Appointments suck. Period. First, you have to admit defeat to the fact you have to make an appointment. Then you have to find the time to schedule an appointment. Then you actually have to go to that appointment. And with your busy work schedule – and social life schedule – and gym schedule – it’s never easy.
The Admitting
You’re supposed to go to the dentist every six months. But who actually does? A physical every year? Yeah right… We’re busy. How do you expect us to make an appointment a month in advance – never mind 6 months or a year in advance? Come the week before the appointment, we get a call reminding us about the appointment we made ages ago… but we have plans and can’t go. And we obviously let this reminder go to voicemail because we don’t pick up the phone when strangers call! And we obviously put off calling back to say we can’t make this appointment until months after the appointment took place. We don’t need to go right now. Even if we’re sick, there’s a little place called the drug store where we can get drugs to make us feel better. But if we come to a point where we absolutely most definitely need to go to an appointment of some sort… we’ll think about making one.
The Phone Call
Before you have an appointment you actually need to make one. And finding the time to google a phone number, heading to a private place to make a phone call while at work, and then committing to a certain date and time for appointment is the worst. Sure you could make the call at your desk, but what if they ask you personal questions that you don’t want anyone to hear the answer to? You could wait until you get out of work – but then the office you’re calling will most likely be closed. You could wait until lunch, but what if they’re on lunch too? You can also (and most likely will) step outside or in to a conference room for who knows how long to make the call. But there is the chance they won’t answer and you’ll be forced to leave a voicemail, putting them in the position of power. This means they could call you back at any time during the day. So you stick by your phone at every second of that day waiting to run for the door when you get that call. But what if you get it in a meeting? Or when you’re in the bathroom? Or when you’re just – busy. Should scheduling an appointment really be this hard?!
The Scheduling
When you finally get in touch with someone to schedule an appointment, every date and time you had in mind will probably be taken. Either they will want to schedule you for noon or 1pm appointments every day this week, meaning you can’t go into work late or leave early (which is annoying enough) – you’d have to take the entire day off… Or they will want to schedule you 3 months from now because they’re booked. If this happens, and you really need to see someone ASAP, you will then have to go into detail to the nurse or admin person on the phone about your ‘issue’ which can be super awkward. Once it’s clear you need to go ASAP, every time you suggest will be shut down, so you will prob get flustered and tell them you’ll have to call back… which would be a huge mistake because it would put you right back where you started. Eventually you’ll get an appointment, but you won’t be happy with it of course.
The ‘Letting People Know’
When you finally have an appointment scheduled on your calendar, you have to let everyone know you won’t be available during that time – giving yourself a decent amount of travel time there and/or back from work. In most cases you can say what your appointment is (dentist, regular check up at the doctor, etc)… but what if you’re going to the gyno? What if you think you have a UTI and need to take that random appointment in the middle of the day tomorrow? What if you’re starting to see a therapist? These are things you most likely don’t want to go into detail about… But you of course get paranoid because no one wants to be that person going to mysterious ‘appointments’ all the time.
The Committing
Hopefully after all this you will actually get to your appointment without cancelling it. In the real world, things come up. Especially when you are a newly employed recent grad. You’re the bitch. You have to do what you’re told and if an important meeting comes up – or you must finish something before you leave – you might have to cancel your appointment. In your personal life, things come up as well. What if you’re not feeling well? What if you want to make dinner plans? What if you don’t want to wake up early? What if you want to work out instead? Well – unless you want to go through the long, hard process of rescheduling, you won’t cancel for these reasons… but then again, you put it off for this long so why not?
The Getting There
Now that you’re clear to leave work or you’re good to head in before work, you have to face the roads. Basically, even if you make it to the car, you might hit traffic which would make you too late to even attempt going. You might feel sick on the way and want to turn around. You might get a call asking you to come into work and have to turn around. Basically, you never know what’s going to happen. But you have to deal.
The Waiting
If you DO make it (late, early, or on time) to the appointment, now you enter the realm of waiting. You tell them you’re there… then you sit waiting and waiting for someone to call your name… Then when they do call your time some time in the next hour (or two), you have to go sit and wait again in another room… Eventually people come in and out before the doctor or person you’re actually meeting with comes in. So now that you’ve waited forever, you’re either super late to work, lacking time to go back to work like you said you would, or you’re missing your quality post-work or pre-work gym time. And you’re hungry.
The Paying
Not to mention, appointments cost money. And money is not something you have.
The Leaving
After you waited years to see the doctor, spent money, and gave up doing other things for this appointment, you’re most likely usually out of there in a few minutes. It’s like waiting for a ride at Disney World. Except most appointments are not worth the wait.
Basically appointments suck – every little thing about them. So why schedule appointments when you can just put them off as long as humanly possible? Right?
