My doctor, my friend
Today I called the family doctor to make an appointment for one of my children. My statement “Hi this is Sandra Tayler” was met by the receptionist brightening her voice and saying “Oh Hi!” like I’m a friend she hasn’t seen for awhile. I’m trying to decide if this is a good thing.
On one hand it is definitely nice to feel like the people at the doctor’s office actually care who you are. It is nice to know all their names and have them know yours even when they aren’t staring at the appointment screen.
On the other hand it means I’ve actually been in the office frequently enough for them to recoginize me both by name and by sight and to know the names of all of my children without having to look them up.
The gripping hand is that I’ve been going to this same doctor for more than 6 years, the staff there has been pretty constant in all that time, and I was one of the practice’s first patients. This means it makes SENSE for them to feel like I’m an old friend. In a way, I am.
While all of the foregoing thought does manage to make me feel better about knowing the people in the doctor’s office so well, it completely fails to make me happy that I’m having to take a child to the doctor AGAIN.