I am so fucking tired of call center hacks who feel so "empowered" that they think they can run roughshod over others to paper over their own inadequacies. Today, I got an unexpected call from a staffer at a Banner surgical center in Casa Grande. Unexpected, because I told my primary care doctor that I didn't want to deal with surgery for my hernia until January at the earliest. I just don't have the bandwidth right now, especially with work obligations and other issues like scheduling my Chevy Bolt EV to have the battery pack replaced...
The lady on the phone was kind of brusque and interrupted me mid-sentence multiple times, so I finally asked if she could please stop talking over me. No cussing, no overt rudeness. Her response was typical grade school bullshit: accuse me of doing the same thing, then threaten to disconnect the call.
So I finally had enough and asked to speak to a supervisor. I was told I would get a call back, then was hung up on. Experience tells me that it's highly unlikely that anyone would call me back, so I called the main number for this Banner facility and lodged a complaint.
That got me a callback -- about 2 hours after the facility closed for the day. (They close at noon on Fridays.) My cell phone battery was dead, so I couldn't take the call. I tried calling back, but of course got the generic "we're closed now" message. Maybe the supervisor was dealing with a backlog of complaints (not surprising), or maybe she was betting that she wouldn't have to deal with me.
I blame my primary care doctor mainly because he doesn't listen, even asking me questions like "are you using a pen injector or vials of insulin" and then ordering the wrong prescription electronically. This forces me to make multiple phone calls to places like the pharmacy to do damage control. The reason my phone battery was dead? Because for the second time this week, I had to call Walgreens and wait on hold just to correct my doctor's fuck-ups. Over an hour on hold just to let them know that I wouldn't need the new prescription until the middle of December at the earliest, since I had just refilled my existing insulin prescription.
So now I don't feel comfortable following up with this surgeon because of his staff. Because why would I trust someone to cut me open and perform surgery when their staff is that prickly, and I have no faith in their general competency?
One of my specialists made a disparaging remark about Banner's doctors and their general quality in one of his more candid moments, and I can see why.
I wish I could say that this is isolated to one provider of services, but I've had similar experiences with our private water company, Global Water. Last year, one of their reps was thrown when I referred to their portal as a "web site" (which is what a web portal is, FFS) and decided she was too uncomfortable to continue the call, so after telling me of her discomfort (and apparent inability to do her job), put me on perpetual hold waiting for a supervisor who was never going to pick up the line. Funny enough, calling back got me an elderly lady who had a clue and was able to help... and she was shocked to find out that her coworker was thrown by something so basic.
I think there's a lesson in here about hiring older folks with actual life experience who are both competent and grateful to have the work.
There's also an ugly truth in here that nobody wants to say out loud, and it's a bit assholish to even bring it up, but... In a very real and literal dollars-and-cents fashion, my time is actually more valuable than that of some staffer at a Banner clinic. I'm a highly compensated professional who is consequently under a lot of pressure to perform. My bill rate is high, and my company's bill rate to the end client is even higher. I don't think it's totally off-base to mention this, especially since losing this job means losing that precious medical insurance. I've been chewed out by managers at places like Wells Fargo for this very reason. Nobody likes having their time wasted or disrespected.
Every other doctor gives you a list of doctors and contact info when you ask for a referral, so why my PC decided not to provide me with that in this case (and only mentioned the surgeon's name once in passing before apparently setting things up in Banner's system) is a mystery to me. Well, not that big a mystery. The guy doesn't listen or just plain ignores his patients.
