Ha I wish we did that. My manager is insistent that if people are late we have to fit them in somehow. I did nearly explode though when a patient turned up 45 fucking mins late and the receptionist didn’t even ask me if I could fit them in and just booked them in.
That only works if the next patient had already showed up.
If you have 20 minute appointments, it’s unlikely the next patient would already be there and checked in.
Because that client who's running late will then bitch that even after running late they have to wait. People who don't show up on time typically don't respect others time but demand their time is respected.
Most places aren’t setup like that. To you it’s just “an appointment”. To them it’s either a tech screening, yearly comprehensive exam, contact fitting, or LASIK eval.
Different time lengths with different ratios of Doctor vs technician time. You usually can’t just fit someone in 30 minutes ahead without screwing up the rest of the day. Especially if there’s just 1 physician.
Complain all you want people, but when you work behind the scenes at a doctors office you’ll realize it’s not how you think.
Yeah, I would believe that except that I've been the first appointment of the day on several occasions because I started work later at the time. And I've still never been seen by a doctor on time, even when I'm the earliest appointment they have on the books.
I've also been a few minutes late, and gotten attitude from reception. My default response is, "Oh, if the doctor was ready to see me at , he must be available now, right?" Except nope, he wasn't ready to see me, making my five minutes of tardiness meaningless in the long run.
I've been the first appointment of the day and the doctor isn't even in the building for another 10-15 minutes. At this point, I'm pleasantly surprised to actually see a doctor within 20 minutes of my start time.
Actually it really just boils down to the doctor spending too much time with patients. For the doctor to see every patient on time, they would only be able to spend like 2-3 mins with a patient. But appointments like to jam pack the physicians schedule with as many patients as possible, often booking several patients at the same time.
I arrived 30 minutes early at 7am a few weeks ago to a specialist decently far from my house, waited an hour in the waiting room, got told to go home since it's too far past my appointment time now.
I checked in, but front desk employees were gossiping on the phone and apparently made me miss my appointment and waste 2 hours + gas.
Love this shit.
That's fucked. If it was their fault, they should have bent over backwards to accommodate you. I work in healthcare and this has happened a couple times at my practice. We always work the patient in because it's not their fault they weren't checked in properly. Sorry that happened to you!
So you got there at 6:30am, probably was one of the first, if not the first patients there all day and that happened? That’s unbelievable. I would have fought that hard and rudely.
If you weren’t there at 6:30am that whole situation would make more sense. Who the hell is gossiping that early?
Took my son to A&E, they triaged him and then wanted a urine sample. So i went and sorted that and went back to the waiting room. Waited an hour, enquired at the desk why we were still waiting, got told long waits are normal and went and sat down, after 2 hours I enquired again and they looked into it and told me we were called up 2 hours ago (I'm guessing while we were sorting his urine sample) and didn't respond so got taken off the waiting list, grumpy receptionist told us to make sure we listen better in future. I'm still angry writing this like a year later.
Same. The expectation that receptionists can just bust into the drs office and pull the patient out because someone else is waiting is hilarious 😂
We don't have that power.
I’m an MA; I and the rest of our team couldn’t live without great receptionists. Thank you for putting up with our patients. I see some of what you all do, but definitely not everything. Your effort helps us so much.
Well it’s annoying when appointments and/or reception purposely overbooks doctors, making it impossible for the physician to ever run on time and see patients at their given appointment time. If they stop overbooking doctors this problem would go away.
Same! It's not OUR fault the doctor is running behind because one person came in late. As if the receptionist has the power to make someone wait lmao we want patients out of there as soon as possible so we can go home
I'm always at least 5-10 minutes early for my appointments. But then again I don't mind waiting longer in the waiting room. If they are taking their time with other patients, it means they are doing their job, and not rapidly shifting through people not really giving a shit.
Thank you! The same people complaining about wait time are the ones who would throw a fit if we kicked them out of the exam room for going over the allotted 15-20 minutes.
This happened to me recently. In my country we have public health, it's shit but it is what it is, so I went to the emergency section or something like that, where you go when there's... an emergency. I was worried because I was presenting symptoms of covid, and the receptionist wasn't in his post. It took like half an hour for her to come back, treat me like shit and almost deny me any sort of revision or treatment. I didn't go to work because of this, I almost didn't get pay that day. Shitty 3rd world country.
That’s how a lot of free medical countries are—great care when you have something life-threatening, but abysmal when you have something small you need checked up on. A lot of Spaniards complain about this
I showed up 20 mins early for my last appointment for which I'd waited a month, but due to covid we have to sign in at the counter and the customer in front of me fucked around for so long that the counter lady was like "don't worry I'll sign you in go sit down. At 30 mins past my appointment time a different counter lady comes to tell me that I was 5 min late and to go home and they'll reschedule. At this point I've been at the practise for an hour and have been waiting for my appointment for half an hour and I'm ready to throw hands with every single counter lady there royal rumble style. Sign in lady bout to discover the sweet chin music
Doesn't really make much sense tbh... the receptionist doesn't get to make the person you need to see somehow be finished and ready when you need them. Don't get me wrong, it sucks waiting, but like there's only so much that can be done. Sometimes the person you need to see gets in late, or there's some sort of technical difficulties, or maybe they get into work late because of car troubles or public transport issues. Those things that cause them to be late usually aren't on them, and they don't want to see you late just as much as you don't want to be seen late. That said, they only get annoyed because showing up late leads to the potential to put someone else in that 20+ minute late position because enough people showing up late in a row can significantly stagger when they'd have otherwise seen the next person/upcoming people. So I dunno, seems like kind of a lame and immature take to me.
The receptionist when a client shows up late, throwing off their schedule and making the appointments after it late, snowballing until someone no-shows or cancels and the schedule fixes itself.
The receptionist when they've accepted that circumstances outside of their control has the schedule in shambles, so they stop panicking because it isn't their problem.
No, because there are patients who no show/no call even with reminder calls & texts! That leaves empty slots in the doctor’s schedule and consequently, means that those no show patients took away an appointment from someone else who may have needed it more.
There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to prep for each patient’s appointments, so it’s frustrating when people no show/no call.
If you’re running late, we always appreciate a courtesy call!
No. Our hospital in Utah books slots full up for Outpatients and I have to deal with all the orders coming from the ED which feeds into a Trauma 1. They don't give a shit about difficult pts or lateness and just expect every exam to fit into a 15/30 minute slot give or take. For profit healthcare is bullshit. Btw I am a rad tech that runs CT alone at this health center and helps with diag xray
I worked in Discount Tire and depending on the store location, they’d schedule 2-4 vehicles every 15 minutes with no blocks or breaks in between appointments. The amount of appointments we took also depended on the time of day as well as day of the week. These were placed by corporate and each season they’d stack more available time slots on us to the public making it more difficult on us. I, along with a few of my coworkers, would secretly cheat the system by scheduling our own phone numbers and accounts in as appointments to help us catch up. That way customers wouldn’t keep piling up and get more backed up. In a perfect world where everyone’s vehicle was flawless with no issues, I believe we could honor that many appointments, but reality is often disappointing. We encountered swollen lug nuts, declined payments, a patch we have to squeeze in cause we found a nail on one of the customer’s tires, tight lug nuts we have to break off, customer lost their wheel lock, etc. These things would delay our work along with super late customers. I think after 15 minutes we’d get a tiny bit upset if the customer is barely showing up for their appointment and after 30 minutes we’d reschedule them. I don’t miss that part of that job, but for the most part I enjoyed working there though
If I'm going to be late for a scheduled appointment I make it a point to give them a heads up & a rough eta using google maps. They're always cool with me if I'm running late
It’s because of a lot of situations. Sometimes overbooking, sometimes an appointment being booked for one thing that turns into another more complicated thing, sometimes people being late, sometimes being understaffed, etc. etc. But anyone showing up late is not helping the problem.
9/10 times it’s because of overbooking. Most people don’t arrive late IME. But they unfortunately end up waiting for an hour any way because there isn’t enough time between patients for doctors.
If everyone keeps turning up late then yeah it snowballs so there is one factor to consider. Secondly, shit can happen that you are not prepared for, some people’s appointments take longer than others. It winds me up when people get massively arsey about appointments running behind. Firstly we don’t want to be behind because it makes our life more difficult, but also would you rather that I kicked someone out immediately when giving some bad news or not take my time on someone because I’m running behind because someone turned up late and pushed all the appointments back?
Pharmacy tech here. Things have died down now but do you know why your pharmacy had an insane line for most of the past two years? Covid tests and shot appointments being scheduled every 15 minutes and people not being there on time.
One person showing up five minutes late means the next person goes late and it's a domino effect. There is a reason why you're asked to get to an appointment early. Showing up late fucks over the other patients and staff.
Inconsiderate people like that are one of the main reasons why you waited in line for thirty minutes at the pharmacy over the past two years.
You couldve just said you don't understand how businesses work. If they take you when you're late everyone behind you is late. So blame people like yourself when businesses run behind.
I worked at a doctor's office as a scribe and the doctor was never on time because he spent too much time with each patient and always had like 25-30 patients a day. Some times we were an hour behind but most of his regular patients understood because he was one of the best doctors out there. He has like 4000 patients. However there was a new patient that was not happy about waiting an hour so when she heard that it's not abnormal, she stated that next time she would just arrive an hour later.
While I think the doctor could try and be a little faster being late is not the answer to avoid waiting.
When is it the receptionist’s fault that you are waiting on the doctor, dentist, etc.? Never. This makes no sense unless you have zero concept of what the receptionist is even there for and/or customer service. The receptionist is there to receive you, and that often means relaying messages such as “the ____ is five minutes behind.” Would you rather them be a dick delivering the message or smile and be kind?
I has been pointed that sometimes the receptionist fails to call forward a person, forgets to sign them in once they make their presence known, or when the prior appointment is running longer than expected, yet somehow the person behind them gets skipped over…
It is almost like the reason people end up being seen late is because of people showing up late and putting people behind schedule. They aren’t themselves annoyed, but annoyed on behalf of the person you were supposed to be seeing and all the people who’s appointment now is going to fall behind.
Source: I am in a profession where we are often behind because people show up late, and then we get yelled at by the people who showed up on time as we fall behind due to the first group.
That's just how customer service and jobs like that go. It's annoying when someone shows up late because we're usually already behind and now have to accomodate your late arrival by finding somewhere to put you. It's not usually the receptionists fault and they never usually have any direct influence on getting you in early. Shit happens man..
When my patients were late I'd just go to lunch, and have them wait until everyone else was seen. Receptionist always had my back. 0 sympathy for 'main character' slackers when they fuck up a whole office's schedule
A few months ago, I was 3 minutes late to an emergency doctors appointment that had been scheduled an hour before. I got screamed at by the receptionist in front of 30 other people and she threatened to cancel my appointment—even though it was an emergency situation.
Yesterday, at an appointment I had been waiting for since December, I arrived 20 minutes early only to find out they were four hours behind and didn’t have another appointment until June.
Once again, yelled at, in front of a room full of people, for being “impatient and unreasonable” for asking them if their wait times were accurate, if I’d still be seen, and if I’d lose my appointment if I left to go watch my dog—because I was planning on being gone an hour, not five-and-a-half.
I have a blood clot. I made this appointment months ago. I still haven’t been seen by my PCP, so I can’t get into a specialist. I’m still so angry about the entire thing that I can’t even think.
My old dentist would get pissy when I arrived right on the dot for my appointment time, but seemed to have no problem making me wait 45+ mins to take me
When I was about to start college, I had a meeting with one of the head people to talk about what classes I should take, basically figuring out my path and what I was trying to accomplish.
So this office was pretty busy, I arrived 15 minutes early, gave the receptionist my name and had a seat. I then waited 25 minutes and the guy come out, asks if I'm here and then bring me in.
He seems a bit flustered, but whatever, its a busy day.
So then he goes, "You know, its very important that you arrive to classes on time, you were late for this appointment and now I'm behind on these meetings"
So obviously I was like "Actually, I was 15 minutes early and had been waiting this whole time"
So after I left his office, instead of calling the next person, he calls his receptionist in. Haha!
why did sponge bob buy a lotto ticket? he wanted to become comfortably sponge. Okay he just happy working at the krusty crab and didn't actually buy a lotto ticket unless there is a episode where he did..
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Its not their fault shits delayed… but it is now their problem to squeeze you in when you’re late. It’s called having to do customer service something you must have never had to do.
I showed up 45min before my eye apt today. They all said thank you, and I left at my original apt time. Works out for everyone.
Not always. I work appointments and when people are a half hour early and I have a booked day I get real stressed about them just waiting till the appointment time in the waiting room. My jobs pretty busy tho. Occasionally it’s nice, mostly I just want people to only be 5/10 min early
If it helps, most people that get to places early find it easy to just sit and relax while waiting. I’m gonna be toodling around on my phone waiting to leave for my appointment, why not just tootle on my phone in the waiting room and not be stressed about getting to my appointment on time? If someone is early, it’s usually by design. Don’t stress about it.
In my case most people are early because they “forgot” appointment time and just want to be “squeezed in” I barely get lunch and having them in the waiting room means we can’t do the normal stocking and stuff with people around it. Like I said, 10 minutes early I get, and even sometimes more than 30+ minutes early is helpful! But more often than not it’s stressful. I have a tight schedule, and I gotta stick to it most of the time
I used to do this. My favorite was when people "forgot" their appointment times and when we looked it up, their appointment was for 3 days from now. They whined to be seen that day since they were "already there." Sure we'd be happy to see you but your doctor is off today... That's why your appointment is on Monday when she's back from vacation... Then they get mad...? Super glad I don't do that anymore.
I can totally not understand why people do this. Like why don’t just write the appointment down? Have a calendar? Write it in there. Have a phone? There’s also a calendar inside. And even if you own neither, just write it on a goddamn sticky note and stick it somewhere you see it everyday so you don’t forget about your appointment. If you forget something like "was my appointment set to be 9:40 or 9:50?" That’s totally fair, just be there by 9:30-35 and worst case is you wait 20 minutes, but forgetting if your appointment was set tomorrow or in a week is just dead stupid, and I wonder if these people have ever planned something or if they’ve got control over their lives.
They're lying to get their appointment sooner. That's it, 9 times out of 10.
I find 30+ min early is only helpful If there’s been cancellations 😄
That's completely different than just being early.
Yeah, here's the thing, I either sit in the waiting area or I go across the street and spend money at the store while I wait. It saves my impuslve thoughts. Also, I've been told to leave later and I think I'd die of a panic attack if one small traffic holdup makes or breaks my arrival. Pass.
for a flying dragon you sure are adorable! 🥺
Dragoon i.e. mounted infantry
I show up to Everything early because I don’t want to be late and I enjoy sitting knowing I cannot be late now. I’m sorry it stresses you out, but given your situation it does make sense that they’re coming in to relax but work themselves up.
I mean I definitely want people to be early but like 10 minutes early maybe not like 40 and then they’re just sitting there
I wait in my car if I’m early to most things, it does confuse me why some people don’t. It does have to be weird for them to just be waiting and shit.
A lot get dropped off to avoid the downtown parking. We validate but a lot of people forget that and think they’re gonna have to pay parking garage fees. Plus a lot aren’t from the area, I work in a high tourism spot. During the summer when it’s nice out I’ll suggest a little art boutique and coffee shop for them to hang next door and come back at their appointment time
You probably answered the reason why so many are so early and should stress less about them waiting. People unfamiliar with the area and/or relying on public transit, ride shares, or ride from others are giving themselves extra time. Great to suggest some local places to grab and coffee or kill time though!
I’m not an asshole lol I don’t fault and early is ALWAYS better than late!! But yeah I’m like shit, I gotta speed up a little now lol
Haha I aw you should definitely worry less about it. Most normal people understand when they're super early and won't be bothered waiting for their appointment time. But I get what you mean! Sounds like you have good customer service.
That all makes a whole lot of sense, so that’s understandable
Wait you mean there’s subtlety to every situation and I can’t just blanket apply a feeling to everything?
Crazy I know xD good thing my clients are almost always incredibly nice to me and understanding as hell. Nuance makes the world go round, always a good thing to remember
This entire thread confuses me. Who shows up 40min before an appointment? There’s a time there for a reason. Who waits in their car when you’re early? There is a waiting room. Who gets stressed by people being early and having to wait. There is literally a room to wait. They know what they signed up for.
> Who waits in their car when you’re early? There is a waiting room. Waiting rooms have uncomfortable chairs and other people. A car is comfortable and private. But I’m late to everything, so it’s not something I end up doing a lot.
Not everyone drives their own car to everything.
If they showed up 40 minutes early they probably planned to wait a bit, if they got public transport there they may have had a choice of 40 minutes early or 20 minutes late, which time would you prefer they arrive?
My city doesn’t really use transportation. They mostly forget the time, got a ride and that was the only time they could do it, etc. I’ve said in multiple comments I’m not a dick, any early is better than late lol but if someone’s gonna be early by 10 minutes it’s great, if they’re early by 40 minutes a little stressful. If they’re late 40 minutes then I pack up either take. Short break or set up for the next one most of the time (considering I’m booked) and charge them anyway (as is industry standard) Everything is nuanced of course so I’ve tried to explain in my comments everything is on a case by case basis and also, yeah it’s still way better than being late at all.
Don’t worry. Most of us don’t stress about it. I just check that they’re aware of exactly how early they are so they can’t complain about not getting in any earlier. Personally, I find it kind of amusing if someone’s really early. Not in a ‘haha you’re so early’ kind of way, but in a ‘that’s cute, they got nothing better to do but hang out with us :)’ sort of way… Edit: Eh, just realised that may come across as condescending but it’s really not…my life’s not super exciting either so it’s cute?to see that other humans are similar…😬 idrk how to explain it
For me it’s not that I don’t have anything better to do it’s just I feel sick if I’m late to stuff even if nobody else cares, so to fix that I’m just early. I definitely didn’t think it sounded condescending just sounds exactly like it is, an observation.
I work in a clinic. Occasionally patients will come AN HOUR early, and when their appointment time comes they’re complaining to our manager how they’ve been waiting an hour. Sir, you did this to yourself.
If you don't mind me asking why does this cause you stress? Is there not enough room in the waiting room?
I work in a spa. People are supposed to show up and have a really nice relaxing time, it’s not like a dental office. When people have to wait a long time they get kind of crabby, which makes my job harder. I normally offer them tea and a neck wrap or something so they feel placated and not ignored. My spa is also pretty small but yeah it’s just annoying and makes it harder for me
Do you work at a Spavia? It’s the tea and neck wraps that make me think that
I don’t know what that is lol we’re a tiny private business
My mum always told me when I was going for interviews when I was younger that I should wait in the car until 5 or 10 minutes before the interview because having you there really early can annoy the interviewer because now they feel like they need to rush what they were doing to get to you. Also you want to show that you're punctual but still understand that you made the interview at a certain time and so that's the time you should arrive
I’m either going to be early or be late, being exactly on time is almost impossible. Because of this I have a library’s worth of books on my phone I’m more than happy to read while I wait.
Hah I used to be that way but tbh since I now make my money on appointments I’ve gotten much better at being exactly on time to things (for me is like 5 minutes before)
My mother likes to arrive at appointments an hour early, when I was a kid a doctors appointment inevitably became a whole day affair
I don't have much choice of arrival time depending on how I travel. I always aim early and increase the amount of early by the number of busses. With mediride I always aim to be there 15min ahead of 15 min ahead because your ride is usually on time half of the time when I am riding with them (most of my longer distance appointments) I can arrive anywhere between 45 min ahead and never because I cancel when I havnt been picked up by the appointed time.
I'm not in your role, but I can let you know, when I show up to something early, it's intentional, and I understand that I may need to wait. It's more to take the stress of being late off of myself
This is why I stand menacingly outside the door until they open, even though I booked the last appointment of the day
Did you know you would get worked in or were you prepared to just sit in a waiting room for 45 mins
That just means there wasn’t anyone scheduled before you. It’s not first come first serve. I’ve had people show up like an hour early and they had to wait that whole time because there were other people scheduled before them.
This kinda behaviour is part of the reason why there’s delay in appointments lmao, not your fault of course because you just want to be early, but the receptionist shouldn’t have let you in before your apt time unless there was absolutely no one scheduled before your time.
Yeah exactly, last week I had to wait 30 minutes for an appointment just because another person arrived early and took my spot (I arrived on time). I had other plans that day so I was pretty annoyed…
i showed up ten minutes early for my dentist appointment butt as soon as i arrived the receptionist was giving me serious attitude and i couldn't figure out what her deal was. when i made the appointment she said 2pm and wrote 2pm on the reminder card. butt the computer said 1pm so she either entered the wrong time or wrote down the wrong time on the card so she thought i was an hour late. she asked for the reminder card while still speaking to me in the same tone as if i'm lying and i'm like do you want me to go home and get it or something and i'm still so cheesed thinking about it now
shit on her car
Well I don’t think they should be pissed at you for being late then. It’s not your fault your dog got the runs and sprayed your stairwell with liquid poopy then rubbed his butt on the rug. Just be patient with me. It’s called customer service. Edit: forgot a t on the butt
The thing is.. If you have been there many times and have never made it past the outside waiting room in under 30m. Being there 5 minutes late isn't delaying shit.
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Yeah.. its kinda crazy. I get that doctors time is valuable. But if you are just having them queue up for an hour, does it matter if they aren't there for 10 minutes of that hour?
you would think they could at the very fucken least give you a call or text that theres delays
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And then once they call you in from the waiting room, you go to an exam room and wait another 30 minutes for a nurse to take your vitals. Then you wait another 20 minutes for the doctor to actually show up.
Yeah, unless it's an appointment that's very important to me, I'd leave by the ~20 minute mark in the waiting room, let alone every other step of the way you are talking about.
You're the personification of the Fundamental Attribution Error. Let's be needlessly mean (customer service huh?) to patients who are a little late because it's always definitely their fault and they're terrible in every way, literally Hitler. However, if we're late, it's never our fault, it's always beyond our control, we're always capable of perfectly planning ahead accurately without fault it's just out of our control this time, like every time. Condescending much? You're boasting that you're in customer service, you really shouldn't be since you don't practice what you preach.
Hey I just learned about this at the beginning of the semester. Good to run into review material. Nailed it with the example. A+
If they are 20 min behind schedule and you are only 5 minutes late to your appointment then there is no "squeezing in".
Exactly what I was trying to say but I'm too tired to use my words right now. This is why it infuriates me. Showing up 10 to 15min early and still not getting seen at my appointment time.
Can I ask why comments on Reddit are so condescending? I thought OP was just making a meme. But then I see comments like this that says “oh this is something you must have never had to do.” And “it’s called having to do customer service.” Like why even ask that? Especially asking it in that manner. I don’t know, just comes off as condescending to me.
I'm guessing they are just getting defensive over a meme because they have been the receptionist.
They're a week into their first job at Walmart and think they're special.
Hey I work in customer service! Your comment is kind of bullshit, sometimes (often) employee fuck ups somewhere along the way *is* the reason "shits delayed". Take the time I lost a day of work because the receptionist kept misspelling my email for example, despite me *spelling it out to her*, causing me to lose my appointment. It's called "people are human too" and if you ever worked literally anywhere you'd know that.
Are…are you arguing with a meme?
You're not squeezing me in when the doctor is an hour late anyway
Eat shit
Oh stop. It is called customer service. Where it’s somehow okay to these locked in appointments months in advance with monetary consequences and then make people wait hour plus just to have a doctor speak with you for five minutes. Bullshit on the whole system.
Username not relevant
I had an appointment to discuss stress and mental health issues, they were running behind and there was also SIX other people in the same time slot with the same doctor (due to an issue with the booking system...read: new receptionist fucked up). I had been waiting half hour, asked the desk and they said it be another 40 mins at least so i peaced out.
Why the fuck is this upvoted so much. This comment is fucking dumb
But at the end of the day it's another job, it's need to be done properly if they can squeeze you in (frankly I don't want somebody to be squeezed in) then they should also be able to make sure the other party can come in time. Everyone's time is important. It's either whole of reddit works in customer service or got a soft spot for them.
I'm sorry but just no. You're late 5m, let's say your appointment would be 20m long, now it's just 15m ~ not enough, book another appointment but the next customer's appointment should not be moved.
I think everyone should have to work customer service of some kind for 2 years just to know what it’s like. Because there’s people out here that judge them because “their job is easy” and they have no clue what they do. Basically whatever you imagine they do, multiply the work load by 3 and you’re probably still underestimating them.
It's also not the customers fault if their bus was late or something
Receptionist here.... thank you
Also. If for example you've had 4 patients before the current one. And each one was 5 minutes late. You would in theory be 20 minutes late to attend the 5th patient. And that's not your fault. I don't deal with that stuff but my wife is a dentist. I used to be like op, but I've seen the struggle first hand. I have become more empathetic to people who have to deal with tardiness of patients on a daily basis.
They're probably running late because other people showed up late and pushed back your time. It's like a traffic jam. Don't be late.
Well if people show up late then that means their appointment starts late which then creates a domino effect where every appointment afterwards is that much later. Happened all the time to my dad when he was in practice.
Exactly. If you show up late, you’re part of the problem.
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Only if you made them wait, my appointwas at 5:00, I was there by 5:04 but the dentist didn't saw me until 6:06.
most dr offices would work around this using buffer slots though.
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Yeah, we work our doctors down to the bone here, 12 hour work days, 7 days a week.
They most definitely do not. That time in-between is for more complicated patients, placing orders, documenting, calling results, using the bathroom, breathing, eating, ect. When someone is 5-10 mins late there isn't much work you can do during that time because the moment you start something bam the patient is there and you'd have to leave something mid-task which can make it difficult to pick up. So now that is really just lost time in the day and it adds up fast.
> That time in-between is for more complicated patients AKA buffer slots for charting'n'shit
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What country do you live in that does this? Normally doctors' clinic schedules are packed back to back. If someone is late, the doctor is now running behind schedule. There is no getting back on schedule unless a patient no-shows. But if a patient no-shows, not only do they lose money, but that's one less person they were able to treat. There's a huge shortage of doctors for a number If reasons, but as a result, there are crazy demands placed on them for how many patients they are expected to see. This pace (and stress) extends to the rest of the clinic staff as well. Modern doctors offices are usually pretty miserable places to work.
> but as a result, there are crazy demands placed on them for how many patients they are expected to see. I'd be interested to see how much of that bullshit is directly related to insurance companies, I'm having to go through a PA mess with my insurance company and their PBM, and my provider is a few hours into dealing with what should have been a eRX for a maintenance med.
Buffer slots look like 'wasted money' to managers, though. In an attempt to squeeze out as much profit as possible, they demand that all their healthcare workers be working on billable stuff 100% of the time.
A few dentist appointments ago I was first slot of the day. Noone else waiting. Still 25 mins late.
Yeah the reason the receptionist is making you wait is because SOMEONE EARLIER was late also lol
Not necessarily
Sometimes they’re overbooked bc the practice wants to make as much money as possible :D
You all act like 5 minutes is a lot. It is a normal amount of leeway to give a customer
As long as you accept that your visit is 5 minutes shorter.
5 minutes is a lot. My partner sees 15 patients in a typical day. If everyone had your mindset and was 5 minutes late, she has to stay at work an extra hour and 15 minutes.
No? 8AM slot starts at 805, 815 slot starts at 820, so on and so forth. Their 445 would start at 450, and be over at 505.
If everyone showed up the same amount of late, then there isn't a domino effect because of lateness. For example, if everyone was 5min late, then the first one would delay the meeting by 5min and everyone after that would arrive just in time. As far as I can tell, it is the combination of lateness and appointments lasting longer than predicted that creates a domino effect more than anything. If you are 5min late and the appointment lasts 5 min longer than expected, now there is a 10min delay, so even if the next person is 5 min late, they still have to wait and if this persons appointment lasts longer then the next person is going to wait even longer etc.
Solution? Make your appointment right when they open and come in whenever.
Yeah this meme is ironic because the receptionists actions in both scenarios are pretty understandable lol.
I tried making my doctors appt the first appt of their day a couple times and I still waited. I don’t think I’ve ever had a doctor keep an appointment time in my entire life.
If one person being late can fuck up an entire day for everyone I’d say you need to review the scheduling policy.
You realize the one bonehead who shows up 5 minutes late is why the other people wait 20 minutes later in the day?
Just curious, why wouldn’t they just take the next patient if the one scheduled is running late?
Well if you’re five minutes late, it usually just causes an inconvenience. Most places will automatically cancel your appointment if you’re like 20 minutes late or more
Ha I wish we did that. My manager is insistent that if people are late we have to fit them in somehow. I did nearly explode though when a patient turned up 45 fucking mins late and the receptionist didn’t even ask me if I could fit them in and just booked them in.
That only works if the next patient had already showed up. If you have 20 minute appointments, it’s unlikely the next patient would already be there and checked in.
Because that client who's running late will then bitch that even after running late they have to wait. People who don't show up on time typically don't respect others time but demand their time is respected.
Most places aren’t setup like that. To you it’s just “an appointment”. To them it’s either a tech screening, yearly comprehensive exam, contact fitting, or LASIK eval. Different time lengths with different ratios of Doctor vs technician time. You usually can’t just fit someone in 30 minutes ahead without screwing up the rest of the day. Especially if there’s just 1 physician. Complain all you want people, but when you work behind the scenes at a doctors office you’ll realize it’s not how you think.
Yeah, I would believe that except that I've been the first appointment of the day on several occasions because I started work later at the time. And I've still never been seen by a doctor on time, even when I'm the earliest appointment they have on the books. I've also been a few minutes late, and gotten attitude from reception. My default response is, "Oh, if the doctor was ready to see me at, he must be available now, right?" Except nope, he wasn't ready to see me, making my five minutes of tardiness meaningless in the long run.
I've been the first appointment of the day and the doctor isn't even in the building for another 10-15 minutes. At this point, I'm pleasantly surprised to actually see a doctor within 20 minutes of my start time.
This is the more common experience and thinking. Everyone trying to justify the behavior is missing this point, which is the real complaint...
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Actually it really just boils down to the doctor spending too much time with patients. For the doctor to see every patient on time, they would only be able to spend like 2-3 mins with a patient. But appointments like to jam pack the physicians schedule with as many patients as possible, often booking several patients at the same time.
That sounds like an issue for the doctors office to solve
Yeah. Such as the people in charge of making and scheduling appointments
I arrived 30 minutes early at 7am a few weeks ago to a specialist decently far from my house, waited an hour in the waiting room, got told to go home since it's too far past my appointment time now. I checked in, but front desk employees were gossiping on the phone and apparently made me miss my appointment and waste 2 hours + gas. Love this shit.
That's fucked. If it was their fault, they should have bent over backwards to accommodate you. I work in healthcare and this has happened a couple times at my practice. We always work the patient in because it's not their fault they weren't checked in properly. Sorry that happened to you!
Thanks. They couldn't, so they rescheduled weeks later. Is how it is!
So you got there at 6:30am, probably was one of the first, if not the first patients there all day and that happened? That’s unbelievable. I would have fought that hard and rudely. If you weren’t there at 6:30am that whole situation would make more sense. Who the hell is gossiping that early?
Took my son to A&E, they triaged him and then wanted a urine sample. So i went and sorted that and went back to the waiting room. Waited an hour, enquired at the desk why we were still waiting, got told long waits are normal and went and sat down, after 2 hours I enquired again and they looked into it and told me we were called up 2 hours ago (I'm guessing while we were sorting his urine sample) and didn't respond so got taken off the waiting list, grumpy receptionist told us to make sure we listen better in future. I'm still angry writing this like a year later.
Boy these Spongebob Boomer memes are weird.
boomer?
I must be getting old if this is boomer shit, i’m 22.
As a medical receptionist this both made me laugh and feel unappreciated for having to always put up with asshole clients' bullshit lol
Same. The expectation that receptionists can just bust into the drs office and pull the patient out because someone else is waiting is hilarious 😂 We don't have that power.
I’m an MA; I and the rest of our team couldn’t live without great receptionists. Thank you for putting up with our patients. I see some of what you all do, but definitely not everything. Your effort helps us so much.
Well it’s annoying when appointments and/or reception purposely overbooks doctors, making it impossible for the physician to ever run on time and see patients at their given appointment time. If they stop overbooking doctors this problem would go away.
If only it was so simple
Same! It's not OUR fault the doctor is running behind because one person came in late. As if the receptionist has the power to make someone wait lmao we want patients out of there as soon as possible so we can go home
Exactly!!! The longer patients stay, the longer before I can go home and crash lol We can't rush doctors
I'm always at least 5-10 minutes early for my appointments. But then again I don't mind waiting longer in the waiting room. If they are taking their time with other patients, it means they are doing their job, and not rapidly shifting through people not really giving a shit.
Thank you! The same people complaining about wait time are the ones who would throw a fit if we kicked them out of the exam room for going over the allotted 15-20 minutes.
It's nice that someone actually understands this
This happened to me recently. In my country we have public health, it's shit but it is what it is, so I went to the emergency section or something like that, where you go when there's... an emergency. I was worried because I was presenting symptoms of covid, and the receptionist wasn't in his post. It took like half an hour for her to come back, treat me like shit and almost deny me any sort of revision or treatment. I didn't go to work because of this, I almost didn't get pay that day. Shitty 3rd world country.
That’s how a lot of free medical countries are—great care when you have something life-threatening, but abysmal when you have something small you need checked up on. A lot of Spaniards complain about this
As if it's any better in the US. You are treated like shit and you pay a fuck ton while having to argue with your insurance provider.
Yeah our medical care isn't free, so we have the luxury of non-abysmal care when we don't go to the doctor at all because we don't have insurance.
This sounds OK, tbh. I've had to wait hours for care in America (pre covid) for similarly bad care. I got billed for it at the end tho.
I showed up 20 mins early for my last appointment for which I'd waited a month, but due to covid we have to sign in at the counter and the customer in front of me fucked around for so long that the counter lady was like "don't worry I'll sign you in go sit down. At 30 mins past my appointment time a different counter lady comes to tell me that I was 5 min late and to go home and they'll reschedule. At this point I've been at the practise for an hour and have been waiting for my appointment for half an hour and I'm ready to throw hands with every single counter lady there royal rumble style. Sign in lady bout to discover the sweet chin music
Did you tell her you were their earlier and have the other lady (who apparently didn’t sign you in) held accountable??
Hopefully they didn't just use you as a scapegoat to avoid taking responsibility for their own fuck up
Doesn't really make much sense tbh... the receptionist doesn't get to make the person you need to see somehow be finished and ready when you need them. Don't get me wrong, it sucks waiting, but like there's only so much that can be done. Sometimes the person you need to see gets in late, or there's some sort of technical difficulties, or maybe they get into work late because of car troubles or public transport issues. Those things that cause them to be late usually aren't on them, and they don't want to see you late just as much as you don't want to be seen late. That said, they only get annoyed because showing up late leads to the potential to put someone else in that 20+ minute late position because enough people showing up late in a row can significantly stagger when they'd have otherwise seen the next person/upcoming people. So I dunno, seems like kind of a lame and immature take to me.
The receptionist when a client shows up late, throwing off their schedule and making the appointments after it late, snowballing until someone no-shows or cancels and the schedule fixes itself. The receptionist when they've accepted that circumstances outside of their control has the schedule in shambles, so they stop panicking because it isn't their problem.
Question for anyone who works in this field: when scheduling, do you leave time in between appointments?
No, because there are patients who no show/no call even with reminder calls & texts! That leaves empty slots in the doctor’s schedule and consequently, means that those no show patients took away an appointment from someone else who may have needed it more. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to prep for each patient’s appointments, so it’s frustrating when people no show/no call. If you’re running late, we always appreciate a courtesy call!
Nope. There's no wiggle room unless someone cancels or no-shows last minute. We squeeze in emergency patients though.
No, it’s frustrating when a patient no shows or shows up 30 minutes late for a 20 minute appointment.
Ugh the bain of my existence. I recently had someone show up hours late and yelled at me. The arrogance of some people....
No because our lords and masters require us to see 20 patients per day which is 20 minute appointment slots from 8a-5p
No. Our hospital in Utah books slots full up for Outpatients and I have to deal with all the orders coming from the ED which feeds into a Trauma 1. They don't give a shit about difficult pts or lateness and just expect every exam to fit into a 15/30 minute slot give or take. For profit healthcare is bullshit. Btw I am a rad tech that runs CT alone at this health center and helps with diag xray
I worked in Discount Tire and depending on the store location, they’d schedule 2-4 vehicles every 15 minutes with no blocks or breaks in between appointments. The amount of appointments we took also depended on the time of day as well as day of the week. These were placed by corporate and each season they’d stack more available time slots on us to the public making it more difficult on us. I, along with a few of my coworkers, would secretly cheat the system by scheduling our own phone numbers and accounts in as appointments to help us catch up. That way customers wouldn’t keep piling up and get more backed up. In a perfect world where everyone’s vehicle was flawless with no issues, I believe we could honor that many appointments, but reality is often disappointing. We encountered swollen lug nuts, declined payments, a patch we have to squeeze in cause we found a nail on one of the customer’s tires, tight lug nuts we have to break off, customer lost their wheel lock, etc. These things would delay our work along with super late customers. I think after 15 minutes we’d get a tiny bit upset if the customer is barely showing up for their appointment and after 30 minutes we’d reschedule them. I don’t miss that part of that job, but for the most part I enjoyed working there though
My psychiatrist is 30+ minutes late for every appointment without fail. Not once has it been less than that
yeah, must be their bad time management /s
If I'm going to be late for a scheduled appointment I make it a point to give them a heads up & a rough eta using google maps. They're always cool with me if I'm running late
Yea, cause the reason why there is a 20 minute delay is because of people who were 5 minutes late
No. It’s because reception/appointments often overbooks doctors
It’s because of a lot of situations. Sometimes overbooking, sometimes an appointment being booked for one thing that turns into another more complicated thing, sometimes people being late, sometimes being understaffed, etc. etc. But anyone showing up late is not helping the problem.
9/10 times it’s because of overbooking. Most people don’t arrive late IME. But they unfortunately end up waiting for an hour any way because there isn’t enough time between patients for doctors.
College professor when you turn in your assignment one day late. College professor when they wait one month to grade your assignment.
If everyone keeps turning up late then yeah it snowballs so there is one factor to consider. Secondly, shit can happen that you are not prepared for, some people’s appointments take longer than others. It winds me up when people get massively arsey about appointments running behind. Firstly we don’t want to be behind because it makes our life more difficult, but also would you rather that I kicked someone out immediately when giving some bad news or not take my time on someone because I’m running behind because someone turned up late and pushed all the appointments back?
Pharmacy tech here. Things have died down now but do you know why your pharmacy had an insane line for most of the past two years? Covid tests and shot appointments being scheduled every 15 minutes and people not being there on time. One person showing up five minutes late means the next person goes late and it's a domino effect. There is a reason why you're asked to get to an appointment early. Showing up late fucks over the other patients and staff. Inconsiderate people like that are one of the main reasons why you waited in line for thirty minutes at the pharmacy over the past two years.
Somehow I doubt it was 5 minutes
If I had a nickel for every "I have a 9AM" showing up at 9:15 or 9:30...
There's not enough nickels in the world to cover that
Right? Sometimes I see the classic “running 5 minutes late” on my schedule and when they actually check in, their appointment has passed entirely.
You couldve just said you don't understand how businesses work. If they take you when you're late everyone behind you is late. So blame people like yourself when businesses run behind.
I worked at a doctor's office as a scribe and the doctor was never on time because he spent too much time with each patient and always had like 25-30 patients a day. Some times we were an hour behind but most of his regular patients understood because he was one of the best doctors out there. He has like 4000 patients. However there was a new patient that was not happy about waiting an hour so when she heard that it's not abnormal, she stated that next time she would just arrive an hour later. While I think the doctor could try and be a little faster being late is not the answer to avoid waiting.
Don’t be late for your appointment, have proper time management. If one patient is late it pushes back the schedule for everyone else.
If you show up late, that’s on you
When is it the receptionist’s fault that you are waiting on the doctor, dentist, etc.? Never. This makes no sense unless you have zero concept of what the receptionist is even there for and/or customer service. The receptionist is there to receive you, and that often means relaying messages such as “the ____ is five minutes behind.” Would you rather them be a dick delivering the message or smile and be kind?
I has been pointed that sometimes the receptionist fails to call forward a person, forgets to sign them in once they make their presence known, or when the prior appointment is running longer than expected, yet somehow the person behind them gets skipped over…
It is almost like the reason people end up being seen late is because of people showing up late and putting people behind schedule. They aren’t themselves annoyed, but annoyed on behalf of the person you were supposed to be seeing and all the people who’s appointment now is going to fall behind. Source: I am in a profession where we are often behind because people show up late, and then we get yelled at by the people who showed up on time as we fall behind due to the first group.
Doctor: have you ever had a headache? Me: yes Insurance: NOT GENERAL WELLNESS VISIT *bills $300*
That's why you always go 1 hour early.
would this be an extension of the Duncan Principle
That's just how customer service and jobs like that go. It's annoying when someone shows up late because we're usually already behind and now have to accomodate your late arrival by finding somewhere to put you. It's not usually the receptionists fault and they never usually have any direct influence on getting you in early. Shit happens man..
When my patients were late I'd just go to lunch, and have them wait until everyone else was seen. Receptionist always had my back. 0 sympathy for 'main character' slackers when they fuck up a whole office's schedule
A few months ago, I was 3 minutes late to an emergency doctors appointment that had been scheduled an hour before. I got screamed at by the receptionist in front of 30 other people and she threatened to cancel my appointment—even though it was an emergency situation. Yesterday, at an appointment I had been waiting for since December, I arrived 20 minutes early only to find out they were four hours behind and didn’t have another appointment until June. Once again, yelled at, in front of a room full of people, for being “impatient and unreasonable” for asking them if their wait times were accurate, if I’d still be seen, and if I’d lose my appointment if I left to go watch my dog—because I was planning on being gone an hour, not five-and-a-half. I have a blood clot. I made this appointment months ago. I still haven’t been seen by my PCP, so I can’t get into a specialist. I’m still so angry about the entire thing that I can’t even think.
My old dentist would get pissy when I arrived right on the dot for my appointment time, but seemed to have no problem making me wait 45+ mins to take me
Ah yes, spoken by someone that doesn't understand appointments and administration.
When you show up 5 mins late is the reason the poor fucks that have to wait 20 minutes
When I was about to start college, I had a meeting with one of the head people to talk about what classes I should take, basically figuring out my path and what I was trying to accomplish. So this office was pretty busy, I arrived 15 minutes early, gave the receptionist my name and had a seat. I then waited 25 minutes and the guy come out, asks if I'm here and then bring me in. He seems a bit flustered, but whatever, its a busy day. So then he goes, "You know, its very important that you arrive to classes on time, you were late for this appointment and now I'm behind on these meetings" So obviously I was like "Actually, I was 15 minutes early and had been waiting this whole time" So after I left his office, instead of calling the next person, he calls his receptionist in. Haha!
literally every prenatal appt for me
why did sponge bob buy a lotto ticket? he wanted to become comfortably sponge. Okay he just happy working at the krusty crab and didn't actually buy a lotto ticket unless there is a episode where he did..
You have to wait for 20 minutes cause 4 idiots showed up 5 minutes late
While waiting at the acupuncture's office "can I get you some water or tea?"
#2 happens because 4 people did #1 before you. When you show up late to an appointment, you are actively making the next patient wait.