What's the time?

I don't know about you, but I'm a busy person. I have 3 kids, 2 pets (8 if you count the ones in the tank actually), and a husband. I do more than just blog and practice veterinary medicine and take care of family matters. I'm involved with the administration of the kids' school, at our house of worship, and my husband's business. No, I don't know how I do it - but the important thing is, I do in fact do it. And when I'm doing it, I'm respectful of other people's time, because I know oh-so-very well how irritating frustrating - well, if I'm being completely honest let me just say how INCREDIBLY FUCKING ANNOYING it is when people act like THEIR time is more important than YOUR time.

Ahem.

Seasoned readers will see where this is going, I'm sure.

So, yeah. The other day I had scheduled myself such that the last appointment was 45 minutes before closing, because I had somewhere I had to be, and I wanted to be darn sure I'd be able to be there (so as not to waste the time of the other 12 people I'd be meeting, who were going to be waiting for my arrival).  Of particular note is that the pet who held that appointment was boarding in our hospital, and required an examination, but the owner had wanted to be present for the examination and "to discuss a few problems" the pet had, so the owner had scheduled this appointment for the time he planned to pick up the pet at the end of boarding. The appointment time rolled around and the client was not there. As is our practice, the receptionist phoned the home and mobile numbers on file to see if the client was en route. There was no answer. Fifteen minutes went by, and the client was not there. After 25 minutes had gone by I figured I'd at least examine the pet, and just discuss my findings once the owner arrived. As I finished examining the pet, we heard our voicemail pick up (it does this on speakerphone - we stop answering the phone 30 minutes before closing. This fact, by the way, is well advertised) and the voice of my client came through. "Hi there! Just wanted to let you know I *do* still plan to pick up Fluffinator, and be there for our appointment, but you know, I'm not going to be there til about ten after seven, so, you'll need to wait for me. See you soon!"

Interesting message, there. The thing is that our office closes at 7:00 PM. This appointment had been made for 6:15 PM. The client just expected that we'd be more than happy to accomodate a 55-minute late arrival time for an appointment, after our normal business hours, without even a please or a thank you. Honestly it kind of blew my mind because although I may vent a lot about how people are so FUCKING ANNOYING all the time, for some crazy reason I still expect that people will actually behave in a civil manner to me. I know, I know - I'm the crazy one. Well, if you can't beat'em...

So anyway, as it happened, the Big Boss Lady was standing there and I looked at her and said "listen - my findings are written up, you can feel free to stay and discuss with her, or not, at your pleasure - but I'm leaving because people are waiting for me and I don't feel comfortable making them wait." She was fine with that. She said she was going to call the client and tell her if she couldn't come in before closing, not to come til the next day. I'm not sure if she actually did that or not, though.

Just to be 100% clear, by the way - my physical exam of this pet did not reveal any abnormalities. If I had picked up something potentially dangerous, I would have notified the people waiting for me that I had been unavoidably detained. But I saw no reason to do so in this case, especially given the massive sense of carelessness that had oozed through our telephone's speaker with the client's message.

So, yeah. That happened.
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