About To Be (Dis)Appointed

Hospital, Maine, USA | Healthy | December 25, 2017


(I do appointment scheduling for the hospital. The following takes place on a daily basis with different patients.)

Patient: “I need to reschedule my appointment for next week.”

(I take their name and date of birth, and I look up the appointment.)

Me: “Okay, so, the only appointment I have in June is for the 18th at 7:30 am; then I am going into the middle of July.”

Patient: “Oh, no! I can’t wait that long; do you have anything Tuesday?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry. The only opening I have is June 18th.”

Patient: “How about Wednesday?”

Me: “No. Like I said, the only opening I have in June is the 18th; then I am going into July.”

(This goes on a few more times.)

Patient: “Okay, I will just take June 18th. You don’t have anything a little later in the day, though, do you?”