Answer Your Freaking Phone

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Ok, this is sort of a rant. I have major anxiety issues about talking on the phone, and have been trying to schedule a doctor's appointment. The problem is, they don't want to answer their phone! I called six times yesterday (an hour apart each time) and it goes straight to voicemail every time. I called again today - same thing. They want me to leave a message so THEY can call ME when it's a good time for them. Great, so that means I'll be sitting around inside near my phone all day long, stressing out and eating junk food and jumping at noises. Hurray. Wish they'd just answer their d@mn phone.

The title of this thread is awesome. Just saying.

I would consider driving to their office to make the appointment.

That would make me so mad. I won't talk on voice mail or answering machines.

I hate talking on the phone, luckily my doctor's is only a 5-10 minute walk so I can walk down and make an appointment! If not my parents seem to enjoy making phone calls!

I hear you. I either avoid or put off calling people on the phone as long as possible. Then I have to work myself up to doing it and it is an aggravation when they don't answer. Sometimes it's a blessing if I can get away with just leaving a voicemail and don't have to talk to a real person. I can come off rude when on the phone with customer service reps or the like. I'm already agitated and then they're trying to read to me from a procedural manual or something and I just know my reason for calling isn't going to get resolved. Last year, I called to just find out a price to bundle TV and internet from a company and the next thing I know I get a bill for $250 in the mail for a phone and internet installation that I never approved nor knew I got. I don't even own a land-line telephone. It took at least 4 calls and several months to resolve. Meanwhile, they sent a collections agency after me for not paying the bill. Yeah, I hate using the phone.

I hate leaving messages, most of the time they never get back to you or you miss their call.

I don't like the new trend towards doctors' offices and clinics relying on voicemail either, but you may as well leave a message and wait, because they don't answer the phone anymore. On the other hand, I work in the medical field and they are relying on voicemail in order to compensate for a lack of workers to deal with the patients that are in the clinic that day. It's very frustrating to try to get patients to fill out intake forms, answer their questions, take their payments and get them ready for their appointment while also having to answer the phone and hear someone panicking because they have a headache and think it's a brain tumor, or they threw up and are convinced it's a horrible malady when it's simply a stomach bug. It's very hard to weed out the truly sick from the hypochondriacs over the phone, and it tends to take a lot of time away from the patients already there, so it's easier to screen the calls and call back at a less busy time so that you will get their undivided attention and they will be less stressed while talking to you.

On another note, hypochondriasm seems to have jumped tenfold since the invention of WebMD.

When I was looking for work, I left about 30 messages to people who promised they would call back. How many actually did? 2! When I pointed this out to someone they mentioned that I just have a negative attitude. Whatever! One guy I left I grand total of 11 messages (he promised much needed job help and besides it was his f***ing job) and I never did hear from the guy. What's so hard about returning a call especially when it's your J-O-B???

[quote="VIDEODROME'] I would consider driving to their office to make the appointment.[/quote]
I did that once and the receptionist looked at me like I had three heads. If you answered your phones I wouldn't have had to do it!

Most irritating part - voicemail says I have reached the "scheduler". Really?? Her job title is scheduler, but she doesn't answer the phone? What the bleep is she doing, then?

I don't mind talking on a phone, but I hate having to leave a recorded message because I sound so weird on recorded messages that they make me cringe, so I try to avoid ever having to do that.

I get anxious with making calls and leaving messages, too. If I'm calling expecting to speak to a person and get voicemail instead, like as not I'll hang up without leaving a message until I formulate the message i want to leave, then call back & leave it. If I know I'm going to get voicemail, I try to have a list handy of all the information I need to leave on the message.

I rarely see doctors because I can't stand phones, incoming or outgoing.

I agree. I get sick of that computer voice on the phone. Why can't they answer the phone anymore? We should rig our phones up that way for them.

My opinion, but I believe we have taken big leaps backwards. This tech age is so screwed up it can't compare to the world my parents lived in. I am homesick for a simpler time I have never known. I am sick of nearly getting hit on the road by dangerous drivers that can't get their eyes off of their texting. If you like this stuff that's fine. But I desire the simpler world.

Because I hate it, when I am actually talking to a person right in front of me, and suddenly a phone rings, and the person in front of me stops our talking, to talk with someone, that wanted to talk with that person after me. This is simply unpolite and its simply f*****g annoying for me, because of me having speech and talking issues. I have to prepare what I want to say and prepare myself answers for the question the person might ask me and its hard enough talking for me without some lamers disturbing and expecting to be allowed to jump the queue, simply because they are phoning and think that they, because of that, dont have to wait orderly until its their turn.

Go there or use Email, but if you phone a person whose job it is to talk to people, then there is simply a high chance that he/she is actually doing that right now. And if that person got manners she wont disturb the actual conversation with the person that was willing to wait patiently until its his/her time to talk with someone that thinks he has a right to jump the queue, because of him using a phone.

I fully understand your issues with the telephone, thats why I come personally or write Emails, but out of the same cause I definitly hate it when the conversation, that is anyway hard for me, is disturbed every minute by some unpolite telephone pusher. Only because you are phoning, that doesnt give you more rights then a person thats personally there or wrote an Email. If my Email got there before you phoned, I simply have the right that my Email is answered before you get your answer, and if she is still writing it while you phone then you simply have to wait, as I have to wait until the requests before me have been answered. As I wait patiently until the requests that were before me are answered, I expect the same behaviour from others.

I just dislike the computer voice and processed things businesses do. I would like to have my own computer voice system for when such a business would call me, like telemarketers.