No Wait To Her Argument

(I’m running slightly late to meet a patient. I arrive about five minutes after the appointment time to find no one there. I wait around, wondering if she was perhaps caught up in traffic. After half an hour goes by, I call her.)

Patient: *rudely* “Hello!?”

Me: “Hello, this is [name] of [clinic name]. We had a 4 pm appointment today, but I didn’t see you.”

Patient: “Oh, I was waiting forever, and you never showed!”

Me: “I’m so sorry I missed you. How long were you waiting?”

Patient: “45 minutes.”

Me: “Huh? But it’s 4:30 now and there’s no one here.”

Patient: “Yeah, I know! I left at 4pm!”

Me: “But, that’s when our appointment was.”

Patient: “Right! I can’t believe you were so late!”

Me: “Please correct me if I’m wrong, but [clinic] is by-appointment-only, which means I am not in the office unless there’s a patient. I’ve told you this, haven’t I?”

Patient: “That’s right.”

Me: “So you’re upset because I wasn’t here 45 minutes before I was actually supposed to be here?”

Patient: “Yes!”

(The weirdest thing is that I had actually treated her before, and she’d shown up fifteen minutes late without calling!)