silver4's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Warning: long and sprinkled with expletives ^^ You have been warned. Today at work was insane. Every patient was late for one, but aside from that, there was substantial drama with a couple of them. Not bad drama, just drama cases. For example, one patient, appointment 10:00. We hadn't heard from her confirming beforehand, so we called about 9:30. She said she was on her way. 10 passes. 10:30 passes. 11 passes. Her daughter had an appointment at 11. 11:15 daughter shows up. They both took the bus to get here, mom had left significantly earlier supposedly. Finish daughter, mom still not here. We take lunch (late). *we had also called several times to check and see what was up, never answered her phone again. Nothing. Zero communication, yet daughter said she had just spoken to her on the phone. 12:52 p.m. mom shows up. W.T.F. We have others scheduled for 1:00, and tell mom we won't be able to do all of the scheduled treatment. She says no problem, understands. She doesn't have insurance, we did a discount on her treatment, and her portion was to be around $1000. Plus the daughter said mom was paying for her appointment, after we finished. Front office opted to collect before we brought her back to work. Patient says she only has about $300. Didn't really feel like mentioning that ahead of time, huh? Awesome. Treatment costs are THOROUGHLY explained ahead of time, and we attempted to call beforehand as well to remind her about it. If you would have answered the phone, we could have discussed things. Anyways. So we say ok, we are now doing less than the less we were going to do, because you also have to pay for your kid's exam (19 y/o). She's like "oh, ok," like it was a surprise that someone had to pay for the kid's exam. Young adult, sorry. But her kid. Anyways. So after all that and the limitations, her appointment is like essentially 20-30 minutes long, and I worked alone (no biggie) because the 1:00 patients had shown up (30 mins late as well), and my assistant was taking X-rays. I said toodles and she scheduled for the next treatment, which she will be significantly late for. I said during her appointment when she was giving me lame excuses en espa�ol, I said hey, just please give us notice if you will be late, and please answer the fuckin phone. Excuse, excuse. When I was numbing her up, what do I hear but her damn phone in her purse beeping for a message, and then start ringing for a phone call. She actually acted alerted like she had to answer the damn phone, but I kept my ass right there numbing her. Do NOT jump up for your phone when I have a damn needle in your mouth. Tiny nugget of advice. Also, turn your fuckin phone to vibrate or silent. Why chance startling me when I'm focused in the zone in your damn mouth? So I sat her up for the anesthetic to kick in, and she grabbed her phone and looked at her missed call list, and I saw my office number listed there at least a good 6 times. Bitch. Seriously. Excuses. I am nice and shit, but you are fucking up our schedule and making it hard to want you to come back. Anyways, dismissed for the day. We will see how next time goes. Not even going to get into the next few patients, but like I said, everyone was late, so I had to attempt catch up. Then comes the 4:00 patient. We close at 5. Our paperwork is like 7 pages long, 3 of which are just like sign here for us to take X-rays, here's the privacy law, and we will charge for failed appointments. Otherwise the pages are basic dental/medical history and do you have allergies to medications, are you preggo, circle if any of these 15ish things listed are your concerns (whitening, crowns, blah blah). She bitches and whines that it's 700 pages long (which, later, I said "it's only 7". With big type, btw.) Doesn't matter. Basically, she sat there in the waiting room talking to other patients (strangers), not doing her paperwork. I glanced to see if she was done, and it was on the table beside her, so I told my assistant that she could bring her back. It was about 4:30. Nope, she says she still hasn't finished. Mind you, it takes most people on average maybe 6 minutes. She stops talking for a bit. Blah blah blah...she comes back for X-rays around 5. W.T.F.? She has no upper teeth, and only like 7 lowers. Ok, this should take maybe 1-2 minutes (literally) to take her X-rays (digital). She talks and whines and what not throughout it, manages to waste over 10 minutes. Then I come in, then it all goes to hell. Nice lady, really. Sweet as can be. But... Won't. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Talks and talks and questions and cries and goes on tangents and basically pisses me the fuck off, because she is wasting a lot of time with redundancy. She basically has shown me why she jumps from dentist to dentist. Nobody can put up with this. And she says crap about my spirit this and that, and how nice the front office was on the phone (also had wasted 25 minutes on the call to make the appointment, after numerous other calls; not to mention the lengthy initial call which had went to voicemail and I deleted the message after getting name and number because she kept rambling. I delete a lot of messages after getting basic info if you are rambling and redundant with your words. It's a fuckin machine. Spit it out. Takes two minutes. "Hi, I'm so and so, interested in making an appt, please call me at blah blah, have a nice day." That's it. That's what I would do.), and just wastes our damn time. Good thing we did not have any other patients after her. My assistant had to leave because she had to babysit at 6, so around 5:20 the front comes back. Mind you, nothing has been done but X-rays. I have my mask and shit on, and I'm poised with shit in my hands, just pleeeeaase open your fuckin mouth and keep it open so I can diagnose! I touch one tooth. She talks with my instruments in there. Decided to give me the history of the tooth. Root canal in two thousaaaaaaaaand.....12? No..2000000013?? Dr so and so, it took 3 appointments, blah blah shksahienslaajakfnfjxGukmanwobrheowmehe trjeiebesbgsanskalalamshshwvwkalaanbddjdjsjwgewffwqu . This went on for every tooth. Through the whole treatment planning, through everything. I wanted to throw in the towel, but we got through. Now, generally, new patient exam, full X-rays, basic cleaning, with all the bonding and small talk and niceties (non-rushing, sometimes I get hugs and kisses, it's funny), is blocked for 1.5 hours. This includes them sitting in waiting room doing paperwork and me taking the 5 minutes or so reviewing the paperwork with them. Sometimes it goes over, sometimes less, depends on the case, and this is just with a basic simple cleaning. This woman. Exam, four X-rays, NO cleaning on those 7 teeth. THREE FUCKING HOURS. She leaves about a quarter to 7. Was at the front desk a good 20+ minutes after I was done with her, just asking a million more questions and scheduling. We booked her a slot when no one else was around. We can never schedule her with other human beings apparently. She leaves. We are smiling and saying bye and waving. She walks out. We are usually calm and full of decorum. The front and I look at each other and start yelling. WHAT THE THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!?!!! We were livid, we exploded, we laughed, we cried on the inside, we had no words, NO WORDS to explain what just happened. It was absolutely, completely insane. Ridiculous. The whole day, but it all came to utter insanity in the last patient. Needless to say, we did not go our separate ways, and instead went down a ways to grab some margaritas and food. My treat. We both got a nice buzz, totally needed the alcohol after that, and let it all out. Got home around 9:30 and passed out (and of course woke up around 12:30 but whatever. I'll take a sleeping pill in a bit). We discussed the day and whatever else: the men in our lives, dating, etc. Side note, taking a step back from MG, and I'm not emotionally afflicted at the moment. Talked to him via text briefly and basically too much is going on. So I'm not going to attempt any unnecessary communication because I... don't want to. Don't have the energy to deal with it either. And I don't want to feel anything that won't be put to use. So that's done, for now. We'll see. Hopefully something better comes along soon to completely distract me from him. In the meantime, I might try to recruit CA for distractions, if he doesn't reside in jerk mode. Just to keep my mind straight. So yes. That was Tuesday. Took my sleeping pills. Hopefully this kicks in soon. I mean, it's like 2:20 a.m. now and my alarm is set for 6:30... I'll push it back some. I don't need to get up that early, it's just a habit. I tend to do my chores a lot better in the mornings before work than afterwards. Like today (err yesterday), obviously I literally walked in post-margaritas, poured some water, ripped off all my clothes (trailing to the bedroom), and plopped into bed and passed out. Might want to pick up those clothes when I officially wake up. And no, I did not brush my teeth before bed. Just...forgive me this one time. Let me have this one. On to Wednesday. 1:16 a.m. - 2014-06-18 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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