Aaaaaaaaaaand cut off a fourth time, after the welcome recorded message informed me that I can't send faxes to that mailbox, which I swear I was not even contemplating.

For me, once is enough. Why would I want people poking around in my eyes who can't even operate a fucking telephone? It's not exactly brain eye surgery, after all.

Well, presumably the receptionist wouldn't be the one poking around in my eye.... I hope.

I gave it up for today. Maybe tomorrow they'll have someone there who understands that you don't press the little button in the middle of the cradle to transfer.

Or I might just wait till after hours and leave a message, making them call me.

This is entirely too complicated. But I'm basically just excited that my insurance covers eye exams, because I didn't think it did.

I would probably assume that the office staff is short-handed or someone is just having a very bad day. It happens. If the doc is highly recommended you might still want to give them a chance. I say this as someone who worked reception for a long time and even the most professional administrative worker can have an off day. They could also be training someone new, which would explain the bad transfer and the cut-offs.

On the other hand no one should ever see a doc they're not completely comfortable with.

Well, it depends on how much you value your eyes, I suppose. For me, a receptionist who can't operate a telephone is indicative that the business places a low value on staff competence. Once, maybe even twice, is a bad day - four times is incompetent. Having worked in administration at every level from receptionist to director of operations, I would never put someone on the front line who could not at least provide the minimum level of service to the customer which, in this case, is at least being able to put someone on hold while they figure out how the transfer them. But that's just me.

I think partly the totally random nature of the problems -- "Welcome to XXX Eye Center. Press 1 for appointments" led immediately to the "This mailbox doesn't accept faxes, good bye" with no human being ever coming on the line; getting transfered the first time to a human being who then transfered me to a recorded message saying that this mailbox was full and I should stay on the line for a full listing of all personnel -- made it seem more a tech problem than a human being problem. Even the time I got cut off, she was in the midst of apologizing for having cut me off the first time, which makes me think she might not have actually pushed anything since she was mid-sentence.

My work phones were screwed up today, too, so maybe all the various "phones should be working now; whoops, just kidding" emails I was getting led me to that assumption.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow. Perhaps their phones are just possessed. I'd be more worried about an opthamologist with a poltergeist.