Life as Crisis Management: The Community Care Physicians Kiada

 

I should have known that it would not get better. Sisyphus, thou aren’t omnipotent and apparently omniscient too. In fact, I should have know it would have gotten worse. Murphy’s Law, thou too are all powerful and all present in modern America. So what is it (with all apologies to Faith No More). It is bureaucracy. It is human incompetence. It is corporate skankiness.

Let me explain. I got up late this morning around 9:00 am. It was later than I wanted to get up because I had an appointment for an OTM, an Osteopathic adjustment, at Community Care Physicians (CCP) at 391 Myrtle Avenue in Albany, in the heart of the busy Albany Medical Centre complex and it was busy to say the least, and I had thought about going to the Co-op before my doctor’s appointment. I had also wanted to take a shower before I went because taking a shower at my four flat complex is akin to trying to figure out a Rubik’s Cube when you have no idea how it works. If I don’t get in the shower between 8:30 and 8:30 am my shower is interrupted by someone else engaged in water use leading to my shower going cold. It is only then safe to get in the shower sometime between 6 pm and 8 pm. So off I rushed to get ready after turning on my phone and my computer to see if I had any messages from CCP. I did not. So off I drove at 9:15 am for my appointment at 9:40 am.

When I got there I was met not only by the check in artist but by her supervisor The supervisor informed me that they, perhaps even she, had tried to call me to tell me the appointment had been cancelled because—and here I am not clear—the doctor was not in or they had double booked once again. This double booking had happened the second time I went to get an adjustment, this one from a doctor I had not seen before because mine is on pregnancy leave as I type. I had to wait an hour to get the adjustment. Apparently I was lucky in this because one was available. By the way, the second adjustment I went for was a half hour late. Today no other appointment was possible so I was told I was shite out of luck. 

The supervisor did tell me they tried to call and they did at 9:34 am, so my phone tells me, six minutes before my appointment. Since I was in the car and I don’t carry my phone around with me as if it were a shot of heroin to which I am thoroughly addicted (apologies to Layne Staley and a host of others), I was already in the car driving the few miles to CCP Myrtle Avenue.

Let me end this immoral tale by stating the obvious again. Bureaucracies are not fully efficient though the mythology about them claims otherwise even in a world where that myth is clearly and indisputably false. Human incompetence is omnipresent and has simply been made more tangible and visible by digital toys. And Sisyphus and Murphy’s Law are omnipresent and all powerful and have been made worse thanks to the toys of the brave new digital age. Bah humbug.

And oh, by the way, my shower, which I took when I got home from my no longer existent appointment with a CCP doctor, was indeed disrupted by someone else using the water. Thank you CCP for not calling me forty minutes before my appointment to tell me it was kaput, no more, gone with the wind.