Wacky Wednesday

Yesterday morning I had a dr. appt --- not a huge deal, but it did mean I had to take the morning off of work. After fighting horrendous traffic on Wilshire I finally made it to Westwood, got up to the office, signed in and took a seat. The receptionist then called my name.

Receptionist: Amber, we don't have you on the schedule today. Your appt is actually on the 17th.
Me: That is true, but I came in 4 weeks ago to pick up a prescription and changed the appt in person to today at 10am. [pointing to the other receptionist] Actually, she is the one that changed it for me.

Receptionist: Well, the doctor already has 2 appts right now, so I don't know what to tell you.

Me: [trying not to go postal] Well, I'm taking off work for this so....

Receptionist: [annoyed look and slight eyeroll] Well, [sigh], there was a cancellation at 10:40am. I guess you can just wait. Do you want to wait?

Me: Um, yeah.

Whatever happened to "the customer [patient] is always right"? I worked in a medical office for 3 years and I can count on one hand how many people showed up on the wrong day for an appointment. Folks just don't show up to a dr. office claiming to have an appointment when they don't have one. It just doesn't happen. I have had issues with the reception staff at this office before, but all I was looking for was a simple "I'm so sorry, there must have been some mix-up. I really apologize... You know, we did have a cancellation, would you mind waiting and we can squeeze you in?" How hard would that have been to say?

Thankfully my doctor is an absolutely wonderful lady who usually runs on time and is very pleasant to be around. I also love having a doctor that is in true private practice (a rarity these days) so that when the time comes for babies (not anytime soon), I'll actually know who is delivering the kid, not just having to rely on the luck of the draw with who is on call that day.

Okay, so after calming myself down after the whole appt debacle, I finally saw the dr. and everything went smoothly. 20 minutes later I was in my car, pulling out of the parking into ... another parking lot. Westwood was absolute gridlock! I mean, like not moving at. all. It took me 40 minutes to get to the 405 ... and I was already in Westwood for cripes sake! And then magically, once I got on the freeway, it was wide open. Why in the world the city streets were so messed up is absolutely beyond me. All in all it took me over an hour to get back to work downtown. sigh. So much for getting back early.

To top it all off, I couldn't figure out why my right shoe was making a funny clicking noise when I walked. Come to find out the tip of my high heel had come off and I was walking on just the metal tip. Lovely.

The upside to all of this was dinner at Cobras and Matadors. We took 2 female summer associates out (another jr. associate joined us) and it was a great time. Good food and wine, great conversation and we actually scored a table that allowed us to be able to hear each other fairly well. Granted, I drank too much and went to bed too late, but it was a nice end to an otherwise ridiculous day.