Pleasantly Unhelpful

I just called one of my doctor's offices. I had canceled an appointment earlier in the month and didn't reschedule immediately, because there were things coming up around which I didn't want to try to work. So I waited until today to call and reschedule.

The person with whom I spoke was very pleasant on the phone... and not helpful at the same time. When I said I needed to reschedule my appointment she said, "So when would you like to come in?"

I paused a second and then said, "I can choose any time and date I want?"

"Sure," she said.

"Okay," I said in that slow, drawn out way I use to indicate that I am a bit incredulous.

"How about Wednesday?" she asked.

"Okay. I need a late afternoon appointment," I said.

"Hmmm. We're full that afternoon," she replied with a nice lilt in her voice. I could almost see the not-quite-a-frown smile she had on her face.

"Then I can't really choose the day and time I want, now can I?" I asked.

"Well," she said pleasantly with even a slight laugh, "I guess not. How about Thursday at 4pm?"

I agreed and we rang off.

Now, that entire conversation wound up being longer and needlessly painful when it didn't have to be. While the girl was very pleasant and had a nice, conversational phone presence, the fact that she didn't provide me with a rough idea of when the next available appointment was or ask me whether mornings or afternoons were better for me caused the conversation to lag and to cause a false start that wasn't needed.

If, on the other hand, she had used that pleasant voice to simple ask, "Are mornings or afternoons better for you?" and then followed that up with the next available appointment for that block of time, we could have quickly discovered that November 1 was the first available appointment time. At least she did prompt me for Wednesday, to give me an idea that tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday were poor choices to make.