On November 19th, I’m sitting at the front desk, manning the phones and scheduling patients, when the phone rings.

Patient: “Hi there, I’ve got a problem. One of my teeth, in the bottom-left, about halfway between the molars and the incisors, hurts.”

Me: “I’m sorry to hear that. Would you mind giving me some details about what’s going on?”

Patient: *Gives details.*

Me: “All right. I should warn you that we are a little backed up right now: it’s not just that it’s getting towards the end of the year, and everyone suddenly remembers to get dental care, it’s also that Thanksgiving is coming up, and we’ll be closed for a while. For that reason, could I start by offering you time on Monday, December 8th?”

Patient: “That far out?”

Me: “So, a little bit of behind-the-scenes knowledge: I keep escape hatches in the schedule where I can squeeze people in for emergencies. Based on what you’ve described, your situation doesn’t qualify, and I have to save the escape hatches I have for something more pressing. I’m going to take the liberty of adding you to my spreadsheet of People I Contact In Case There Are Cancellations; additionally, if your tooth starts to hurt more, you can call back and say, ‘I need an escape hatch,’ and I’ll move you up. How does that sound?”

Patient: “Well, okay, if that’s the best you can do…”

Two days later, on Friday, November 21st, I call the patient back.

Me: “Hi, [Patient]! We currently have you scheduled for December 8th, but I talked about contacting you in case someone cancels. Well, as it happens, someone’s canceled. Are you available on Monday at 4 PM?”

Patient: “Sure! See you then!”

For unrelated reasons, I’m late to work on Monday. When I walk in, I see that the schedule has been annotated: “[Patient] canceled their appointment. They have been rescheduled to December 8th, back where they started.”

Me: “Wow. And here [Patient] was telling me that this was urgent and waiting until the 8th was too long…”

The week passes; we have American Thanksgiving. I come back to work on Monday, December 1st. The phone rings.

Patient: “Hi, this is [Patient]. My tooth has been hurting for the past four days. I need to see the dentist today, Monday, December 1st.”

Me: *Politely disregarding that, on the list of People I Contact In Case There’s A Cancellation, I have notated her entry with, “All talk and no action, don’t even bother”* “I’m sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, we are closed today; could I offer you time on Wednesday the 3rd at 11 AM?”

Patient: “That’s way too long.”

Me: “Unfortunately, I can’t offer you anything more, as the dentist won’t be here until Wednesday.”

Patient: “All riiiiiight, if I have to wait until Wednesday…”

On Wednesday, the patient walks in at 11 AM. Fifteen minutes later, she walks out again.

Dentist: “It stopped hurting. We couldn’t isolate what was going on.”

Me: *Thinking it’s a good thing I squeezed her super-important appointment into the schedule.* “I see.”

Ninety minutes later, the phone rings:

Patient: “It started hurting. Make room for me to come back.”

I hand this off to the dentist: In MY opinion, there’s no room for her today, but the dentist knows his abilities better than I can. He schedules her to return at 3:30 PM.

Dentist: “She needed a root canal, and we didn’t have time to finish it. When can she come back?”

Me: “Depends. Can I double-book her into our busy schedule, or do you need to be able to focus?”

Dentist: “Focus.”

Me: “Then we’re busy until Wednesday the 17th, two weeks from today.”

Patient: “That long? I can’t believe you’re treating this as unimportant!”

Me: “…and if your insurance doesn’t cover everything, we’ll bill you at that time. Now, as the receptionist at this dental office, I wanted to ask you: would you like to schedule your next routine cleaning in six months?”

Patient: “Sure. Let’s—”

The phone rings. Glancing at the landline’s display, I see that it is a caller who had urgent questions earlier that day but has since resolved them. I’ve been at work for only forty-five minutes and already spent ten of them on the phone with this caller.

Patient: “Do you need to get that?”

Me: “No. The business-owner’s instructions are to work with the patients in front of me before answering the phone. Besides, we have an answering machine.”

As I schedule the patient, the same caller calls three more times. They are not leaving messages.

Patient: “Thanks, see you later!”

Me: “Have a great day!”

As I finish, they call a fifth time.

Me: *On phone.* “This is Dr. [Doctor]’s dental office, my na—”

The caller hangs up. I shrug off my confusion and return to my other responsibilities.

After the caller calls a SIXTH time…

Caller: “Hello, I have a question.”

Me: *Wondering what kind of question is important enough to call six times about but NOT important enough to leave a message about.* “Well, I’m certain I can help you answer your question…”

Customer: “Ni hao!”

Me: “I’m Korean, but hello to you too!”

Customer: “Huh?”

Me: “Ni hao is a Chinese greeting, but I’m not Chinese. I’m Korean.”

Customer: “Huh… whatever.”

I take the customer’s order and move on to the next customer. On its own, it’s not a story worthy of retelling. This story also happens to be taking place during Pride Month, and for the month of June, our store’s fries cartons have been replaced with rainbow versions.

I hand the customer his combo meal.

Customer: “What the f*** is this?! I don’t want any gay fries!”

Me: “It’s just the packaging for Pride Month, sir. They’re still the same fries.”

Customer: “Nah! F*** this! I don’t want my fries turning me gay!”

Me: “They… sir… that’s impossible. It’s just printed card. Here…”

I take his tray back, find a regular red fries carton, and transfer the same “gay fries” into this one and hand it back to him.

Me: “There you go, sir.”

Customer: *Still upset.* “I just want my fries! Why has it gotta be all gay?”

Me: *Looking at the large number of people behind him waiting to collect their food.* “Again, sir, not gay. It’s just how [Fast Food Chain] wants to show its support for the gay community. Anyway, have a nice d—”

Customer: “—There’s no gay community! Being gay isn’t a real thing! It’s just mental illness!”

Me: “Sir, if you could please move aside—”

Customer: “—I just don’t understand all this s***!”

That’s it. Snapped.

Me: “—Sir! As we’ve established, I “don’t understand” Chinese, but I know it’s a real f****** language! You don’t need to understand it, or accept it, you just need to get out of its f****** way, and mine!”

Customer: “D***! Chill! You’re an angry Chinese, ain’t ya?” *Finally leaves with his un-gay’d fries.*

As a for-profit business, our dental office wants to minimize the amount of time we are here getting paid, but no patient is here paying us. As such, we text or call all our patients to remind them of their appointments.

Me: *Via SMS.* “Hi, [Patient #1], this is a courtesy reminder of your dental appointment on Wednesday at 9 AM. Please reply to this message with an update on whether you can make your appointment. Thank you!”

Patient #1: *Via SMS.* “I will indeed be there, thank you!”

Me: *Via SMS.* “Hi, [Patient 2], this is a courtesy reminder of your dental appointment on Wednesday at 11:30 AM. Please reply to this message with an update of whether you can make your appointment. Thank you!

Patient #2: *Via SMS.* “Left on Read.”

If this happens, I give the patient 24 hours to get back to me and then start being more aggressive. In this case, we start with a phone call. I get [Patient #2]’s voicemail

Patient #2’s Voicemail: “Hi, this is [Patient 2]’s voicemail. I don’t listen to messages. Please don’t leave me one. Text me instead.”

Yeah, but you don’t answer your text messages…

Me: *Via SMS.* “Hi, [Patient #2]. Are you planning to come to your appointment tomorrow?”

Patient #2: *Via SMS, six hours later after I’ve gone home for the day.* “Yes, I will be there on time!”

Me: *Via SMS the next morning.* “Great! We look forward to seeing you at 11:30.”

At 9 AM, [Patient #1] does not walk in. At 9:40, he texts us:

Patient #1: *Via SMS.* “I’m so sorry. You said Wednesday, but I read Thursday.”

At 10:10 AM, [Patient 2] walks in:

Patient #2: “Hi, I am on time!”

Have people stopped being able to read?

Customer: “I’d like to go to Oklahoma, please.”

Me: “Of course. What day would you like to go?”

Customer: *Gives me the date.*

Me: “All right, what time would you prefer?”

Customer: “I’d like a matinee.”

Me: “…”

Then the light dawned… The travel agency I work at is in a department store in the services area, opposite a desk that sells theater and event tickets.

Me: “Did you want to go see the show ‘Oklahoma’?”

Customer: “Yes…?”

I then pointed her to the ticket desk, across the room.