Confirmation Call

My phone started ringing just as I had a mind-melding code breakthrough, and I couldn’t pick up.  If I’d recognized the number, maybe it would have been different, but after a quick glance, I turned right back to the screen.  An hour later, after nature’s call, made it impossible to continue, I returned from the bathroom and listened to the message:

“Hello, Mr. Glover, this is Doctor Pope’s office.  We’re calling to confirm your appointment for tomorrow at ten a.m.  Please call back and let us know you’ll be here.  Thank you.”

Didn’t Sit Well

My mind was in another mental compartment as I played the message.  It was a simple message.  I didn’t have time to call the office back.  I was still contemplating some cranium-curdling JavaScript, so I stowed the request away in another mental compartment and went back to work.

Whatever momentum I’d acquired earlier had slipped away though.  As hard as I tried to concentrate, a burr in my brain started to grind like sandpaper against my synapses, gently at first, a fine grade, enough to buff a modest rasp into my neurons, then later with a harsher, coarser grade, sawing with ragged abandon and fraying the nerves to tatters.

Call them back…  I had to call them back…  I had to make a special call to confirm an appointment I had already made…

This confirmation call didn’t sit well with me.

Rationalization

Some would ask: “why do little things like this bother you so much?  Why do you get worked up about a simple callback?”

Others would say: “Just make the call!  You could already have done it and been done with it.”  (This sounds like advice I give my eight year old daughter when she complains about doing one of her few chores.)

Still others say: “Don’t get so upset about silly, insignificant stuff like this.  Lighten up!”

To which I say: NOOOOOO!!!!  Or something nearly as articulate.

Fuming!

It’s true.  I spent more time fuming about making the confirmation call than I would have if I’d just made the call, but this practice had to end.  I couldn’t allow it to continue.  This wasn’t just a confirmation call; this was a crusade on behalf of all Americans pressed into confirming already confirmed appointments.  This was the anti-confirmation crusade, and I was the leader of it.

Other people spent their whole lives trying to cure cancer, end poverty and homelessness, overthrow totalitarian communist regimes, but not me.  I was going to end the confirmation call.  The phone call I would make would be the first battle in an ongoing war against this scourge.

This call was going to be the opening salvo in the war.  It would put all receptionists throughout the world – I know you all talk to each other; don’t deny it – on notice.  This anti-confirmation caller meant business!

The Confirmation Call

After all the anger and anxiety, I couldn’t wait to make the call.  I didn’t have to get into an argument with the secretary (yes, I still use that word).  I didn’t have to, but I wanted to.  The conversation began in a serene manner:

“Good afternoon, Dr. Pope’s office.  Can I help you?”

“This is Robert Glover.  You called earlier asking me to confirm an appointment.”  Easy enough, just stating the facts.

“What time is your appointment?”

Okay, now we’re veering off track.  I have to answer this?  How many time slots are available in a given day?  One every half hour in an eight hour day?  With or without a lunch break, I can’t imagine she sees more than twenty people in a given day.

I respond anyway, “Ten o’clock,” and wait.

“Okay, see you tomorrow,” she said.

Time for the salvo.  “I have to tell you,” I said, “this is really annoying.  I shouldn’t have to confirm an appointment I’ve already made.”  Just breathing on the other end.  “I should only have to call if I’m going to change an appointment, not confirm an existing one.  This is a waste of time.”

“I’m sorry, sir.  I’ll let the doctor know.”

“Yes, let her know.”  I didn’t even say ‘please.’  That’s how angry I was.

A Stand for Humanity

I wasn’t expecting a hero’s welcome when I arrived; on the other hand, if they decided to hoist me on their shoulders and carry me around the office, I wasn’t going to stop them.  I thought they would take my constructive criticism in the spirit I intended.  After all, I was taking a stand for humanity.  Weren’t they a part of humanity?

I knew I was in trouble when I walked into the reception area and I could see my breath freeze mid-air.  I signed in.

The receptionist glanced at the name.  “I’ll let the doctor know you’re here.”

The Reception

And so it goes.  The word has gotten around.  I now receive a cold reception wherever I go.  Does it bother me?  Not at all.  Receptionists world-wide have gotten the message: don’t ask me for a confirmation call, or you’ll face my wrath.