And another round of apologies for not posting anything here lately. I'm dealing with an unhealthy mother and an even less healthy company that is supposed to provide certain home health services for her. Or at least, I was dealing with them, which meant endless hours (hours, plural) on the phone, being placed for long periods on "hold" before I could reach what, nine times out of ten turned out to be the wrong person. And don't you just love hearing over and over again, a cheery voice telling you, "We know your time is important so someone will be with you as soon as possible"? They play classical music while you're waiting and I think in the last few days, I've heard the combined works of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, Handel, Hayden and P.D.Q. Bach.
It's amazing, simply amazing, that a major company has their phones configured so that it takes 38 minutes just to reach a human being. That's how long my first call to them took…and the person I finally did reach was of no help whatsoever.
Even more amazing is that this is a firm that supplies medical supplies to people who need them to survive. You wouldn't tolerate this service from an outfit that delivers pizza…and oxygen is almost as vital. After a day or so of receiving endless apologies but no change in behavior, I think I've blown off the Big Name health services provider (which shall remain nameless) and moved its responsibilities to a small, three-person outfit where the three people answer their phones and one of them is coming over later with the equipment. True, my mother's health insurance won't pay for the small outfit — I will — but at least she's going to get what the doctors say she needs.
Past experience has shown me that when I post something like this, I get a lot of e-mails from people who say, "Oh, how true," and they tell me the story of the lousy service they received last October. Please, since I'm so far behind on everything, save those tales for another time. I don't think we should be entertaining one another with them. I think we should be sending them where they might do some good. I've been complaining — loudly and forcefully — to various execs at the company in question, plus I'm talking to a lady with something called the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. (I don't guarantee I got that name right.) She phoned me because a doctor-friend I called for advice phoned her, and she said that one of the reasons companies can get away with such shoddy service is that there's so little downside for them. Folks like us simply don't complain enough. I intend to do my share.
I'll be back in a day or so. Just as soon as I get things straightened out.