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As the wires cross
Jul. 16th, 2020 04:07 pmIt's not easy to stay informed, even when you have all the modern media at your disposal and are actively working to find out about the stuff that directly affects you. Even when you speak the language and you've made a career of organizing information and teasing out the bits that you or your clients need.
Two recent occurrences brought this home to me, one related to health and the other to finances.
Early in the new year, I went to my eye doctor because I felt that my glasses prescription was not quite right and I should get it updated. I also wanted to have an extra pair of specs in case anything happened to this one - normally I've just used an old pair until my regular glasses can be fixed but due to the operations I've had in recent years, my most recent "old" pair was completely wrong for me. The eye testing all went fine and I got my new glasses OK but after one of the additional tests I get done during my check-ups, the doctor recommended I get some sort of minor test or procedure done at the Riverside (kind of a just-in-case, covering all the bases kind of thing as I'm more susceptible than most to certain potentially serious eye diseases). The way it works is that the Riverside contacts me directly to set up the appointment (usually just a 15- or 20-minute procedure but one that requires their specialized equipment). But before I left the doctor's office on that cold January afternoon, I was given a follow-up appointment for July 6, where I would presumably have gotten the results of that procedure and told if there were further operations or procedures I would need to endure.
But the call from the Riverside never came. Covid-19 came instead. July rolled around and on the afternoon of Friday, July 3, I realized that no one had called me about my "follow-up" appointment either. Since there was nothing to follow up, I saw no point in keeping the July 6 appointment but I decided to call the office and let them know I wouldn't be there, just as a courtesy, and to inquire if they had any idea when things might resume. It sounded from the message on their answering service as if the office was indeed open, although they closed at noon on Fridays. So I left a message.
No one has called back or e-mailed, which perhaps is understandable under the circumstances, but then this morning on the radio, I heard that the Riverside Hospital eye care centre has been closed COMPLETELY since lockdown began in mid-March. Apparently a few of the urgent cases have been handled at the Eye Institute on the General campus.
Now, I don't think by any means that I was an urgent priority here. But would it have killed them to send out some sort of form letter or generic e-mail or even a robo-call to their regular patients to inform us of the situation? Why did we have to hear about it on the radio four months later?
The other occurrence I want to vent about today is a phone call I got today from someone at my credit union. She was a legitimate employee, she had my personal information and I do bank there, but I'd never spoken to her before. She said something about me having an inactive account with them that would soon be slapped with a $20 fee, something that won't break me but I consider a little insulting given the amount of business I've brought their way. But when I asked her for the specific account number, she couldn't seem to tell me and just said it was all the same portfolio number. She wanted me to fax her some i.d. or send her a scan of it. I suggested she mail me what she had, indicating what she wanted updated and where I needed to sign. She seemed OK with that and said she could also send me an e-mail, which she did.
However, the e-mail was singularly uninformative. It basically just reiterated her request for me to scan my i.d. and send it to her. I've put the whole thing on hold for now. I'll see if anything arrives in the mail in the next week or so. If not, I'll get in touch with the investment consultant I have there, the one I've known for years and am quite satisfied with.
The weird thing is that I HAVE been using at least some of the accounts I have with them on quite a regular basis. I haven't withdrawn cash because so few places are accepting cash these days. I've even been writing cheques, something else that not that many people seem to do any more. But I've been doing online banking too.
I think the basic problem here is that she was probably quite a new employee, quite junior, and as such was being given a lot of the grunt work, the probably rather monotonous work of phoning the members and updating the files. So I kept my cool. But dammit, I'm FRUSTRATED!
Will I be looking back on this and laughing in a couple of years? Or even a couple of months? Maybe. Stay tuned!
Two recent occurrences brought this home to me, one related to health and the other to finances.
Early in the new year, I went to my eye doctor because I felt that my glasses prescription was not quite right and I should get it updated. I also wanted to have an extra pair of specs in case anything happened to this one - normally I've just used an old pair until my regular glasses can be fixed but due to the operations I've had in recent years, my most recent "old" pair was completely wrong for me. The eye testing all went fine and I got my new glasses OK but after one of the additional tests I get done during my check-ups, the doctor recommended I get some sort of minor test or procedure done at the Riverside (kind of a just-in-case, covering all the bases kind of thing as I'm more susceptible than most to certain potentially serious eye diseases). The way it works is that the Riverside contacts me directly to set up the appointment (usually just a 15- or 20-minute procedure but one that requires their specialized equipment). But before I left the doctor's office on that cold January afternoon, I was given a follow-up appointment for July 6, where I would presumably have gotten the results of that procedure and told if there were further operations or procedures I would need to endure.
But the call from the Riverside never came. Covid-19 came instead. July rolled around and on the afternoon of Friday, July 3, I realized that no one had called me about my "follow-up" appointment either. Since there was nothing to follow up, I saw no point in keeping the July 6 appointment but I decided to call the office and let them know I wouldn't be there, just as a courtesy, and to inquire if they had any idea when things might resume. It sounded from the message on their answering service as if the office was indeed open, although they closed at noon on Fridays. So I left a message.
No one has called back or e-mailed, which perhaps is understandable under the circumstances, but then this morning on the radio, I heard that the Riverside Hospital eye care centre has been closed COMPLETELY since lockdown began in mid-March. Apparently a few of the urgent cases have been handled at the Eye Institute on the General campus.
Now, I don't think by any means that I was an urgent priority here. But would it have killed them to send out some sort of form letter or generic e-mail or even a robo-call to their regular patients to inform us of the situation? Why did we have to hear about it on the radio four months later?
The other occurrence I want to vent about today is a phone call I got today from someone at my credit union. She was a legitimate employee, she had my personal information and I do bank there, but I'd never spoken to her before. She said something about me having an inactive account with them that would soon be slapped with a $20 fee, something that won't break me but I consider a little insulting given the amount of business I've brought their way. But when I asked her for the specific account number, she couldn't seem to tell me and just said it was all the same portfolio number. She wanted me to fax her some i.d. or send her a scan of it. I suggested she mail me what she had, indicating what she wanted updated and where I needed to sign. She seemed OK with that and said she could also send me an e-mail, which she did.
However, the e-mail was singularly uninformative. It basically just reiterated her request for me to scan my i.d. and send it to her. I've put the whole thing on hold for now. I'll see if anything arrives in the mail in the next week or so. If not, I'll get in touch with the investment consultant I have there, the one I've known for years and am quite satisfied with.
The weird thing is that I HAVE been using at least some of the accounts I have with them on quite a regular basis. I haven't withdrawn cash because so few places are accepting cash these days. I've even been writing cheques, something else that not that many people seem to do any more. But I've been doing online banking too.
I think the basic problem here is that she was probably quite a new employee, quite junior, and as such was being given a lot of the grunt work, the probably rather monotonous work of phoning the members and updating the files. So I kept my cool. But dammit, I'm FRUSTRATED!
Will I be looking back on this and laughing in a couple of years? Or even a couple of months? Maybe. Stay tuned!
