doctor’s office constantly leaves me on hold, coworker’s bare-bones emails, and more

by Alison Green on September 5, 2024

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My doctor’s office constantly leaves me on hold — how do I deal with this at work?

Do you have any advice on how to handle important personal phone calls with LONG hold times when you’re working in a client-facing position?

My doctor’s office has developed a fun new habit of either leaving me on hold for extremely long times if I call the central scheduling line or never picking up (and then never returning my voicemails) if I try to call the specific reception desk of my specific office, even when I’m returning a call from that same reception desk.

I am the sole receptionist in a busy office, and my doctor’s office is only open during my own work hours. There’s no one else at home who can make these calls on my behalf. It’s really not feasible for me to be sitting on hold for ages while clients are trying to talk to me – there’ve been times I’ve had to lose my place in line to hang up and focus on a client, and times when I’ve been hung up on because a scheduler finally picked up my call and I couldn’t get my personal phone to my ear fast enough – but obviously my doctor’s office doesn’t care. It feels ridiculous stepping into a private office to sit around listening to hold music while there’s work to be done (not least because I might be asked to use some of my limited sick or vacation time to make up for the lost work time), but if this is going to keep happening, I’m truly at a loss for what else to do.

Any advice for managing the actual calls AND the stress of trying to deal with Important Health Stuff while at work would be deeply, deeply appreciated. (It’s not feasible for me to switch healthcare providers for a variety of reasons right now.)

Oh, this sucks! Ultimately your only option might be to save the calls for lunch time, but that’s not always easy to do.

If you did use the conference room plan, is there any work you could take in with you so you wouldn’t be expected to use PTO for that time? And is there someone who could cover for you at reception while you did? If the calls are daily that’s probably not realistic, but if they’re only occasional, you might be able to simply explain the situation and ask for help. Otherwise, I think you’re probably stuck with confining them to lunch.

2. My rude coworker sends me the most bare-bones emails possible

I have a coworker who is known within the organization to be prickly. I have worked here for seven years and dealt with her for the first six of these years with little issue (besides hearing about how difficult she is from others).

As part of my job I have to ask her to create invoices on occasion. I make these requests via email, always with a friendly “Hi Julie” and provide the information such as client details, budget line, cost, and details of what I need to be created. I thank her and invite her to come back to me if she has any questions.

About a year ago I had to ask her to regenerate an invoice she provided me (due to my manager changing the way she wanted it worded). I explained why I needed it altered and apologized that we were causing her to re-do something we had asked for. (My manager is a GM and it’s very rare for him to cause inconvenience, but on this occasion we did.) Ever since, I’ve noticed Julie has dropped any “niceties” and begun interacting with me with a curt tone.

The last three times I’ve asked for an invoice, I’ve had to do a follow-up “just checking you got my request” style email after no reply a week later. Then I received blank emails with no salutations or acknowledgement — she is simply replying to my emails with what I’ve requested (invoice) attached. I ignored it the first two times, but this last occasion I am finding it rude and inappropriate.

Compounding the lack of communication is that this last time is I needed to go back to her because a small detail was missed. I politely replied with, “Hi Julie, thanks for sending me the invoice, unfortunately this one has tax included. I believe this will need to be amended before I send it out. I’ve attached the details again in case there’s something I’ve got wrong — let me know :)” Again, no reply or answer or acknowledgement, just a reply email with the amended invoice attached.

Saying hi/thanks and acknowledging me doesn’t feel too much to ask for. A simple “Hi Jane, invoice attached, regards” would suffice, even if she does choose to never respond to my questions. I want to raise this with her and give her the chance to keep her behavior in check so I drafted this: “Hi Julie, thank you for the amended invoice. Should I be reading into the fact that all the emails I receive from you don’t greet me and lack any content or answers to any questions I ask? Regards, Jane”

I thought by writing it this way I am giving her the chance to either (1) reassure me she has no issue (whether she does or doesn’t, it will prompt her to do better; sometimes with a bully you knock the wind out of their sails by talking about their passive-aggressive behavior up-front) or (2) ignore it because she does want to send a message. If she ignores it, I would like to elevate it to my manager. I don’t care if it is through gritted teeth, I’d like some courtesy of basic salutation (hi and regards) going forward. Are my expectations too high? How would you approach this?

Your expectations aren’t unreasonable, but you should let it go. Some people do send very bare-bones emails with no text and only an attachment. It’s not a very polished way to communicate, but it’s a thing people do and it’s not egregious enough in a coworker that you’d have grounds to address it. In Julie’s case, it’s notable that she didn’t start doing this until after you committed the terrible offense of asking for a minor modification that it’s her job to make, so clearly she’s expressing some Feelings by emailing the way she does … but it’s not a big enough thing to act on.

That said, if she’s not responding to requests at all until you follow up, that part is something you could bring to your manager — although even that depends on how much of a problem it poses to your work.

Related:
do I care too much about email style?

3. My former coworker wants to stay in touch, but I don’t

I was recently laid off from a job after a year, rather unexpectedly. I recognize things I could have done differently, but the job description changed after I was hired and my skills were no longer a good fit. I left a good job to take this one, and I feel a lot of anger towards the company that I am working through (in therapy).

My question is about a former coworker who wants to stay in touch. We didn’t work together closely while I was there, and when we did, we didn’t particularly get along (she snapped at me more than once). Mostly I kept a cool but friendly distance from her. During my last week, she cornered me at lunch and asked a bunch of intrusive questions about why I was being fired, if I was going to move, if I planned on having kids because that would make the job search harder, etc. It was extremely unpleasant and I cried in front of her, which I really didn’t want to do. I tried to be nice and just thank her for her well wishes, assuming it was a misguided attempt at kindness.

Since I left, she has sent multiple texts checking in and asking me how job hunting is going, and sending “helpful” advice like to look at Indeed for job listings. I think she is still just trying to be kind, but I don’t want to talk to her! Even if our relationship hadn’t been difficult, I don’t want to talk to anyone from my old company, given how angry I still am. To make it worse, I don’t have any new job prospects on the horizon and I am not doing great! So far I have just ignored the messages, but that doesn’t feel like a very good response. Do you have any suggestions on what I should do and/or say?

The generous interpretation is that she feels bad for making you cry (she should! those questions were rude and unkind) and she’s trying to smooth it over / be helpful now. The less generous interpretation is that she’s a busybody, which is why she cornered you with those questions and why she’s trying to continue to stay in touch now.

Either way, you should feel free to keep ignoring her! She’ll get the message or give up eventually. Truly, it’s fine to do this with people you were never close with and have no interest in staying in touch with. If ignoring feels too rude, then answer only sporadically (maybe every third email), let some days pass before you respond, and keep your answers bland and non-informative. But seriously, it’s fine to just ignore them.

Unrelated: you’re using fired and laid off interchangeably and they have two different meanings. Fired is if you were let go because of something about your performance or conduct. Laid off is if you were let go because your employer eliminated your position. If you were laid off, make sure you’re not telling people you were fired!

4. Clarifying time zones when scheduling interviews

I’ve noticed that many recruiters frequently use “standard time” when scheduling interviews via email, even during periods when daylight saving time is in effect. For example, when setting up a phone interview in California during daylight saving time, they’ll often confirm the time as “1:30 pm PST” instead of “1:30 pm PDT.” It seems that some people either automatically default to “S” for “standard” or may not be aware of the distinction between standard time and daylight time.

Since I’m almost certain they mean 1:30 pm local time in California, I usually choose not to correct this detail to avoid coming off as overly particular. Alternatively, I might subtly confirm by responding with something like, “Great, I look forward to our interview at 1:30 pm PDT!”

Do you think it’s better to just assume they mean daylight time when/where daylight time is in effect, subtly clarify the time zone, or do something else?

It is absolutely the case that many people default to S when abbreviating time zones (to say nothing of how many of us can’t remember whether we’re currently in daylight savings or not). So yes, assume they are citing their geographical zone and ignore the Standard/Daylight piece of it. People are definitely not indicating that they use their own special time zone that’s an hour off from how everyone else in their region tells time during this part of the year. (Two exceptions: Hawaii and Arizona, with the exception of the Navajo Nation, don’t use daylight saving time at all.)

I’m a fan of leaving off the middle letter altogether and just writing “1:30 PT” (or whatever).

5. Accepted job offer but there’s no start date

I accepted a six-month temporary job with a staffing agency. However, they are still waiting for their client to give a start date. I have contacted the staffing agency, but they have not received a response yet. Should I continue looking? This would have been the perfect opportunity because it is work from home.

Yes, continue looking until there’s a start date. Right now it sounds like there’s too much chance that the job won’t come to fruition, and the staffing agency doesn’t sound like they’re offering any information to prove otherwise (like “we expect you to start the last week of the month, but the VP is on vacation until Monday so we can’t confirm for sure until then” — although even in that situation, I’d probably advise you to keep looking until it’s fully settled). I’m sorry!

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{ 466 comments }

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  1. Happy meal with extra happy*

    Because I know enough to know there’s a difference between EST and EDT, but would need to always look up which one we’re in, I just use something like “2PM eastern” if I’m talking to people in different timezones.

    1. RedinSC*

      This. I just say talk to you at 2pm Pacific or 2pm Eastern, etc. Like you I never actually know which one we’re in day light savings or not.

      Man, I wish we’d get rid of one of them.

    2. Katie Impact*

      I live in a country where some states use DST and some don’t, and the usual way people deal with it in situations where there’s a risk of ambiguity is to specify the state or city (e.g. “2 pm Queensland time”).

      2. TheSüperflüoüsUmlaüt*

        Yeah, you really have to do that in Australia and NZ. Even more so when dealing with overseas clients who struggle with the idea that we’re already a day ahead of them! I always do the full “7.00 am Thursday, Melbourne time (5.00 pm Wednesday, New York time)” thing to make it absolutely clear.

      3. Tagger*

        I work with people in India and Singapore so I say “2 pm Sydney time” but add (+10GMT) so everyone’s sure.

      4. Disappointed Australien*

        There are a lot of “world meeting time” (search term) websites that let you generate a link anyone can click on to see the meeting time in their timezone. I use them for work, for zoom meetups, all sorts of stuff. And they save a lot of asking everyone where they will be on the 23/24 of September etc.

        Sadly where I work we have people in three timezones, but they’re AU/EU/CA so someone is always asleep (not the same person!).

        1. ThatOtherClare*

          I’m choosing to imagine you’re on the global touring team for The Wiggles and you’re actually thinking of Jeff and Lachy.

        2. Wings*

          I don’t quite follow at what point you are finding these sites useful but I work internationally and everyone just sends out meeting invites in their calendar software and it’s converted to my time zone by the time I look at it in my Outlook Calendar. There’s an international standard on exchanging meeting information and every calendar software follows it. Any scheduling software (e.g. Doodle) does the same. No clicking around required. Of course we all (regular contacts) have a rough idea on the time differences between each other but as the daylight savings changes happen at different dates in different parts of the world etc, the only feasible way is to let the computer do the math.

          1. ecnaseener*

            It’s useful when you’re at the stage of discussing possible times but haven’t sent an invite yet. Company culture varies on whether/how much to discuss times before sending calendar invites.

            1. CorporateDrone*

              My workplace just picked a standard timezone that we always use, which is helpful because we are dealing with six different time zones

          2. Jackalope*

            My personal favorite is timeanddate dot com. They have an option where you can look up the current time for any place in the world (or at least any city), and I believe you can also get the specific number of hours between where you are and where the other person is (other people are). I have some friends and family that I try to talk to on the regular in time zones in other countries with different time change dates than we have here. We use this to figure out what time to schedule the calls and it’s been great.

        3. raktajino*

          This! When I am in charge of giving an international group time options, I go to timebuddy and send out a screenshot with highlights.

      5. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        This is a little harder in the US where people may not always know which time zone another city is in, and people who live in the few places that don’t observe DST just know they always have to clarify. But we all know what time zone we’re in, and how to convert.

        1. Just Another Cog in the Machine*

          You can google, though. I can never remember which parts of Indiana are Central vs Eastern, so I just google “what time is it in city name” and see if they’re the same time as me or not.

          1. Nonanon*

            My company is HQd in the Northeast, and I work remotely in a different timezone; I keep HQ hours (so their 8-4 is my 7-3) and for simplicity my work computer is set to Eastern Time. EVERY TIME I have to schedule a call, I have to look up the time zone the client is in. It gets fun when I have to schedule the odd international call.

            1. Salsa Your Face*

              I live on the east coast but used to work for a company based in the central time zone. We ran multi-day projects and had a company calendar in outlook with an overview, and it would really mess things up if we didn’t have our computers set to central! (Because if a project that ran from Tuesday-Thursday was shifted an hour to reflect the time zone change, the date span would change and then everyone would be super confused.) So like you, I just…had my computer set to the wrong time zone. For years. When I left there I had to actively remind myself to stop adding an hour to the time shown on my computer’s clock.

        2. Kay*

          The best is when there isn’t an invite, but something is scheduled far enough out for a time change to impact the actual event time for someone. The heavy use of invites has cut down on that drastically, but I’ve had that get interesting more than once over the years.

      6. Falling Diphthong*

        I think the city is quite helpful, as it’s easy to google “Current time in Queensland.”

        1. Anne of Green Gables*

          Same. I use the city/state. I am currently working with a vendor in the Dallas TX area and the tech support always seems to forget that I am in North Carolina and therefore a different time zone. When scheduling a support call, I have learned to say explicitly, “X date at 9:30am Texas time, 10:30am North Carolina time.” That has helped tremendously.

        2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          Well, sure, but do people really not know how many time zones off another zone is? And for the few who don’t they can Google that too.

      7. Smithy*

        As someone who does a lot of international cross-time zone scheduling, this is what I do. Time zone calculators are so helpful because you can also add the date that your scheduling, because I had one job where we were regularly dealing with different parts of the world that would or wouldn’t change clocks on different days.

        Doing that also helps catch errors of assuming because someone lives in X they’re on Y time zone, but if I were to write meeting at 2pm Indianapolis time, but that person is actually based in another part of Indiana that has another time – they can catch my error in thinking through the yes or no about the time chosen.

    4. Cherub Cobbler*

      Yeah, I just use “ET” or “PT” because I can never remember if we’re in Daylight or Savings time. No one seems confused by my approach so far.

      1. Sharpie*

        Living in the UK, it’s pretty easy to remember whether we’re in Daylight Savings or not… We go from GMT in winter to BST (British Summer Time) in summer, and the clocks change on the last Sunday in March and last Sunday in October – which is different to when the clocks change in the US and I had to try to remember when that was while i was doing an online course with a teacher based in the States a couple of years ago!

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          Yeah, there is usually a week or two’s difference between the US and UK shifting their clocks forward or back. It can definitely get confusing at those times of year.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            I once expected drama on this site because I didn’t realise that the hour had changed in the US, came on just after 4pm our time (one of the posts here goes up at 4pm our time) and saw the post had something like 100 comments and was like “woah, how dramatic is this letter going to be to have received so many comments in 5 minutes,” but it had actually been up over an hour.

            1. The Prettiest Curse*

              I’ve occasionally had the reverse problem of wondering why there isn’t a new AAM post yet, before realising that the time difference between the US and UK is different than usual.

          2. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

            During the pandemic, I was working from home in the US, lots and lots of overtime of fairly repetitive work, and my Twitter/YouTube feeds happened to be filled with people in the UK/Ireland. My bedroom clock was hours off for power outage/technical issues that I never bothered to solve, and I just went off whatever time my computer said it was. Imagine my surprise when the US suddenly started talking about the time switch and I thought we already had it a couple of weeks ago!

        2. Roland*

          People don’t mean “it’s hard to remember if we’re on summer or winter time”, they mean it’s hard to remember which one is “standard” and which one is “daylight”.

          1. Emmy Noether*

            Ah, thank you for clearing that up! I was sort of side-eyeing people for not knowing if it’s summer or winter outside (related: they’re called “summer time” and “winter time” here, so there’s always confusion about which is earlier/later, but at least people which it is right now).

            Also, the “fun” fact that winter time is the “correct” (astronomical*) time is one of those random things I seem to be unable to forget since I learned it in middle school.

            *only truly correct for a small part of each time zone.

          2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

            Ah, thanks I was really confused! “Daylight” is in the part of the year where there’s more daylight, if it helps anyone.

            1. ecnaseener*

              It doesn’t help, I’m always expecting Daylight Savings to be used while there’s *less* daylight! That’s when you need to save it, when there’s less of it!

              1. Anonymous Educator*

                Yes, the “savings” are totally backward. Right before winter (when the sun sets earlier anyway), we decide that 5pm is now 4pm, so the sun can set even earlier? And then right before summer (when the sun sets later anyway), we decide that 5pm is now 6pm, so the sun can set even later?

                1. kalli*

                  It’s so you can use more of the daylight time; it’s less critical now lighting is super common and easy and we’re not stuck with candlelight for trying to WFH in the evening. It keeps dawn around the 5:30-7am range, and in summer when there’s more daylight we get more time to actually use it, like if the sun only sets at 8pm that’s three hours after 5pm, instead of 2 hours, to be outside and do stuff.

              2. Not Your Sweetheart*

                I always picture sunlight as a consumable: When there’s extra, you “save” it for later usage.

          3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

            Because Daylight Savings Time in the US is now almost 8 full months (early March to beginning of November) while Standard Time is only 4 months. Can the standard actually be the smaller one?

            Just one of the things that irks me about DST.

          4. Not The Earliest Bird*

            And then you get Arizona, who doesn’t follow Daylight Savings at all, except on the Navajo Nation. I’ve found that it’s just easier to always say “OK, I’m here in Arizona and it’s 9:00 AM, what time is it there?” It just gets confusing, especially around the time change time (we don’t change, everyone else does).

            1. Kay*

              Oh – and then the fact that around the Navajo Nation and the nearby states the cell towers don’t always reflect your correct location. Heaven forbid you don’t keep track of what time it was before you arrived because who knows what time it really is where you are at. (Cell pings a Navajo Nation tower, but it is an hour different where you are currently located outside the boundaries of the Nation – so much fun)

              1. Not The Earliest Bird*

                Can confirm. We went to Page, AZ for the weekend, and my phone was constantly changing, but my spouse’s did not.

        3. WheresMyPen*

          I tend to still say ‘4pm UK time’ when arranging meetings rather than using GMT or BST though because it’s pretty easy for people to google what time it is in the UK right now.

    5. RC*

      I’ll usually say something like “let’s talk at 10am ET/1pm PT” just because I’m always paranoid that *I* will confuse Central with Mountain time. The only time I might clarify what they meant if saying PST when it’s actually PDT is if the time change is coming up soon (why do we still do that anyway…). Once I missed a call by an hour because Europe changes their clocks a week or two before the US did, and guess when the call was…

    6. Freya*

      I use “2pm Canberra time” because then it doesn’t matter which timezone we’re in, neither the recipient or I needs to remember. Also, Queensland is on the same timezone as Victoria, New South Wales, and the ACT for half the year, but unlike those other three states, it doesn’t observe daylight savings in the other half of the year.

      So right now, in Adelaide (ACST) it’s 3:15pm, in Canberra (AEST) it’s 3:45pm, and in Brisbane (AEST) it’s the same as Canberra.
      In a month’s time, if in Adelaide (ACDT) it’s 3:15pm, in Canberra (AEDT) it would still be 3:45pm, but in Brisbane (AEST) it would be 2:45pm. Don’t get me started…

      1. STAT!*

        And, my hubby informs me, in a month’s time it will be 3.45pm in Sydney, but 3.15pm in Broken Hill, even though both cities are in the same State. I didn’t realise till now that there were differential time zones within States. Mind you, I never need to call Broken Hill, so that’s my excuse.

    7. JM60*

      OP4 here.

      That’s usually what I do if I’m proposing the time.

      I wrote in partly because I wasn’t sure if the approach I use of subtly correcting them is being too nit-picky when there’s a ~99.9% chance they mean the time in my location (which is a large state in which the entire state uses daylight savings time).

      I guess part of me also decided to write in because I find it funny that people include the “S” of they’re going to get it wrong. I either don’t bother with the “S”/”D”, or I check to make sure that I get it right. But I’m odd in that respect.

      I did have a bank and forth with a recruiter recently who said “PST”. Later in the message chain he switch to “PT” after I said “PDT” in messages between.

      1. Roland*

        To answer that question then, yes it would be too picky to correct them, subtly or otherwise. Especially since as you say, no one uses the wrong one to meaningfully convey information, it’s just an autopilot thing.

        1. JM60*

          I want to add that the occasions on which I might subtly correct them are occasions in which I would’ve been replying anyways. So I’m just making a one letter difference in our back-and-forth (“PDT” vs “PT”), not sending them an additional message just to correct them.

      2. Dread Pirate Rogers*

        Yes definitely too picky, and I’d say it’s more like 100% of the time they mean the actual time and time zone stated, regardless of S or D. I laughed at “People are definitely not indicating that they use their own special time zone that’s an hour off from how everyone else in their region tells time during this part of the year. “

        1. Antilles*

          Yeah, calling it a 99.9% chance is still underestimating given that (a) we’re in an era where many of your devices (cell phone, computer, email, etc) auto-adjust on their own and (b) it’s currently five months past the last clock adjustment. Let’s be honest here and admit that no, you don’t honestly believe that someone has somehow gone all the way since March showing up an hour off because they never sprang forward.
          Personally, I think the *only* time it’s worth clarifying is shortly before/after the time change. Both because some people may not remember the exact week of the time change and also because Outlook can sometimes get funky about invites that ‘cross’ the time change.

          1. JM60*

            (a) we’re in an era where many of your devices (cell phone, computer, email, etc) auto-adjust on their own

            The scenarios in which I’m thinking of are when the time is communicated solely in the body/text of an email, not through an invite system that auto adjusts time.

          2. raktajino*

            > Personally, I think the *only* time it’s worth clarifying is shortly before/after the time change.
            And also, not all areas that observe the time change do it on the same date. The UK and US both do DST, but this year the UK started on March 31st and the US on March 10th.

        1. MassMatt*

          This. I honestly wonder why anyone would want to pick nits about whether Eastern Time was on daylight savings or not. 9am Eastern Time means 9am whether it’s standard or daylight savings. I honestly don’t know which is which, nor do I care. I go through the ritual of springing clocks ahead and falling them behind every year like everyone else and wonder why we do this, but the time is the time.

          I used to work in a call center where we took calls from all over the country as well as some international. Transactions had to be completed by 4PM eastern time for processing each business day. Sometimes people would get pissed I would not convert the deadline to their local time for them. I explained that we get calls from all over the world, including airline employees and interstate truck drivers who are not currently at the address listed for their account. Also people working oil rigs in Azerbaijan. I’ll tell you what time it is here now, you look at your clock, you do the calculation if the deadline is important to you.

          And then there was the guy who whined that it wasn’t fair that “everyone else gets a later deadline” than he did on the west coast. Like he figured there should be 24 deadlines in place, one for each hour of the day as 4PM rolled across the different time zones. This guy was an engineer, and he didn’t seem to understand how time nor the rotation of the earth worked.

        2. le sigh*

          If someone tried to subtly correct me with this, I would totally miss it bc this isn’t a thing I’ve ever given real thought to. If they overtly called it out, I would honestly wonder what their issue is and it would put me off a bit, which isn’t something you want to do as a job candidate. I’m covering two jobs while trying to hire someone and while I want my communications to be clear and professional, there are only so many things I can do in a day and I have much bigger things to worry about. This is a bit like a spelling error or incorrect word usage — unless it actually matters/has an impact on a situation, just leave it alone.

        3. JM60*

          Well, some people in these comments didn’t know the difference, so me pointing out the difference did achieve something small beyond “scratching an itch”.

          Also, the times in which I might subtly correct them are times in which I would’ve been replying anyways. So I’m just making a one letter difference in our back-and-forth (“PDT” vs “PT”), not sending them an additional message just to correct them.

        4. Former Admin Turned PM*

          I’ve made a point about Standard vs. Daylight when some of the participants were in AZ during the months that cover DST and others were in other states. There are some legit reasons to point it out, although most of the time I just let it go.

      4. Global Cat Herder*

        A very small part of my job is verifying the time zone conversion table for the very large enterprise system my company uses, when it gets automatically updated. Time zones are very very VERY complicated, and I had no idea until I inherited this task. It’s fascinating.

        The international standards community considers the “railroad” time zone designations (“PST”, “EDT”, etc) old-fashioned and discourages their use, precisely because it’s an extremely pedantic difference that communicates very little information to people outside that geographic region – and often the people within it doesn’t know what it means either.

        The “internet” time zone designations are large-city based. So the people saying they use “Sydney time” are actually the colloquial version of the correct, modern time zone! The computer takes care of the details like if they do daylight savings and when, among other things. In railroad time zones, Indiana has one (EST) with lots of “well, unless you’re in this suburb of that large city in another state”. In modern time zones Indiana has four – “Indianapolis time”, “Chicago time”, “Louisville time”, “Cincinnati time”. It communicates far more information more succinctly.

        Calendaring software allows you to choose the time zone for THIS MEETING, so you don’t have to convert it yourself. Just enter the meeting for 2pm San Francisco time.

        1. JM60*

          I’ve got a lot of respect for the programmers who deal with all the timezone issues. Computerphile has an excellent video with Tom Scott titled “The Problem with Time & Timezones – Computerphile” that goes through all the programming issues with timezones. It’s crazier than most people would think.

      5. Alicent*

        I didn’t even know (or care) that there was a difference between EST and EDT so being pedantic about which version someone uses is going to come off difficult and stuffy to those you are communicating with. I’m over 40 so not exactly a Gen Z. Unless you’re in one of those areas where DST is observed differently or not at all just assume that they mean the time wherever they are.

      6. Insert Clever Name Here*

        Yup, too nit-picky. The back and forth where the person changed from PST to PT could have been because they went “huh, JM60 said PDT, who the heck knows which one, let’s just got with PT.”

      7. Lomster*

        I’m equally pedantic about this but simply make the correction when it’s in my purview to do so and otherwise just (try to) chill.

      8. musical chairs*

        Making the change subtly in further written communication is either not noticed or considered pedantic. Never appreciated or “helping someone save face”, even if youre right.

        The distinction is of so little consequence because you’re ostensibly using electronic communication. which means you will likely set up a calendar invite for said meeting in some platform that will convert everything for everyone’s respective time zones. You’re also almost certain of their meaning. There is no need for further clarification/confirmation.

        If you have the opportunity to avoid being a pedant at no consequence, always take it.

        1. JM60*

          The scenarios in which I’m thinking of are when the time is communicated solely in the body/text of an email, not through an invite system that auto adjusts time. Many would-be employers use calendar invites for scheduling interviews, but many don’t.

      9. Miss Muffet*

        This DT/ST thing is also something that irks me way out of proportion and I also have wanted to clarify – or passive-aggressively just show up an hour off the schedule because they said ST! Which I would never actually do but fantasized about. So LW – I feel so seen by you!! Thank you for being a time pedant with me LOL
        (Signed, Denver time zone which no one ever remembers is Mountain even though we are literally filled with mountains)

        1. Filosofickle*

          Lol you assume people even remember that Mountain is a time zone. :D

          People specifying the S — presumably to feel more complete and correct, but in the process making it less correct in the D half of the year — also generates a terribly out-of-proportion reaction in my brain. Can’t explain why.

          1. JM60*

            I think that’s partly why I’m inclined to gently correct it if I can do so without consequences. Even though I understand many people do it without thinking, part of me is thinking, “Why be more specific about something if you’re going to be wrong about the thing you’re specifying?”

      10. Bleu*

        They use the “S” because they’ve heard of PST and EST as the abbreviations, and haven’t heard of the “D” version.

        1. Some Words*

          That’d be me. If I ever knew there were different abbreviations depending on time of year, I’ve long since forgotten it.

          If someone in the same country states a time but uses the wrong abbreviation, do the translation in your own head. If someone corrected me it would end up being a much longer conversation as you’d have to explain the difference between CST and CDT (which I’ve never seen used). I’m guessing you know what time they mean.

          1. Stipes*

            If someone writes “MST” during the summer, just assume they meant MDT and hope they don’t live in Arizona.

          1. RecoveringSWO*

            **Raises hand** I’m super grateful to this question for fixing my misconception here and hope I haven’t embarrassed myself too much in the past! Switching to ET/PT, etc.!

        3. JM60*

          Well, then my pedantism may have achieved something other than satisfying my need to “scratch an itch”! Some here may have learned something new.

      11. Happy*

        This is something that drives me up the wall – so you’re not alone.

        I wind up spending way too much time making sure that I’m not the one who is confused (spoiler: I never am) and trying to decide whether to ask for clarification before usually deciding against it.

        Once I was starting a new job in a different state and had numerous back-and-forths with the HR person when they had said I should be online at 8 CST and were apparently super confused when I wrote back to thank them for the information and ask, “Don’t you have daylight savings time in that location? Did you mean 8 CDT?”

        But lesson learned…I don’t bother asking for clarification anymore unless making plans for standing meetings or deadlines across countries that switch daylight savings time on different dates, where people really might not be thinking of the implications for everyone’s calendars.

        1. katydidn't*

          So an HR person in a different time zone gave you a meeting time of 8 CST, but you knew that their location was currently in daylight savings time. Either they made a very common error and typed CST instead of CDT, or they’re privately using their own personal time zone that’s an hour behind/ahead of everyone else in their location, and didn’t bother telling you this except by using a different zone acronym. Were you genuinely confused as to which was happening, or did you know they meant CDT and just enjoy correcting people who make small errors?

          1. Happy*

            I was genuinely confused. At the time, I thought maybe this location was in one of those few places that don’t do daylight savings time and my google skills were just insufficient to discern that. Especially when the response to my email wasn’t along the lines of, “Oh, you’re right! I did mean CDT.” (The HR person was in the same time zone as the job – I had never been to that location before I took the position.)

            Now (in large part due to seeing a few questions like this on AAM and elsewhere) I realize that this is a common mistake and generally don’t request clarification.

            I did not think that they had “their own personal time zone.”

      12. Hamster Manager*

        Since you live in a state that observes DST, and it doesn’t sound like you often work with people who do not, I would drop this. It’s not a necessary distinction and feels like you’re just looking for a reason to correct people on something that’s functionally meaningless. It’s much too nit-picky.

    8. TracyXP*

      This is why I love Outlook’s calendar (and I’m sure other calendars do this too), they’ll automatically convert the appointment into the time zone I’m in.

      1. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

        That “feature” is why I make a point of saying something like “3:00 New York time”–Google calendar sometimes decides to change the time on an appointment or flight if I am sitting in one time zone, and entering information for an event in a different time zone (like flying home from London to Boston). Calendar software has also changed entries so if I put something in as 2:00-3:00, then a note “be there 20 minutes early,” it gets stored as 1:40-2:40. (My workaround there was to put that note entirely in words, and _not in English_: “twenty minutes early” messed things up, but “menos viente minutos” was safe.)

    9. Phony Genius*

      I think the confusion comes from some people interpreting “EST” as an abbreviation of the word “Eastern,’ (which happens to be the default time zone for much of the US), and it spread from there.

      That said, there used to be a wise guy here who sent all his appointment times in UTC, in the days before Outlook would convert it. Nobody liked that.

    10. Baela Targaryen*

      Yep — I schedule meetings and to avoid confusion/pedants with an attitude, I always write out times as “2pm NYC time”

    11. learnedthehardway*

      Scheduling things between time zones when the time changes between Standard and Daylight time is the bane of my existence. Thankfully, my calendar does most of the work for me, but I still have to make sure that I’m not scheduling an interview at 3 AM for some people.

      I have quit saying PST or PDT, and I just say “Eastern time” or “Pacific Time”, etc. as needed. That saves people wondering if I am accounting for daylight or standard time.

      1. WillowSunstar*

        Right, I live in the Upper Midwest, and most people here just say “Central” anyway when referring to the time zone. It’s only on a few work web sites that I have seen the three letters.

    12. Bleu*

      I use ET/PT; I only learned the east coast has more than EST from this website las year. Whatever mess of time zones they get up to is simply none of my business :P

    13. Gen*

      I had someone correct me on this once and my immediate response was that it was unnecessarily rude. She knew what I meant.

    14. Larry, I'm on Duck Tales*

      I worry that they would read “PT” as “PM,” (or that I would type “PM” meaning “PT” without noticing) so I just go ahead and spell out “Pacific.”

    15. sparkle emoji*

      Yeah, I have put forth the effort to check that I’m using _DT at the right time of year in the past but kept getting confirmations for _ST. As long as the actual zone is right, it’s fine.

    16. LL*

      Same. I actually do know when it’s Standard time or Daylight time, but it’s easier to just say “Eastern,” “Central,” etc

    17. Sarah*

      Same! I schedule and promote a lot of webinars. I’m always paranoid that I’m going to use the wrong version of EST or EDT, so I default to specifically just saying “Eastern.”

      If I’m limited in characters, I might also abbreviate ET, CT, PT, etc. without the middle character at all.

    18. iglwif*

      That’s what I do too — 15:00 Eastern or 15:00 ET. I just absolutely cannot be arsed to remember which is Standard and which is Daylight, and I philosophically reject the entire thing lol.

  2. Free Meerkats*

    The way I dealt with the time zone problem when I was working was to default to Zulu. No ambiguity. Of course, my background was military and aviation, where it’s common to use. If anyone asked, I referred them to an online time translator.

    2. Expat or Immigrant*

      Apparently Zulu is military jargon for UTC, for anyone else who didn’t know.

      My standard practice is to list both/all relevant timezones out, either using abbreviations like “PST” if it’s with the US only, and “California time”/”London time” if it’s international, because other countries sometimes also have an “Eastern time”. Most people don’t know much about foreign time zones and won’t recognize, say, “IST” or know if there is an “IDT”. And most non-Americans forget about daylight savings time and don’t know when it is or how it changes so “ST” vs. “DT” isn’t meaningful.

      1. AndieK*

        My experience with most Americans (or, okay, most Canadians) is that a lot of us don’t know if it’s PST vs PDT.

        Sure, we know that means the timezone in California or (most of) BC, and that the clocks change twice a year. But I’d be shocked if 90% of North Americans on this blog actually know – without calculating it or looking it up – as to whether PDT or PST is appropriate to use today.

        And even then? A few of those folks who remember to switch over at the right time of year won’t remember to keep that in mind when booking a meeting for 6 months from now.

        It’s why, like Alison suggested, I generally say “1:30pm PT time” or “1:30pm [my city] time” even if I’m also linking to a timezone calculator (set to the specific date) and listing a few other timezones.

        And that date with the calculator is very important! Different countries change between standard and daylight savings on different dates (or not at all) and also different hemispheres move in opposite directions. I think every time that I’ve asked to book a video-conference where a timezone change occurs between the day of the request and the day of the conference, I’ve had to correct the timezones from the requestor. And that’s from well-educated people who work internationally!

        1. Ariaflame*

          I only know whether it’s PDT and PST because I regularly watch something based in LA, and I live somewhere that doesn’t do daylight saving so when that changes I know it’s changed over there. So currently it’s in PST and will be for a bit yet.

        2. Lexi Vipond*

          I find the abbreviations a bit confusing because ‘S’ is ‘summer’ in Europe (BST, CEST, EEST) but ‘standard’ in America, so they mean the opposite – but if people don’t know whether they’re in summer or winter, I do find that odd :-D

        3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          I find that very very hard to believe. In the US there are tons of reminders about the switch every year, and people complaining about either losing an hour of sleep or an hour of daylight, depending on which way we’re going. Some people maybe don’t know that the abbreviation “EDT” exists, but they’ll still know we’re on summer time.

          1. metadata minion*

            I know when the switch happens, and I know that right now we’re on summer time because it’s obviously summer, but I can’t remember whether summer time is “standard” or “daylight savings” without looking it up.

          2. Insert Clever Name Here*

            Yes, there are reminders but the actual important part of the reminder is what you do to your clock, not what it’s called.

            I can remember that we SPRING forward and we FALL back during those seasons, but which one is standard and which one is daylight savings is just not something my brain cares to remember because it’s actually not important — if someone writes PST I’m only looking at the first and last letters anyway.

          3. Great Frogs of Literature*

            I do KNOW that summer is Daylight Time, but I have to think about it (especially when it’s August and the person I’m talking to just threw an EST at me). Much easier to use ET and not go through the thought process.

          4. Annie2*

            AndieK is not saying that don’t know about the time change – they’re saying that people find it hard to remember which is PDT and which is PST.

          5. AndieK*

            Just confirming what other people said: I meant that while people are very aware of the switch, and even whether we’re using the winter scheme or the summer scheme, there’s a significant enough number of people that don’t know whether “summer time” is called Standard Time or Daylight Time.

          6. iglwif*

            It’s not that we don’t know there was a time change. We are excruciatingly aware of that. It’s that many of us cannot remember which one is “standard” and which one is “daylight”, and cannot be bothered to try harder to remember because at least 95% of the time it doesn’t matter.

        4. LL*

          The big thing I’ve noticed with other Americans is that they switch the two. They think that Daylight Savings Time STARTS in the fall, which is actually when it ends. So they think the summer time is normal time and winter time is the weird time.
          It actually makes sense since we extended DST, so now we only have about 4 1/2 months on “Standard Time.”

          1. AndieK*

            Yup, the reason why it’s hard on my (Canadian) brain is that most of the year the sun rises before I wake up and sets after I’m home. Then winter time comes, the sun is rising later and setting earlier, and just as it’s dark when I start work… bam, everyone’s adjusting the clock so that the sun is up during business hours. Clearly that means that winter time is the daylight savings! (Except, nope!)

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        In an international situation I’ll use the GMT offset, like “US Eastern Time (GMT-4)”. This also changes by one hour at the Standard/Daylight changeover.

        1. Baldrick*

          GMT is affected by DST. The very important thing with Zulu or UTC is that there is never a falling back or leaping forward for an hour, and that’s very important for aircraft. The rest of us don’t care about that hour as we’re asleep, but years ago I was working noon until 2am on an air force base during the time difference change and appreciated why Zulu is used

          1. LateRiser*

            GMT isn’t affected by anything, we switch from GMT to BST for “summer”. GMT is always the same time as UTC, UTC just has a non-country-specific name.

            1. Here for the time zone discourse*

              Side-note, this confusion is why I (UKer often working with US-based folks) truly hate when my colleagues fail at time zone names. *So* many people assume that because I’m in the UK, I’m in GMT, and they’ll tell me “my” meeting time incorrectly half the year.

              Sorry, grumpy rant done.

          2. SpaceySteph*

            I worked in ISS mission control for many years. We use UTC (no DST change) but call it GMT, for some reason.

            Once we were trying to launch on Fall Back day, and with multiple control centers in multiple time zones that were experiencing a fall back as well as the space station itself and the Russian control center that weren’t experiencing a fall back and it was extremely confusing. I was never so glad for a couple day launch slip.

            1. No Tribble At All*

              Omg, who would plan a launch on time change day?!

              ALSO as another spacey person I’d LOVE to hear more stories (Friday thread?) about working with the ISS. Or maybe Alison could do another interview.

            2. Global Cat Herder*

              I second No Tribble At All in both the OMG of “who would plan a launch on time change day” (!!!), and “I would love to hear more about that job!!”

              URL so it shows up in moderation and Alison sees this person-with-cool-job!
              https://www.timeanddate.com/time/gmt-utc-time.html

              That link is a short and clear difference between GMT and UTC. Since Greenwich Mean Time (introduced in early 1800s) and Coordinated Universal Time (introduced mid-1980s?) are the same time, older people and older systems tend to have not made that jump from calling it GMT to calling it UTC. Source: I am an old.

            3. kalli*

              They’re the same, but GMT is in use as a time zone and UTC is the standard on which time zones are based.

    3. Bella Ridley*

      Even in military aviation it’s common to give a Zulu and a local time. Especially for meetings.

      1. noahwynn*

        The airline I used to work for referred to Central as Herb Time and it is what pretty much everything is documented in there. Every other airline I’ve worked for used Zulu, but I guess that little Texas airline did everything a little bit differently.

  3. April*

    LW #1: Does your doctor have an online patient portal available? My doctor also has issues with answering phone calls but is surprisingly responsive to secure messaging. Good luck!

    1. RedinSC*

      Yeah, I’ve found it so much easier to use the patient portal. But for things like scheduling, the offices all still seem to default to phone calls. I finally had to contact the patient advocates because of the lack of response when I was trying to schedule a procedure. It was a mess, on hold for ever, being hung up on, leaving messages and then when they’d actually call me back, they’d ALWAYS call during a time I was unavailable (I’d even tell them, I’m in a meeting from 1 -2, so please call after 2pm, so they’d call at 1:15)

      1. Bast*

        This seems to be a fairly universal thing and I’m glad it isn’t just me. If I tell someone NOT to call at a specific time, whether that be a doctor’s office, a client at work, a friend, the Man on the Moon, that is the ONE time they will call all day. 24 hours and it’s almost guaranteed if I say, “the only time I am not available is between 1 and 2; I will be in a meeting so please do not call then” they will 99% of the time call between 1 and 2.

        1. MassMatt*

          This has been my peeve for a long time, it got better when I started using an online calendar that only showed available times. I set the parameters to give a buffer after each appointment to keep from getting back-to-back meetings also. I find it cuts a down on a lot of emailing back and forth and people not seeming to comprehend the “NOT between 1-2PM” and only having “1-2PM” register in their brain. It cut down on client no-shows also.

    2. NurseThis*

      Yes to this! My physician’s office is terrible by phone but using the my chart option online is extremely effective. I generally get a same day response.

    3. Skippy*

      It may not get you anything, but complain to the central administrator of the group–if they never hear from patients that it’s a problem, they will assume that the latest bean-counting measure (probably short -staffing front desks) is a great success and made no difference to patient care.

          1. Nightengale*

            If the doctors are any good, they already know. . . it is likely either a staffing shortage or some requirement to use central scheduling that then has to contact the office and no one answers there. The problem is probably much much higher up than your one doctors office.

            My office (where I’m the doctor) thankfully is still letting us schedule from the office rather than going through central scheduling. But also there are days when there is only one staffer and she does need a lunch break.

            ALso we tried to turn on portal scheduling for follow-up patients (after I begged for a year) and somehow it started letting new patients self-schedule too, which doesn’t work for our practice so we had to turn it off after a week.

            Signed, a doctor who has also spent an hour on hold trying to schedule her OWN appointments at the same medical system

            1. Jeanine*

              I get to call my dr office today actually, and schedule two things. Not looking forward to it. The medical system is so messed up now it’s insane.

            2. DataGirl*

              This. As someone who works in healthcare- there is a massive staffing shortage especially among ‘unskilled’ jobs like receptionist/ scheduler (because they are difficult jobs with very low pay). We have clinics where there is no one to answer the phone, and the voicemailbox is full so no one can even leave messages. The doctor’s know, and have escalated to leadership with zero results. In some cases, they’ve taken to answering the calls and doing everything else themselves, but that causes significant delays, among other issues. Prescription refill requests can go months without a response, which can be deadly. It’s really a big problem that needs more attention.

              1. DJ Abbott*

                It sounds like that healthcare company is incompetent, and the best thing their patients can do is find another provider.

                1. DataGirl*

                  Bless your heart. A) this is a problem for many Healthcare systems and B) low income patients, who are often on Medicare/ Medicaid if they have any insurance at all, rarely have the option to change providers.

          2. NYWeasel*

            And if that doesn’t resolve anything, blast them on Yelp. It’s seriously ridiculous that they expect patients to stay on hold indefinitely on a regular basis for tasks that don’t require a doctor or nurse’s involvement!

            1. DJ Abbott*

              Great idea! Everyone to Yelp, stat!
              The suits may not care about the patients, but they care about their rep.

          3. Bleu*

            Their phones very likely record the hold/wait time already. Especially if you get an answer right away but are immediately put on a long hold- they may be under pressure to game their phone stats but lack the staffing to actually improve wait time.

    5. LW #1*

      Unfortunately, the specific context of me writing in was the office cancelling an appointment I’d scheduled through the patient portal with less than 24 hours notice. I try to do as much in person or through the portal as possible because you’re right, they are way more responsive through it, but last time I was in for an appointment I was told that nobody capable of scheduling my follow-up would be in for another hour (!). The portal has an option for scheduling a follow-up, so I did that instead of spending half my workday on hold. And then when I finally got through to a receptionist the day they cancelled, I was told the portal only surfaces appointments to them the day before the appointment (!!) and so it can’t be used to schedule any of the types of appointments I need (!!!). And my only recourse is to sit on hold on the central scheduling line for however long it takes. This despite the fact that I was trying to return a missed call to reschedule from… the reception desk.

      At this point my only plan is to ask when I do go in if the central scheduling line has different hours from the office itself, and pray that they actually have staff at the reception desk when my appointment wraps up this time.

        1. Anonym*

          Is it at all feasible to get a new doctor in a different practice or system? This is awful. If you do end up choosing another practice, please tell them why. The very best of luck to you!

          1. MassMatt*

            It’s easy to say “get a new doctor” just as it is “quit and get a new job” when we are not the ones that have to do it, but this practice sounds absolutely awful, bordering on extreme incompetence/dysfunction. Unless the care you get when you can actually see someone is stellar, or you are in say a rural area with few to no options, I would try to get a new doctor.

            1. Librarian of Things*

              Yeah, I’ll put up with a lot to stay with a great doctor. But, to put up with this level of frustration, they’d best be the greatest doctor ever or my only option.

              2. DataGirl*

                If a person is on Medicaid/ Medicare, they are likely not only the worst doctor ever, but also the only option. The same goes for really bad insurance plans. I spent days calling every Psychology office in or near Chicago (so A LOT) to try to find a practice that would take our insurance when my kiddo moved there for college, and NO ONE took it. Thankfully she was able to stay with her local Psychiatrist and do virtual appointments, but it really was a nightmare.

            2. Lisa*

              Even though I live in a major metro, for some specialties “get a new doctor” means “wait eight months for an appointment”, and that’s IF you can find someone who is taking new patients.

              1. DataGirl*

                That too. Forget someone very specialized, my kiddo with disabilities was on a wait list for 2 years to get in with the only doctor who treats her condition in our state, and she only eventually got in because the specialist owed her pediatrician a favor.

            4. LW #1*

              Unfortunately, while this is my primary care provider, I have some unique medical needs that mean I need to see a PCP with some particular specializations on a regular schedule, so I can’t switch to just any other office. This is apparently why my appointments aren’t eligible for scheduling through the portal – they’re more complicated than just showing up and having a chat, which is the only kind of appointment the portal is allowed to handle.

              Honestly, that much I can understand – what I struggle to get is why the portal’s scheduling tool permits patients to make appointments months in advance seemingly without any human eyes seeing it until the day before the appointment.

          2. RedinSC*

            Sadly, unless we have the same medical system, this is pretty common. I go through this any time I need to schedule outside of a regular check up. It’s a NIGHTMARE

      2. Meat Oatmeal*

        I’m so sorry you’re going through this. As a person who’s going through some time-sensitive medical stuff right now, I’m especially horrified by the idea of having to navigate what you described. I wish you good luck and good health outcomes.

      3. RW*

        I assume you’ve told your practice about how annoying this phone thing is too? I used to work in a practice with a similar long hold time, and management had a blind spot about it (thinking it wasn’t a problem, for some baffling reason). Those of us who actually thought it needed to change very much welcomed patient feedback as the only way it would be possible to persuade them to hire more staff!
        This is an absolute hassle, I’m sorry!

      4. Carmina*

        ???!!?!?!?! what the hell is this?
        They should clearly explain this on their site then? And obviously not use such a ridiculous system but still? Also this system is so absurd, I’m wondering if truly they are using it right.

        My own strategy for such calls (thankfully rare): earpods with only one pod in, with a bult-in mic. I can talk to customers – it’s a bit awkward if they are visible, but I explain if so; now I have a tiny black bluetooth one which I can hide behind my hair so it doesn’t even come up. When they eventually pick up I can then answer immediately (“Yes I am here, just one second”), bringing my hand to my ear so it’s clear I am taking a call, apologize to the customer if there is one (briefly but very apologetically, then more extensively when coming back – I take some satisfaction in saying, when the person on the line can hear: I am so sorry but I ~have~ to take this, I have been on hold for ~hours~), and arrange the thing as quickly as possible.

        1. LW #1*

          For what it’s worth, they’re part of a major hospital network and this new scheduling pipeline seems to have been a top-down imposition. Given that I started having these problems during the pandemic, I imagine this was at least initially a response to a genuine staffing shortage across multiple offices and departments – I truly have no idea how many practitioners the scheduling line serves. I don’t get the sense anyone’s happy with it, but I’m not sure they’re empowered to do much about it.

          1. mem_cee_squared*

            This is unfortunately such a common thing, it’s infuriating and I’m so sorry you have to deal with it. I feel like every single one of my ADHD doctors has had this scheduling black hole at one point, and because of state laws for ADHD patients taking drugs like Ritalin, I had to have an appointment every month and then in a separate visit get a physical prescription, also every month, so I was calling them A LOT and sitting on hold sometimes for hours. I remember crying in frustration quite a few times, and that was even before all the drug shortages in the U.S. started.

          2. Hot Flash Gordon*

            I know this might not be something you can or want to do, but consider switching physicians. You could have the greatest doctor in the world, but it means nothing if it’s impossible to schedule. If you can’t change clinics, and it’s a large medical system, look for a contact with patient relations. Usually a call from that department can light a fire under the powers that be.

            1. UnansweredPhones*

              This is pretty universal these days. None of the practices around here answer their phones.

          3. Lego girl*

            Is there a patient advisory line that is meant for after hours? I call them sometimes during office hours when I need something urgently as they seem to have a dedicated scheduler.

          4. Really?*

            Write a letter to the head of the hospital system. I have found in the past that going to the top of the food chain sometimes gets results. Most of the time they don’t deal with it themselves, of course, but the senior folks within the organization have somebody they delegate complaints to, and they tend to know where to go within the organization to get a correction.

            2. DataGirl*

              As someone who works in a large hospital system, this is likely just going to result in more personnel cuts. They will always, ALWAYS, put blame on a scapegoat rather than take responsibility or accountability. And they will never agree to something that requires spending money, like hiring staff.

          5. Skippy*

            Medical & veterinary practices are getting enshittified–often after private equity gobbles them up and strips out anything that isn’t directly driving revenue.

          6. Festively Dressed Earl*

            Put the hospital network on blast for it on socials. You could copypasta exactly what you wrote here about context, or your original letter to AAM.

      5. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Tell the doctors. I can assure you they will hear “It’s bad enough I may have to consider switching providers.”

      6. Cthulhu's Librarian*

        Have you touched base with the patient care advocates for this medical provider, if they have one? I’ve found they have a truly miraculous way of cutting through this sort of bureaucratic nonsense .

        1. LW #1*

          This comment section is my first time hearing about patient advocates but I’ll definitely ask next time I’m there.

          1. Mrs. Smith*

            LW 1, not sure if this is an option in the menu but when I have really, really been driven mad by trying to access the care I need to no avail, I have pushed the option that indicates you are another doctor/hospital/pharmacy. Someone will generally pick up. A few years ago I had to resort to this & it turns out there was a glitch in their phone software that left this option open but derailed all the regular calls, so the receptionist was actually glad I’d done it. Worth a shot? I try not to be this person, sneaking through the back door, but sometimes you just have to if they’re going to act this way when you’re pursuing regular channels.

            1. mem_cee_squared*

              THIS. As a medical professional and a patient with lots of health problems, I had to learn all the work-arounds – this option works for pretty much anything from scheduling, prescription requests, and certain chain and mail order pharmacies that refuse to answer their phones. Also I’ve had luck just straight up faxing a scheduling message to the front desk (eg “can’t call, please schedule me an appointment, here’s my availability, please call AND LEAVE A VOICEMAIL once appointment is scheduled”

          2. RabbitRabbit*

            Another name for the role may be ombudsperson/ombudsman. They’re more common with hospitals and larger medical institutions but it sounds like that might apply here.

            And as much as I (working for a medical center) think that Press Ganey and similar patient satisfaction surveys are an absolute pox on the industry because hospital CEOs pay attention to all the wrong things, this is one place where it makes sense to use against them.

          3. Hot Flash Gordon*

            If there are no patient relations/advocates, you can usually go the route of e-mailing the hospital president. I know it seems weird and Karen-y, but (if the clinic system has any kind of commitment to patient satisfaction) sometimes the president can get looped in and help get some change going.

            1. DataGirl*

              As someone who has worked closely with hospital presidents and CEOs they really REALLY couldn’t care less, and they aren’t going to push any change that costs money.

              1. Hot Flash Gordon*

                I work for a large health system and it really depends on the area/state. I’ve worked on complaints escalated from the president that involve patient dissatisfaction. It’s part of our mission statement and, while larger change might not happen, patients can often get their issue resolved in the meantime.

          4. 2 Cents*

            They might be listed as patient advocates or patient experience. I bet it was a top-down requirement, but not seeing the appointments until the day before also sounds like a programming error that someone didn’t think through (ask me how I know!). In any case, it’s ridiculous for you, and complaining to whoever will listen would help.

            What would also burn their bottom is leaving a poor review on Google or ZocDoc / Healthgrades / Vitals. The health system may respond to that faster, unfortunately.

      7. I wear my sunglasses at night*

        Oh god that’s awful! I’m also not surprised unfortunately—I’ve encountered nonsense like that before. On the one hand I was thinking “oh wow this is definitely an X Healthcare Org patient” but on the other hand there are probably a 1000 plus healthcare orgs with this same ridonkulous setup.
        If you ever do get a human there to talk to you I would seriously considering emphasizing the “I am seriously considering changing providers about this” angle. They don’t need to know that it might be a bluff on your end. And if you have health insurance—I’d consider kicking up a fuss with them too honestly. We pay them all that money for them to NOT approve claims—the least they can do is hear when an in-network provider is being screwed over by the insurance company’s own actions (because in a way, this is the fault of Big Insurance).

        1. Seashell*

          Yeah, it sounded like my local healthcare organization, which I have had to deal with this week to much frustration on my part. However, mine does have the option to request a call back if there is a long wait time.

          1. I wear my sunglasses at night*

            Honestly more, if not all, organizations with a reputation for long hold times need to have a “press 1 to receive a call back and hold your place in line” option by default. It should be mandatory by law even. Even the DMV and Xfinity-Comcast of all places have it as an option for heavens sake. If companies (including major healthcare organizations where the CEOs are taking home 7-8 figures in salary, bonuses, and “stock options”) don’t want to do that, then they can boost their hiring by 500 percent in ALL areas (with a 500 percent increase in wages across ALL areas), consolidate/close down some satellite locations (which hurts patients and employees in those areas), or stop buying up the few remaining independent hospitals and doctor offices in a locality. For the latter, they could just donate money or something, IDK. I’m just in a really socialist mood this morning and most of my career has been in healthcare—I’m kind of over the whole “but costs are going up and we dont have any moneyyyyyyyy!!!” whining from like, Jefferson Health’s CEO or the like.

      8. Jackalope*

        To supplement what Alison said, if you have a feel for how long it tends to take for a response, could you call in before lunch and start your lunch when the call drops in? Obviously this is ripe for issues, but if you know for example that they have a minimum of 20 minutes that you have to wait on hold, could you call in 20 min before lunch and then that way much of the hold time will be finished by the time you’re available? If they’re all over the place on the wait time, or if you have a super strict lunch time, this might not work, but I thought I’d mention it just in case.

      9. M2*

        I would call at lunch or call right before they open. They open at 8:30 AM start calling at 8:27/8:28 that may you might be the first person to be answered.

        I would complain to your doctor and possibly ask next time if there is a direct line to their office you might call. Or ask them if they can offer a call back option. Some places allow you to even pick the time (you call at 9 30 minute wait you type in your # and ask for a callback at 12 or they tell you wait time is 29 minutes so you know to expect a callback in 27-30 minutes and can be available).

        My Doctor changed offices and it became a nightmare. Sent the wrong script to a radiologist, etc, and even the radiologists office couldn’t get a hold of her office! So I think I’ll ultimately change doctors.

        I know you say you can’t change doctors but if it keeps happening you might have to look elsewhere. The majority of my doctors answer me on the portal with 24 business hours and one called me back (their nurse) yesterday to squeeze me in for an appointment! There are doctors like that out there that will go with your insurance you just need to find them. I normally am answered within 5 minutes every time too! My child’s pediatrician takes longer to answer sometimes.

        Is there a business office #? You could call them on your spare time and explain the situation and ask if they have a number you could call for appointments. Most of the time they don’t want to loose your business or might have a direct number for you.

        1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          Calling right at opening was going to be my suggestion too. In most cases they won’t have gotten so backed up yet.

          1. Nonanon*

            IMO, calling right at opening tends to be better than calling at lunch, ESPECIALLY if you have the same lunch hour everyone else does. I’m usually first or second in line (my provider tells me where I am, it’s great and terrible) if I call at opening, or 10ish down the line if I call during lunchtime.

            1. Bee*

              Yeah, everyone else is calling at lunch AND they have less staffing (if any) because THEY’RE at lunch too. (Have I had the doctor’s office phone just ring and ring and ring and ring until someone finally picks up and says, “Oh, I can’t help you with that, the person who does that is at lunch”? Oh yes.)

        2. Hannah Lee*

          “I would call at lunch or call right before they open.”

          Hah!
          I’m only comment section laughing because my PCP’s office has the habit of “forgetting” to take the phone system off weekend/night service. So “call 1st thing in the morning” usually leads to getting the night service who can take a message, which doesn’t result in a call-back. Or there was that one time IIRC during the worst of the pandemic where they did that, but their answering service wasn’t taking calls (because I guess they only had staff on nights and weekends) so it lead to a canned message from the practice and then transferred to either dead air or to an auto-attendant that said “Thank you. Good bye” and hung up.

          When I was really desperate, I’ve had luck with just showing up at the practice and talking to whoever was at the desk to get appointments scheduled or work out an issue with a refill, etc. But that only works if that practice isn’t a long drive away and their office hours don’t 100% overlap with your work hours.

          And add me to the chorus of people who notice that when they do return calls, or contact me, 90% of the time it’s exactly when I told them I wouldn’t be available. (Or when I’m driving, often at the worst possible time when I’m navigating highway exits … so I won’t answer the random number calling and it will turn out that will be my doctor’s office that I’ve been waiting to hear from)

      10. Sloanicota*

        Ugh my dentist always yammers at me to use the portal to schedule, but then the one time I did I showed up ready for my appointment and the entire building was closed that day. Now I always try to talk to a person when I schedule.

      11. Ashley*

        You could also ask if there is a better time to call in when you do talk to someone as in wait until 9 and maybe it is a little faster.
        It is terrible when things like this make you wonder if you do need to find a new doctor because if you can’t reach them.
        I would hope a co-worker who may cover you during lunch or if you are out would be willing to help out if you explain your issue.

      12. Mockingjay*

        If your patient portal has a message service so you can contact different staff (doctor, nurse, billing coordinator, etc.), I would write a note (maybe one to each staff lead) about the issues with the central scheduling line.

        My sympathies; most practices these days seem to be overrun with patients and it can take days to get a call through, especially those damn automated options. (“Press 1 for appointments; press 2 for billing questions…”) It’s frustrating for most of us and I have yet to find a solution myself other than persistence and many muttered curse words.

      13. Learn ALL the things*

        This sounds like my doctor’s office. The portal has a section where you can schedule an appointment, but in reality it only makes a request for an appointment, and staff still have to call and tell you whether or not that time slot is available.

        I don’t understand why my hair stylist has an online booking system but my doctor, who uses futuristic technology to save lives, does not.

        1. I wear my sunglasses at night*

          “ I don’t understand why my hair stylist has an online booking system but my doctor, who uses futuristic technology to save lives, does not.”

          My wild guess of an answer is: insurance and the fact that healthcare still is obsessed with old, broken technology like Windows 95, fax machines, etc. Partly for cost reasons, partly because they’re too pressed for time to upgrade, partly because there’s “no money” in the budget to upgrade/switch away from fax machines, hire more people or whatever.

          If people knew just how much duct tape and prayer (in terms of technology and infrastructure) is used in a hospital system, they would never see a doctor or a surgeon ever again.

          1. DataGirl*

            YEP. If people knew all the straight up illegal, dangerous things are excused, ignored, or even better- encouraged, they would be horrified.

          2. Hot Flash Gordon*

            Fax machines are still used in Health Care because they can transmit medical information safely (assuming the user types in the correct fax number). Many smaller or rural medical clinics may not have an IT department to help them encrypt their email so that they can send protected health information via email.
            I won’t deny that there are many medical systems that are unreasonably stingy, but you would be shocked at how small operating margins are for a lot of health systems. You have to consider that health insurance companies are constantly causing unnecessary administrative costs, delays in reimbursement for patient care for opaque and arcane reasons, and ever dwindling reimbursement rates all while providers find that their equipment is getting more expensive and the expense of compensation for qualified professionals (both clinical and administrative) rises. The US model of health care is set up so that the only real winners are insurance company CEO’s and drug companies.

        2. Bleu*

          Well, doctor’s offices still have to vet that the reason and urgency of the visit are appropriate, unlike a haircut.

      14. Katydid*

        Yeah unfortunately, centralized scheduling is all the rage for healthcare right now especially for specialist departments and things like radiology. In theory it makes sense – you need to know that for this test I need to book the provider’s schedule, but also the ultrasound room and maybe the nurses schedule too, so it can be quite a puzzle to work through if someone is standing in front of you at a reception desk. But! They need to cross train everyone and make sure they have enough people to cover the needs, which is seems in this case they obviously do not!

      15. T.N.H*

        Have you tried the “hold for me” option? I use it all the time. It means you can just set your phone down next to you and it chimes when they pick up. You still have to be ready to grab it when that happens but it should cut down on you actively listening to hold music (I completely ignore it until it’s ready).

        1. Bear in the Sky*

          Being ready to grab it when it happens isn’t feasible if you’re a receptionist and you’re at your desk. You could be dealing with a customer at any moment. If that’s happening when your phone chimes, you can’t get it in time.

          1. T.N.H*

            I think it depends. I’ve been a receptionist and in some jobs/industries, you can put a client on hold if something comes up, others you can’t.

      16. Observer*

        I was told the portal only surfaces appointments to them the day before the appointment (!!) and so it can’t be used to schedule any of the types of appointments I need (!!!). And my only recourse is to sit on hold on the central scheduling line for however long it takes

        That’s what I get for answering before reading all the messages.

        That has to be one of the sloppiest designs I have ever seen. It sounds like someone designed this explicitly to make it *look* like they have a system, but insure that it cannot *actually* be used.

      17. Lizzo*

        Is your doctor attached to a hospital? (I assume so based on the bureaucracy you’ve described.) There should be some sort of ombudsman or similar centralized role handling patient satisfaction and complaints. Take this to them. You are likely not the only person dealing with this issue.

      18. Hedgehug*

        Interesting. When you cancel an appointment less than 24 hours (sometimes 48!), the office charges you.
        So, I think you should send THEM an invoice for the insane amount of time you now need to take out of your work day to reschedule the appointment that they canceled.

      19. Elbe*

        I actually just switched providers for similar reasons.

        They were impossible to get ahold of and would cancel appointments with very little notice for things (“we need a copy of your insurance card”) that could have been handled in advance. They wouldn’t respond to email (or phone calls most of the time) and had trouble answering basic questions, to the point that it seemed like there was maybe one person in the whole office who knew what was going on and everyone else was just winging it.

        They were nice in person, so I tried to muddle through for a while, but eventually I just realized that this level of dysfunction is not normal and that I had lost faith in them to actually manage health-related tasks well. What happens if the doctor ordered a specific test and it wasn’t scheduled because it fell through the cracks? What happens if there was a miscommunication about prescriptions? Timely attention to detail matters!

        If you are not able to switch providers, please complain directly to the doctor! Tell her that you are losing confidence in how the practice is run. Tell her that it’s affecting your ability to get healthcare. This is a serious thing worth complaining about.

      20. Bleu*

        That’s more chaotic than normal. Unfortunately your only recourse may be to switch providers. (Unless it was cancelled due to an urgent case needing to get in, which does happen sometimes)

      21. iglwif*

        This system suuuuuucks, I’m sorry!!

        Is it at all possible to use one earbud, connected to your personal phone, while waiting on hold? Maybe with your hair kinda tucked over that ear so it’s not obvious? That way you still have one ear and everything else available to talk to people at the reception desk, but with less scramble to answer when the call comes off hold?

        Yours may not be a workplace where this would work, though :/

    6. GammaGirl1908*

      If there is an online portal, absolutely try that, but when I find that I can never get anyone on the phone for something critical that requires a little bit of back-and-forth, like scheduling, it often is worth taking the time to go in person. It really sucks that I have to, but stopping by on my way to or from work, or on my lunch hour, or if they have weekend hours, gets it done.

      While there, I often can point out face-to-face to a human the challenges of trying to do this by phone, and note to them that I was so enormously frustrated by trying to do it by phone that I had to take my own time to come in (very politely, obviously. It isn’t the receptionist’s fault that the office has selected a terrible phone system). Then I ask for their suggestions for how to manage this more efficiently, since phone wasn’t getting done. I know this isn’t always practical, but if you can stop by, the 10 minutes that you will be in that office will get you what you need and will allow you to share the feedback.

      Also, if I have recurring medical appointments, even just going to the dentist twice a year for a cleaning, I try to set the next appointment when I’m in the office for the appointment. I schedule my October cleaning during my April appointment. It’s easier to move an appointment than schedule it in the first place.

      1. DJ Abbott*

        Ha, I worked at a healthcare organization. I remember when I could schedule an appointment in person there. One day I ambled over to the imaging center to schedule a routine test and was told they no longer schedule in person and I had to call the call center. It was one of many obnoxious pennypinching changes that considered the patient last.
        I no longer work for them, and the one I go to for medical care does still schedule in person after my visit. I don’t know if they would for someone who just walked in though.

      2. SoundsGoodInTheory*

        Most doctors won’t schedule in person – I used to try this when I couldn’t reach certain offices.

    8. Beth*

      Yes, this is the way to go if they have one.

      If they don’t, I’d be tempted to switch doctors! It’s a pain to switch, but a doctor who can’t schedule an appointment unless you take an afternoon off to sit on hold is functionally not offering care to you.

    9. Lab Lady*

      And my doctor’s scheduler takes lunch off. So there is no way to make the calls over lunch time.

      I don’t begrudge the poor woman lunch, it’s just tough

    10. Elizabeth West*

      I usually do the online portal too. If you have to call, OP, a thing you might try is putting in one earbud while you’re waiting, and keep the other ear free for answering the phone. This is what I did when I was on front desk and had a similar issue.

    11. Aphrodite*

      Someone may have already suggested this. I haven’t read the comments yet but thought of it immediately. Can you talk to your doctor and suggest a phone system like some do that says you have two choices: you can wait and they tell you how many people are ahead of you or how much wait time there currently is OR you can hit a button to have the system hold your place in line and someone will call you back when your turn comes up.

  4. TheBunny*

    LW#2

    Let. It. Go.

    I get it. She’s being rude. But she’s also doing what you ate asking her to do.

    While I don’t think it’s your intent, your letter reads a little “she’s doing what I need…but she’s mean to me…make her be nice.”

    Years ago I had someone tell me that, when trying to decide if something is worth pursuing or letting go, to process the complaint and see how it sounds from that angle

    Here you are basically saying “you’re doing your job but be nice to me.” Ummm. Not great. We’re she sending the invoices with a message that said “Here you go now shut up” or the file names are things like “LW is a PITA” then that would be a complaint. This isn’t.

    Let it go

    1. allathian*

      Well, Julie isn’t doing what the LW (Jane) is asking because she keeps having to send reminder emails. We’re all human so sometimes people have to be reminded of a deadline. But having to send one every time you request something from a particular person isn’t normal.

      I also don’t think that refusing to acknowledge an internal client because that client gave some feedback when what was delivered didn’t match what was ordered is acceptable, either. Especially when Julie had to redo one request because the GM wanted to change it, so shooting the messenger. If Jane can’t do her job without getting something from Julie, even if they’re officially peers, then Jane’s really an internal client.

      Julie clearly has issues with Jane for some reason, but it’s weird that it’s been allowed to go on for so long, more than a year! Maybe it helps to know that other people have had similar issues with Julie.

      It’s very hard to work with someone who refuses to acknowledge you as a person. Maybe it isn’t the end of the world given that Jane needs something from Julie a few times a year rather than once a week, but I can understand why that sort of behavior feels unpleasant.

      2. Hell in a Handbasket*

        Then OP should focus on the reminder issue, and on Julie’s not answering her questions, i.e. things that affect her work — NOT on whether she says “hello” in her emails. Even though Julie is being childish, that complaint is going to sound petty.

    2. Despachito*

      Agreed.

      I’d let completely go the cases related purely to courtesy but not those when it interferes with OP’s work (lack of response or acknowledgement when she needs it).

    3. Ellis Bell*

      No it isn’t a question of being mean/nice, it’s a question of professionalism. Deliberately deciding to send a blank email instead of just pressing thumbs up is childish. That said, OP isn’t placed to address it, and I wouldn’t be particularly invested in preventing this person from looking unprofessional.

      1. ferrina*

        I agree with this. Julie isn’t being professional, but there’s nothing the LW can really do about it. Anything the LW tries to do is likely to cause more drama.

      2. Mirily*

        I’m sorry but the thumbs up seems ruder to me than not saying anything. Invoking an emoji in the workplace is just childish (to me), and also the thumbs up emjoi is pretty passive aggressive (the nice thing to do is to do a tapback thumbs up).

        People leaving the body of an email blank to send an attachment is definitely A Thing and not really worth getting upset. No one NEEDS extraneous niceities to get the job done.

    4. Kella*

      The problem isn’t that LW2’s coworker needs to be nice to her. The problem is that Julie is actively creating resistance to people who ask her to change her work– which is part of her job– making it more likely that people would rather submit the incorrect work than deal with her, or do her job for her. There are a million reasons Julie might need to redo a piece of work, some of them her own fault. It’s not okay that she’s punishing people who ask her to do so by ignoring their emails unless she receives a follow up and avoiding interaction.

      1. JayNay*

        yes, this! OP asking Julie to redo something is a completely normal business task that shouldn’t lead to such pointed curtness. This is a good point to bring up in case OP needs to loop in a manager.
        On that note: Is a one-week turnaround time normal for the type of work OP needs from Julie? If not, I’d start inquiring much earlier than a week in (e.g. 2 -3 days). Next step would be setting a deadline (ideally we’d need this by xyz) and cc’ing a manager.
        Also: The goal isn’t to get Julie to like you, it’s to get work done from someone you have relatively little interaction with. It doesn’t feel great to communicate without the social grease of politeness, but just get what you need and move on.

      2. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Exactly! This is one of the many questions we see where the LW asks about a particular issue they want to solve that is actually a symptom or related to the actual issue. LW wants to solve the fact that Julie is being rude and writing dismissive emails when the actual issue is that Julie isn’t doing her work in a timely fashion and is grumbling about fixing errors that is her job to fix. *That’s* the real problem, one that LW should probably escalate to her manager if it continues.

        By the by, I never understand people who are loathe to fix errors. First off, don’t they want their work to be accurate? But second of all, one that was pointed out to me wayyyyyy back at a job I had in high school, making corrections and edits to your previous work is a form of job security. I mean, obv you don’t want to make a ton of mistakes all the time just to ensure you’ll have future work, but making corrections is just another task that keeps you employed. You could even see it as a completely new project; writing the invoice is the first project and editing the invoice later is a totally different project that has nothing to do with the first project. (If you know what I mean…I’m having trouble expressing myself the way I want to.)

        1. Great Frogs of Literature*

          Fixing an error or two is one thing. I once had a coworker who wouldn’t get decent requirements from the stakeholders (even though he’d appointed himself project manager and wouldn’t let ME talk to the stakeholders), so I’d do a bunch of work and he’d come back with “Actually, no, this isn’t what they want at all” … MULTIPLE TIMES. That drove me up the wall, and he couldn’t get why I was annoyed, because I was getting paid, after all. (Yes, I’m getting paid. But I did actually have other things to do with my day besides redoing tedious and annoying work half a dozen times for you because you couldn’t be bothered to know what you wanted the first, second, or third time. It felt like he’d decided that he was entitled to monopolize as much of my time as he wanted, and didn’t think my time was valuable enough to streamline his process to minimize the work I had to do.)

          But that’s a COMPLETELY different situation than, “I’m sorry, the GM has requested some minor changes to this, would you mind?” And it’s the GM Julie should be mad at, not Jane.

      3. wordswords*

        Absolutely!

        It would be one thing if Julie’s style had always been the same. I too would have a hard time not feeling a bit snubbed by it, and I think a lot of people would, but it would be “well, okay, this is Julie’s style, and that’s just how it is.”

        Instead, it was an abrupt switch to cold-shouldering LW2 — all pleasantries dropped forevermore, and a marked decrease in responsiveness — for the horrible sin of asking her to redo something. (Without any criticism attached, even, nor any mistake on LW2’s end! Neither LW2 nor Julie messed up that first time; it was just a “sorry, my boss now wants this done differently” situation.) And so now, LW2 is having to chase after Julie for the invoices she needs, AND get snubbed for it. It’s a change in the degree of civility that LW2 is getting, as a punishment for asking Julie to redo something and as an active attempt at deterring anyone from asking her to change her work (which, as Kella says, is part of Julie’s job, and part of working with others).

        I actually disagree slightly with Alison’s advice here. I agree that LW2’s proposed email isn’t likely to get results, but I would mention all of this to Julie’s manager as part of the “hey, I’m having trouble getting what I need from Julie reliably, and here’s the situation” conversation. “Julie never uses email pleasantries” isn’t cause to escalate to her manager, but “Julie has abruptly dropped all previous pleasantries and is no longer treating me with professional civility because of this” is.

        1. sparkle emoji*

          Yeah, the emails alone would normally be a drop it moment, but if LW’s boss is supportive and LW wanted to raise the lateness issue I think it makes sense to also mention the curtness as being connected.

    5. JSPA*

      I’ve sometimes given up and gone in person, just to schedule. Only works if they do in-person scheduling (many don’t) and if you’re not locked into a business lunch hour (as in afraid you likely are? ) that coincides with their lunch hour.

      At one point, I could go to a different office linked to the same provider (think, podiatry vs oncology, but of the same “brand”) and they’d either be able to book it or call in on a different number. But they closed that back door after a while.

      At this point, I’d leave it on speakerphone but with the volume down to the minimum (as I do with airlines and credit cards when There’s something that really has to be a phone rather than web interaction) and leave it in line-of sight so I see when they pick up. And be ready to say, “sorry, let me take that off speakerphone” when they pick up, rather than first fiddling with the volume. (And tell the person you’re helping that there’s a family medical emergency happening, so you’re giving them your full attention, but you may have to pause and pick up.)

    6. DJ Abbott*

      I would be like “that’s just the way she is” and remind myself not to take it personally or get upset. I might even take some pleasure in knowing she’s trying to annoy me, and not giving her the satisfaction. I would continue to send polite emails and just ignore her attitude, unless it’s interfering with the actual work.

    7. Sloanicota*

      I do think OP’s email was a bit over the top and unlikely to result in greater pleasantness. If this was really bugging OP it might have been a better conversation to have in person, as a back-and-forth, because it comes across as something of a power play.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        I agree, this is the kind of issue that would be best discussed in person/on the phone rather than in an email. But also agree that it’s the kind of issue that shouldn’t be addressed by OP at all but rather Julie’s manager if it really is an issue.

    8. Really?*

      LW#2: do you need to send these invoices out before your company gets paid for services? If so, while her rudeness may be a well, her rudeness may be an annoyance, the bigger problem is that by failing to send the invoices back correctly as soon as possible she’s delaying payments to your company. Depending upon the amounts and the volume of payments that she’s holding up, she could be costing your company serious money. If that’s the case, your follow-up emails may need to be copied to either your boss or hers and labeled “second request.”

    9. el l*

      If she’s not giving things on time, OP should tell Julie that and ask for it to be timely. If that fails, talk to manager.

      For everything else about the situation, OP – Take Nothing Personally.

      There are a few people like that professionally, she’s clearly that type, and they have a way of treating everyone rudely or dismissively. Just take a deep breath before interacting with them and remind yourself that the normal rules of reacting to behavior don’t apply, and that really nothing they do is about you. You wish the situation could improve, but it can’t, that’s just how they’re conditioned/wired.

    10. Yorick*

      No, Jane isn’t doing her job until LW sends a follow-up request. And Jane isn’t answering any of LW’s questions. This is probably just making it more likely that Jane will do the invoice wrong and LW will need to correct it, making Jane more angry.

      1. Saturday*

        But the problem LW wants to address is the discourteous emails. She doesn’t say that Julie’s lack of promptness is causing a problem.

        1. HonorBox*

          She appears to be more focused on the lack of courtesy, but the delays are causing issues. Maybe not in the huge picture of cashflow and delayed payments, but they are causing issues nonetheless. Having to follow up does cause delays. If Julie is only waiting to complete the invoices when reminders come in, she’s not doing her job correctly. And if she’s having to throw that invoice together quickly at the last minute, it is more likely that there will be an error.

          I think the lack of courtesy is a throw in during a conversation with manager, but the overarching theme should be “I’m having to remind Julie a week later every time I’m asking her for an invoice, which is causing delays in those going out. Plus, I’ve noticed that ever since we had to make a correction based on GM’s suggestion, it feels like she’s rather curt in her replies.”

    11. Heffalump*

      I’d be willing to bet that the totality of Julie’s behavior towards everyone more than justifies her manager telling her to knock it off.

      1. AnonForThisOne*

        Meh.

        There’s a person at my work right now who “doesn’t like people”. She doesn’t say good morning. We don’t decorate her office on her birthday (her request) and no one stops by her office to chat or say hello unless they need something. We moved her office to a far corner because we needed a team in that space to be able to collaborate. Was she annoyed? Hard to tell LOL.

        Whatever. Does one of my team interact with her? Yes. Is she friendly? No. Do we care? No. Do we ignore it? Yes. It’s known she’s rude. It’s not worth it to force people to be nice. Will she ever be promoted? Unlikely. But she’s fine with that.

    12. Red Canary*

      The problem with Julie is that OP needs to send her reminders, not about how she writes her emails.

      I do think Julie could add a few pleasantries– I’ve been told I tend to be too curt in my communications, and that’s *with* always including “Hi [name]” and “Thanks” and all that– but I get a lot of emails from coworkers where they explain their entire thought process behind what they’re sending to me and I’m thinking “just get to the POINT already”. Ultimately, as long as the work is getting done, the communication style shouldn’t be a big deal… but the work isn’t getting done here.

  5. Anna*

    The issue with the advice in #1 is that the doctor’s office staff is probably taking turns going to lunch at that time as well. So you’re still going to end up on eternal hold.

    1. tommy*

      at my doctor’s office, they don’t even take turns — the whole staff has lunch during the same hour as each other. the phone line is closed at that time. i hope this isn’t true at LW’s office.

      2. HonorBox*

        Same. So if LW is trying to get these calls completed during their lunch hour, if that falls during traditional lunch hours, there’s zero chance they’ll ever get through.

      3. Toad Swan*

        My doctor’s office is exactly the same – closed from 12-1pm. In theory you can request a call back without losing your place in the hold queue, but in practice they never do. No online portal either. AND THEN they get grumpy when you give up and go to a walk-in. I need healthcare and you’ve made yourselves unreachable, what do you expect?

      4. iglwif*

        My family doctor’s office is the same. You can of course leave a voicemail message! But if your lunch hour lines up with theirs, when they call back it’s not going to be your lunch break anymore.

    2. Melly Belly*

      Yep. This has been my experience, too. Answering service during lunch and after hours or weekends. And they will never call you back if you leave a message. Instead, they’ll say “no response” and basically cancel the request. It’s so frustrating. And the patient portal never works. It says “please call…” (while the on hold message keeps saying “use the portal!”)

      I did end up switching providers over it. Now, I can call the office and – get this – speak to a person for my regular doctor. It’s amazing.

      1. urguncle*

        This and MyChart/other charting software where you can request and get an appointment asynchronously is incredibly helpful. Realized yesterday at 9pm that I needed to schedule an appointment through my pediatrician’s office and so I just…did.

        1. Lana Kane*

          Part of my job is to build these settings so that patients can schedule in MyChart, since it’s something the practice has to opt into and build out. I work at a hospital and I was so happy when I was tasked with enabling this feature for one of the clinics where I’m a patient!

    3. ferrina*

      Yeah…..it’s a terrible Catch-22. I really feel for the LW.

      Is there someone who can watch the desk while LW makes the call? LW probably knows when the quietest times are for the desk. A sympathetic boss or colleague may be able to help LW out.

    4. ScruffyInternHerder*

      Or the office is closed for lunch.

      Source – the practice I left years ago that was a perfect replica of the situation listed by LW#1.

      1. KK*

        My doctor’s office is also closed at lunch! It seems insane to me because it is a large practice with multiple receptionists – can they not rotate??

        1. Aggretsuko*

          My old office was open during lunch and they had to rotate people around. They had constantly changing shifts and every time people called in sick, it was a lot of last minute drama. I can see why some offices are all “this is easier just to close for everyone.”

        2. Dahlia*

          I mean it doesn’t seem so unreasonable, does it? It’s what retail does. Can you imagine Walmart closing at lunch because everyone needs to go at once?

  6. Susan*

    For LW1, the next time you’re in your doctor’s office, why not explain your problem and ask for their advice? Maybe there’s an email address that you could use, or an online scheduling system.

    1. Evelyn Karnate*

      Email isn’t HIPAA compliant, but hopefully they have an online patient portal with secure messaging.

        1. Analyst*

          a patient email address is an issue. As is the patient’s name. Anything identifiable is often covered/required to be protected

    2. Ratatouille*

      Unfortunately I run into similar problems with specialist doctors, pharmacies, and vets—they’re understaffed, so I can understand but it does suck.

      If possible, schedule appointments in person after your appointments. For my vet, I once told my boss I’d be a little late and went to their office to schedule an appointment in person—went in to their office at 8:45am (they open at 8:30) and got to work around 9:15–which was fine for my job at the time.

      Good luck… if nothing else know you’re not alone and I feel for you!

    3. I wear my sunglasses at night*

      The LW1 explained (maybe up thread?) that this office has a patient portal with secure messaging but for this particular circumstance, the doctors office still required phone tag :-/

      It’s not the first time I’ve heard of that chicanery. I’ve personally yet to encounter a patient portal that didn’t have the disclaimer “to schedule, change, or cancel an appointment, please call our office/central scheduling!!!”

      1. Great Frogs of Literature*

        I can actually schedule through my patient portal! (And reschedule, too.) Since they added it a few years ago, I’ve only had one specialist appointment where something in the portal was screwy so that there were never any available appointments.

        It’s SO MUCH BETTER.

      2. Filosofickle*

        I can schedule, change and cancel through my medical portal :D

        I’d been in a different system for a few years where this wasn’t possible, and I basically just avoided care until I could get back to the one that actually works :/

    4. Elbe*

      I agree with asking them how to solve it. This is so over-the-top non-responsive that they should be the one coming up with solutions for it.

  7. ENFP in Texas*

    Maybe it’s because I’m a child of the ’80s, but I have always done multi-timezone communications like the old network TV listings used to do.

    1 ET / 12 CT / 11 MT / 10 PT

    I never bother putting in the S or the D, and for folks who are in states that swap between time zones, I trust them to figure out which time zone they are in at any given point in the year.

    1. ENFP in Texas*

      Edited to add, I am US-based, and I don’t usually deal with international communications or meetings. :)

        1. londonedit*

          Similarly grateful to live and work in a country with only one time zone! Daylight savings also seems easier here – the clocks always go forward on the last Sunday in March, and always go back on the last Sunday in October.

          1. But Of Course*

            It’s not when they go, it’s what the resulting acronym is. There isn’t some kind of lottery on New Years Day where we draw the dates of the US time change, and then that’s it, we go to daylight time on a random Tuesday in June and back to standard time on March 3rd.

        2. Texas Teacher*

          I always wonder how that works in a very large country like China, using one time zone. I guess office and school hours are different? Like you might go to work at 11 am (officially) but it feels like 8 am?

    3. ferrina*

      This is similar to what I do. I don’t do the S/D. I work in 5 different timezones, so I don’t usually put all the timezones. I put the middle timezone, and let folks do the math from there. The middle timezone is a constant, to if someone only knows the conversion from their timezone to the middle timezone, that’s all they ever need to know.
      If I’m only talking to one or two people, I’ll put my time zone and theirs (example: 1ET/12CT). Of course, if it’s in an electronic meeting invite, the invite usually updates the timezone without me needing to do anything.

      1. ENFP in Texas*

        Agreed, if the attendees are only in Eastern/Central, I’ll only include the Eastern and Central times.

  8. Raida*

    1. My doctor’s office constantly leaves me on hold — how do I deal with this at work?

    You contact the office and tell them this is a complaint and why – long waits, hanging up too quickly, not picking up. Maybe they are understaffed, but maybe it’s a shitty supervisor/staff, or maybe it’s a new policy to “focus on the people in front of you” and they don’t realise how badly it’s treating callers.
    Send. Them. Feedback.

    Separately: You get an earpiece and un-mute the call when you’re on hold and they pick up, you have all details necessary written down in front of you as bullet points, you warn clients you are face to face with that you are on hold and will need to be fast to respond if they pick up, and you act as though this is not a super friggin personal call.
    IE “Yes I am calling to confirm the date and time for [Person] at [Location] for [Purpose]. Yes. Yes. That’s correct. Q1245. Thank you.” (assuming of course this is cot a call that needs to drag out or involves personal or medical information)

    1. LW #1*

      Thank you so much – I already intended to send feedback, but the earpiece advice would never have occurred to me and feels really actionable.

      1. Kella*

        I second the importance of giving feedback. My first instinct would be to tell my doctor the next time I saw them, point blank, “The way that the scheduling reception is being run is preventing me from accessing the care I need. If I can’t set appointments because of their long hold times and failure to return messages, then that’s true of other people too.” If you’re unsure that your doctor is the right person deliver this message to, you could add, “Who do I need to contact in order to get this addressed?”

      2. Pennyworth*

        Try bone conduction headphones and use your own cell phone. They sit in front of your ear, so you can still talk to people while you have on hold music on low volume through the BCH.

        1. Annie*

          And yes, wireless Bluetooth bonephones or open ear headphones or earbuds (other names for this product type) exist if you need an extra discreet option.

        2. Ariaflame*

          I was going to suggest these. They’re useful to have for a number of things where you want to listen to things but not block out the world. I use the aftershokz myself. There may be others now.

        3. Jack Russell Terrier*

          Tell the doctor. The front office were playing silly buggers with my mum, blaming her for things that didn’t happen. It all came out when my 80+ mum and I waited nearly an hour when for her * few days post op* follow up. I mentioned this to the doc and she said ‘Unfortunately, when you’re late … ‘. I told the doc, we were 15 minutes early.

          Then the doc said – what happened yesterday? I looked at her shocked – your office called as I was picking up mum, saying you had an emergency and we rescheduled for today.

          We both stared at each other wide eyed.

          The doc said with grit – I’m going to have to talk with them.

          Sometimes the doc has no idea what’s going on. They made an elderly, post op woman wait to cover themselves.

      3. learnedthehardway*

        I only take work calls on my office phone and only take medical calls on my mobile. If necessary, I can mute my work phone (I warn the other person that I have to put them on hold momentarily, of course).

        After missing multiple calls from my healthcare provider when I was sick, I’ve found this works best.

      4. Paint N Drip*

        Recommendation if you’re interested –
        I have a pair of bluetooth earbuds from the brand Jlab (JLab maybe?) called Tones – it’s a line of colors that are neutrals/skin tones, presumably for fashion’s sake but for me they’re perfect to lowkey listen to music/audiobooks/white noise at work (I also work the front desk). I just got them on Amazon and they aren’t any more expensive than your average bluetooth earbuds.
        If you have a smartwatch (to control your audio input) and lowkey earbuds, I swear your administrative life can improve 100x

      5. Paint N Drip*

        Recommendation if you’d like one –
        I have a pair of earbuds from the brand JLab in their Tones line – they’re all neutral colors/skin tones in a pretty wide range, presumably for fashion but for me perfect for surreptitious listening while working the front desk. I got them on Amazon and they’re similar in price to other mid-quality bluetooth buds

      6. shriya*

        I put one airpod in and turn down the call volume to as low as it can go and continue with my day until someone picks up the phone.

        I’m in the medical field and even when seeing patients , everyone is understanding when I suddenly have to step out of room to answer the call. Everyone is struggling with long phone wait times and 99% they understand

    2. CM*

      Earpiece is what I do! (As someone who is often in a similar situation.) You can quickly apologize to the person you’re talking to if there is someone at the desk, then turn away and grab a pen to take notes, so it’s clear you are doing something and not just sitting around ignoring your own patients.

    3. Mouse named Anon*

      I feel like this is the best option TBH.

      Also I just want to say I feel your pain LW. My kids and I have had this problem in the past and its incredibly frustrating. I often feel like Doctors offices profoundly lack customer service skills bc people will “just deal with it, bc they have to”. I do hope you find a solution! Good luck.

    4. lunchtime caller*

      The earpiece was going to be my suggestion! I do this all the time with one airpod at my work (I only have internal people coming up to ask stuff and airpods are a normal way to take calls at my office) and it stays super subtle (versus holding a phone to your ear) so no one knows you’re on hold while you hold a conversation.

    5. Swatch This!*

      And leave an honest review online! Hopefully that public feedback will prompt them to improve. I’ve yet to find a medical practice that has both great office staff and a great practitioner, one is always great while the other is terrible (or they’re both terrible).

      Honestly, it’s baffling how behind the times medical practices are in terms of scheduling and customer interaction. Even the ones that have a patient portal or other technology just don’t use it effectively and the UX is really bad.

  9. AndieK*

    LW#2: Some ideas that, depending on your personality, could help things feel easier when interacting with your colleague:

    Does it feel differently to you if you assume that she’s overwhelmed with work and handling it (badly) by sending out emails as fast as possible? That is, take out any assumptions about how she’s feeling about *you*, and assume it’s how she’s feeling about *the job*. Even though it’s unlikely, it’s plausible given how she’s cranky to everyone and her lack of political capital about it means you don’t have to care why she’s cranky. So thinking about it this way could make it easier to let those feelings roll off your back.

    Another option is to change your own emails to her so that they’re more neutral in the face of her silence. Don’t do it if you’re feeling mean or petty about it. But, if right now it’s sapping your energy to be friendly to her when she’s being silent back, then you strip your emails down while still being kind. Taking your example where you were replying to a mistake, that would look like: “Thanks! Can you send me one without tax? Details attached.” I personally find that can bring relief to getting those emails sent.

    Good luck!

    1. Allonge*

      This – check your assumptions. They are not unreasonable assumptions, but they are not helping you – you can exchange them for something else.

      To be honest, I had busy periods where once in a while I had to pick between ‘person gets a fast solution’ and ‘person gets a nice email with the solution’.

      I think the most extreme version was ‘here you go’ as the entire email body, but it very much happens that there are a billion things to do, you are pissed off at yourself for having to redo someting because you were not paying enough attention, and it’s better overall to just send the thing without niceties than to wait until you are calm enough to add the flourishes.

      And none of this is about the recipient.

      1. Jane LW2*

        Most people typically add a ‘see attached’ when they are responding quickly – I suppose the completely blank emails are unusual to me. Layered on top is the lack of response to my questions.

        I am always super friendly and have not changed my tone despite my feelings.

        I did wind up emailing her – I thanked her for the attachment as I normally would but asked if I should read into the lack of responses . I am pleased to share she answered this one to apologise and indicated it was a busy time. I accept this and thanked her for the explanation and that it was reassuring – then I checked she was doing ok and hoped her workload would ease up soon etc.

        I think it was a good learning moment for both of us – I practiced my direct (but non aggressive) communication by sense checking if I was misreading anything and tackling this head on. She got some understanding in how her email style could be perceived and may tweak her approach going forward.

        3. Catalyst*

          I’m glad to hear that it worked out and it’s just a busy time. It sounds like you handled it well, and that she did as well in her response to you.

          I had come here to say that it might be more about her and her workload then you. I work in the accounting space and sometimes we have been so short staffed that I’m just putting out fires and a lot of things fall through the cracks. At these times niceties fall through the cracks too just so you can get your work done. It’s not ideal.

        4. kitto*

          you handled this really well, definitely the perfect balance of direct and appropriate – your response to her apology was also compassionate, which goes a long way when people are this overwhelmed. fantastic job!

        5. A Jane*

          I came here to say that I think you’d be able to clear this up by contacting her, by phone too if that’s possible. I find that people tend to be a lot friendlier and approachable on phone calls than they are on email (if you can get hold of them!)

          Often the way people are behaving is about them and not about you or something you’ve done. If you hadn’t been able to clarify it with her then you mentally approaching the situation assuming that she’s very busy or maybe going through a difficult time personally can help you to accept someone’s bad behaviour.

        6. been there two*

          That’s great, I’m so happy that a simple follow-up solved your problem! I once worked (briefly) for an office whose payroll was being done by the owner’s girlfriend, who actually worked elsewhere, and whose phone and email “manners” were non-existent. When I started, I was told about her attitude and to just roll with it. I conducted myself professionally, noted that this was “small-business-crazy”, and gave my notice to quit. On my last day, I got a question from one of the (field professionals) and I emailed her with the question. She calls the office, I pick up the phone, and all she says is “what the f*&%?” So, I hung up the phone. When it rang again, I (conveniently) had an armload of stuff and asked the owner to grab the phone. He came out to admonish me for hanging up on her. I said, “It won’t happen again” and it didn’t, ’cause I was gone!

    2. learnedthehardway*

      I feel like LW2’s situation is a BEC issue.

      If the emails were from someone who LW2 liked quite a bit, I doubt that an email without a salutation and general “hope you’re well” text wouldn’t matter at all.

      As it is, though, it’s kind a last straw to the already (rather justified) irritation that LW2 has with Julie.

    3. Snarl Trolley*

      “That is, take out any assumptions about how she’s feeling about *you*, and assume it’s how she’s feeling about *the job*.”

      THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

      I’ll disclaim up front that I’m not saying my experience is Julie’s! But I do want to offer another perspective here that may resonate with anyone working with a “Julie”: I’m AuDHD and responses to letters like LW2 give me *major* anxiety since I automatically treat email requests for job-related things as its own category, and more interpersonal-related emails in another. So while I try to be as warm as I can be to colleagues in person, an internal request for an invoice will be replied to…with the invoice, often with nothing else. I’ve obviously realized this is Not how the majority of the neurotypical population handle things, but it’s always been a private point of frustration to have to put in extra effort to something that is so clearly, plainly a Job Task, not an Interpersonal Task. –And yes, it IS extra effort – my brain doesn’t process it as “just a few extra nice words”; there’s all sorts of pretzeled-up shit around it that makes it more difficult. All the “it’s not too much to ask!” replies, as much as I know it’s coming from a place of being unaware, genuinely hurt to see pop up SO often, because YOUR “not too much to ask” is saying the minutes I sit at my desk feeling distressed aren’t worth considering. My exhaustion isn’t worth considering. It’s always felt crappy that I’m expected to burn myself out trying to make my colleagues feel warm and fuzzy about an interaction that is *solely based on a work task*. An email about a team-building activity, sure, I’ll put in my extra effort! I’m not stupid; I do innately understand social skills *when regarding social situations*. But for work tasks? That’s not about you, and it’s not about me, it’s…just about the job.

  10. NZReb*

    LW1, can you wear one earbud at the reception desk? That way if they answer your call at a time when you can talk, at least you’d get to it in time. And if you’re wearing just one earbud, you can hear other people at the desk talk okay.

  11. Azure Jane Lunatic*

    The way I interpreted LW3’s word choice was that it was a layoff and she’s aware of the difference, but Busybody Former Co-Worker was using “fired” during the interrogation.

      1. Cj*

        it sounds like a little bit of both to me. by that I mean that the position for the duties she was currently doing wasn’t eliminated, but that the job had changed enough from what she had initially been hired to do that the original position had been effectively eliminated. but it does sound like she wasn’t doing great at the duties she currently had.

        what makes me lean a little bit away from saying she was fired is that she said she was corned by this coworker during her last week. I’ve never worked anywhere where you didn’t leave immediately if you were fired.

        1. Aggretsuko*

          Yeah, it sounds like “technically a layoff, but really it’s kind of a firing because it’s for performance.” I can understand the confusion.

          Technically LW should just say “laid off” in public, though.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        100% this. In 2024 it’s become a whole lot easier to ignore people you don’t want to deal with and I had come here to say OP3 should just block or mute texts and emails from this former coworker and be done with her.

      2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        Agreed. Its a coworker so she is not needed for a reference. Just block her. Then you don’t even have to see the messages.

        OP, you are trying to be polite and see someone in the best possible light who does not deserve it. Blocking is an acceptable way to deal with someone like this.

      3. All het up about it*

        Agreed! Go beyond ignore and block, because receiving these texts is upsetting to LW3’s mental health. A co-worker you didn’t work with often/closely and that you didn’t have a positive relationship with isn’t going to be a reference for you. Feel no guilt about protecting yourself and using that block feature.

  12. DeliberateFeatureNotBug*

    OP1, this has been my life since the pandemic started. Most dr offices severely cut their office staff and did not return to previous levels. They all agree it’s a problem, but they don’t seem to care much or be able to do anything about it.

    There is an expectation that you move to using the portal instead, but this is not reasonable for everyone. Most patient portals have accessibility issues, especially for visually impaired users. Some people are unwilling or unable to access them for other reasons.

    I have limited availability to call/stay on hold during the day. It sometimes takes me weeks or more to get through to medical offices. I used to have a regular monthy telehealth call and I spent a bunch of that appointment explaining which other drs in that system I couldn’t reach and sometimes that office would email them to call me, but more often than not they were told sorry, we don’t have the bandwidth to call patients. Later on, they stopped doing this altogether because the entire system put in a policy not to call patients outside of scheduled, paid appointments.

    I have not been getting all of the care I should be getting because it’s impossible to get through to schedule much of anything.

    Good luck. I hope you find a solution before you reach the same level of frustration I have.

    1. Jackalope*

      My personal favorite (to be fair, I think they’ve changed this now) was when they wanted us to use the patient portal to set up an appointment, but the system would only let you put in something like “Wednesday afternoons”, rather than letting you select a date or a time. Someone on the other end would pick a random Wednesday in the next several weeks at a random time. I get that this is easier on their end, but not all Wednesdays are created equal in terms of what my work schedule is. And having an appointment at 1:00 in the afternoon means taking a lot more sick leave than 4:00, for example. It was so frustrating that their system wasn’t set up to recognize when there were open spots in the doctors’ schedules and let you, you know, actually set an appointment for one of them.

      1. Usually lurking*

        All my patient portals let your request an appointment – which means they call you to schedule. If you don’t answer they don’t call back- you have to request again. I love the few appointments I can make by just selecting a day and time – it’s much faster than going back and forth over the phone trying to find a time where all the schedules align, but that seems really rare for doctors.

  13. JustAnotherFri*

    re: LW#1: I’ve found the wait time at my doctors office is shortest if you call exactly when the office opens; i.e; calling exactly at 8:30am PT :-)

  14. That Snake Wrangler*

    Regarding time zones, I live in Arizona (which is always Mountain Standard Time). However, I live close to the Utah border, which does observe Daylight Savings, and the Navajo Nation, which while mostly surrounded by Arizona, does observe Daylight Savings. To compound the issue, I occasionally work with the Hopi Nation, which is surrounded by th Navajo Nation, yet always sticks to with Mountain Standard time. Not clarifying MST or MDT when arranging meetings is a HUGE problem for me, and I’ve been both wildly late and wildly early for meetings based around that misunderstanding! It may seem like a small thing but clarifying that S or D can be very impactful.

    1. musical chairs*

      This makes so little sense. When I had a sibling going to college in Arizona, when we needed to coordinate time on anything that wouldn’t be figured out by some electronic system we would say “my time” or “your time”, and it was correct with 100% accuracy. If you’re in a border area (especially Arizona, my goodness) it’s so much more customary to use locations to clarify time zones rather than the S or D designation for situations where you’re not scheduling electronic invitations that convert for you.

      You should not be an hour off on a meeting time more than once, even if the other party used the wrong designation in written communication. The second time it happens to you, you’re the one who’s wrong, doesn’t matter how you got there. I get that it’s impactful for you, but I’m struggling to extend grace here if it’s happening multiple times. This is a prime example of how overly rigid pedantry does not win out over sacrificing being technically right on a low stake issue to get to a successful outcome.

      1. Yorick*

        I think I disagree. It can be hard to remember where they use daylight savings and where they don’t, so saying “your time” doesn’t help if you don’t know if their time is D or S. Sure, if you’re early/late to a meeting with this person/with someone from this area, you learn for next time. But that doesn’t help you with the next meeting with someone else who’s from somewhere else.

        1. musical chairs*

          But the issue here is that Arizona does not use DST at all and this person is in a zone border area. It would be well understood by people who live and work there that there are time zone differences in this specific region and that would be taken into consideration almost automatically. The only way this would result in misunderstandings is if these are in-person interactions (where there is no scheduling software converting things for you) which would be, by definition, local and organized by informed parties.

          Unfamiliar outsider not knowing is forgivable, but by the second meeting you set up, you’re no longer unfamiliar.

          1. emilyap*

            “Arizona does not use DST at all” except for the exceptions and the exceptions within the exceptions.

  15. your next door strategist*

    LW #4

    Please also consider that I, a European located in Europe also with daylight savings very much a thing and working with US peeps for around 20 years, only very recently learned that PDT and PST are two different things – or actually that the US makes a distinction there at all. I used to use EST and PST and whatever by default, because that’s how I could tell all of the different US timezones apart, which is already difficult if you have to do the math in your head all the time and keep in mind where people are located. But since CET (Central European Time) is always the current time, whether DST is in effect or not, I would not consider even accounting for that when scheduling and I’m very happy that Outlook is handling a lot of the heavy lifting there.

    It’s already very difficult to always consider “oh yeah the US is having DST two/three weeks before/after us now” since a few years ago, it’s just a huge ask to also consider those particularities. Especially since other places (like e.g., China) do not do DST at all. That’s a lot to keep in mind when trying to schedule international meetings and often the Asian colleagues get the short end of the stick anyway and have to come to late evening meetings and they are very graceful about that. So please don’t also ask people to keep the distinction apart with the different naming conventions.

    And maybe you’re only working with folks in the US, which of course is fine! But your counterpart may have grown up with a different system and might be a recent expat or might be on assignment from a non-US subsidiary or whatever. Hence my request to extend as much goodwill to people as possible and not be pedantic about this stuff even in your own head. 98% of people will simply mean “local time”, whether DST is in effect or not.

    (Caveat that I did learn many years ago – funnily through a The West Wing episode – that some districts(?) simply don’t do DST and have the same time always. But my maybe naive assumption is that you would probably know if you were dealing with such a counterpart.)

    1. Emmy Noether*

      Mmmh, I’m also in Europe, and it is my understanding that CET is not always the current time. CET is UTC+1. We’re doing CEST right now, so UTC+2. (the S is for summer)

      I think this is what trips most people up – it’s not that they don’t know which acronym to use, or don’t know if it’s daylight savings right now, they don’t know there are two different acronyms in the first place!

      1. LJ*

        I get the other poster’s point about extending grace to others who may be confused by your local conventions, but for locals and native speakers, I do see this as a part of the decline in the quality of written communications with all the “internet speak” these days (myself included). How many people write “ect” because they don’t know “etc” stands for “et cetera” or

      2. your neighbourhood strategist*

        Oh yeah! But we don’t call it CEDT or something, we just say CET. Ay least in these parts of Europe

    2. Freya*

      One of my ‘favourite’ bits about Australian timezones is the fact that Queensland doesn’t do daylight savings, and the border between Queensland and New South Wales (which DOES do daylight savings) runs through a town. Technically, Coolangatta and Tweed Heads are different towns, but the border is such that for half of the year, the Coolangatta QLD side of Border St is one hour different to the Tweed Heads NSW side…

      1. Ariaflame*

        Even weirder a couple of the timezones are offset by half an hour rather than an hour.
        They made Western Australia try it for a few years and then asked us ‘Wouldn’t you like to keep it?!’ and we said “NO!”

        1. Part time lab tech*

          3 referendums later I hope pollies get that it doesn’t actually work with our longitude. I hate going to work in the dark in summer.

    3. couture zebra*

      Would that Americans understood their own time zones. I’ve worked in telemedicine scheduling and scheduling systems for years, that dealt with all 50 states and US territories, and internationally, and I can tell you that no one understands time zones.

      One of my favorite? examples was a provider who kept going into her calendar and changing her time zone to “Georgia Standard Time.” No matter how many times I told her that living in the US state of Georgia meant she was in Eastern time, and that the time zone she kept choosing was in Europe, and to please stop changing it, she refused to believe me. We eventually had to yank her permissions.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        Pity anyone trying to schedule meetings in Russia, which has 9 different time zones. Coming from a country that’s all in one time zone, time zones in the US confused me when I first moved there, so it’s interesting to know that Americans get confused by them too!

      2. Lady Lessa*

        While I know and appreciate that Georgia (the southern US state) and Georgia (the country) are different, I still have to think if I see an article about one.

        GRIN, I’ve heard that sometimes people think that New Mexico (US state) is still part of Mexico (the country).

        1. Prudence and Wakeen Snooter Theatre for the Performing Oats*

          It’s very true, sadly. I’ve been asked for my passport, complimented on my English, told that my “foreign” driver’s license isn’t acceptable…

    4. ampersand*

      If it’s any consolation, I’ve lived in the US all my life, and only recently (last year) realized that PDT and PST refer to two different things. I’d always just used S because…that’s the letter that goes in the middle of the time zone abbreviation? I had an aha! moment while scheduling a meeting in two different time zones, and it was humbling. Now I just use PT or CT, etc. and clarify with ‘your time’ or ‘my time.’

  16. rudster*

    LW1, I suppose you’ve probably thought of this, but does your doctor’s office have any other scheduling contact option, such as an email address or contact form?

    1. Aubergine*

      I was going to suggest something similar. Because she mentions a centralized call center, it sounds like her doctor’s office may have been absorbed by one of those large healthcare systems like mine was.

      The service was abysmal and extremely frustrating. I found out from one of the better CSRs that I happened to speak with once that they had a patient portal. I signed up for it, and my interactions have improved 1,000%. Open up the portal at any time and any day and make an appointment or send a message to my doctor. What a relief.

  17. Transitory Property*

    LW#2: When I feel someone is being passive aggressively saccharine to me, I am even more likely to be dry and curt back. You call her a bully just because she isn’t mirroring an over-the-top tone? How did she bully you?

    Her not doing work without being pestered is a problem, but that doesn’t seem like your actual complaint. Maybe try matching her exactly-what-is-needed approach instead rather than heaping the passive aggressiveness even higher with your suggested email.

    1. Allonge*

      I don’t think OP intends to be passive-agressive, but I see why you could read it that way!

      The message they quote here could also grate on my nerves – in our office we would say, ‘Thanks for the invoice, but it has [tax] and I need one [without tax], could you send a corrected one by end of day today?’ So a bit more active.

      But this is also local culture, expectations toward women that don’t exist toward men and all that that would be influencing how OP writes.

    2. Emmy Noether*

      What a strange take. A greeting and a “thank you” are not over the top or saccharine. They are standard, perfectly average politeness.

      2. The Prettiest Curse*

        I get that people find standard business pleasantries annoying and pointless (and sometimes I do too), but they exist for a reason. It’s useful to think of them as a social lubricant – you can get along okay without them up to a point, but using them will make your business relationships run more smoothly because people won’t think that you’re rude.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          Also consider that even in communication protocols between literal machines, not all the beeps and boops and bytes are content. Some are for establishing a communication channel, some carry metadata, some acknowledge receipt.

          Greetings and pleasantries did not evolve in human language because people thought they were fun. They have a communication function. And while they are sometimes used outside of their primary purpose (sending/opening an email already establishes the communication channel – there is not strictly a need for “hello”), using the correct human protocol just makes us feel more… human… a lot of the time.

    3. MissGirl*

      I feel like calling her a bully is over the top. She could just be busy and oblivious. The OP is giving this person way more power than is necessary. I’ve learned I err I’m on the side of bare bones in my communication. It’s something I’m working on and understand why it’s important but it’s also exhausting. I feel like these two have two completely opposite communication styles and the more one leans to their side, the more the other leans away. The OP could stand to scale back her overly pleasing tone.

    4. Yorick*

      I think you missed the part of the letter where LW’s emails will include questions for Jane and Jane doesn’t answer them, just attaches the invoice to a blank email.

      1. TheBunny*

        But LW also doesn’t say the questions are needed to be answered.

        If I email one of my team and ask if they are taking Friday off…and in response I receive an OOO request…my question was answered. I suspect this is what is happening with LW2 but because it’s not an answer in an email that starts with “good morning” it’s an issue.

  18. Juniper*

    LW2, your coworker might be curt, but in your own example you’re coming across as insincere and overly supplicatory. Is that any better? If I consistently received emails from someone worded like this: “I believe this will need to be amended before I send it out. I’ve attached the details again in case there’s something I’ve got wrong — let me know :)” it would make me question their seriousness. You know it has to be amended, she knows it has to be amended — dispense with the over-the-top niceties. You’ve gone too far in the other direction in attempt to exert friendliness on her, and should rein it in.

    1. Smurfette*

      I don’t get the sense that OP intends to be OTT polite – this is probably a cultural or regional thing.

      1. Juniper*

        I’m from Minnesota, so I’m from the place that invented OTT polite. We’re also masters at being passive aggressive, and my guess is that OP’s emails are radiating it. She wants to confront the “bully” and then potentially escalate this to her manager if she doesn’t “do better”, for goodness’ sake. Julie is being mildly rude and she should use basic courtesies, but OP needs to be way less invested here.

      2. Emmy Noether*

        Yes, I also phrase things that way. Very rarely, it is actually passive aggressive. Most of the time, I want to (1) give a gracious out to the person who made the mistake and (2) hedge my bets to not sound like an aggressive idiot in case it is indeed my mistake and not theirs.

        I sometimes have to work on not being TOO deferential (I’m a woman in a male-dominated field), but I much prefer it to the type of person that is just always aggressively, unapologetically wrong.

        1. academic fashion*

          I 100% sound like the example given and it’s almost never passive aggressive –– that’s just how I sound.

          Overall I think judging the tone of emails, whether “too flowery” or “too spartan,” is a road leading nowhere, since there can be a whole bunch of geographic / social / personal reasons for tone, and judge the content –– are you accomplishing what you need, in the time frame that you need?

        2. Annie2*

          Yeah, I think I tend to be a bit more spartan but I do phrase things somewhat similarly to the OP for the exact reasons you say.

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      That sounds like perfectly normal phrasing to me. I wouldn’t think it insincere or over-the-top or even more polite or friendly than the average e-mail.

      1. londonedit*

        I agree. In a similar situation I’d probably say something like ‘Hi Julie, Sorry to be a pain but I noticed the attached still has the tax included. Would you mind removing the tax and resubmitting? Thanks!’

        I would absolutely not mean anything OTT or pass-agg with that (and I’m British so believe me I can do pass-agg). The above is just the normal way that we communicate with each other where I work, and it’s been the same across all the jobs I’ve had. Either it’s an industry thing or a location thing. If someone responded with a blank email just containing the invoice – not even a ‘Here you go’ or ‘Revised invoice attached, thanks’ or whatever – I would definitely take that as weirdly rude or cold and I’d wonder what was going on.

        1. Juniper*

          Both things can be true — it’s weirdly cold of Julie to just send a blank email, and OP’s approach may not be suitable for this type of interaction, with this person. I now live in a country with a much more direct style, and have had to way tone down my Minnesota niceness accordingly. Any email that begins a normal request with “sorry” would be viewed strangely here. Same with an email that includes the phrases “I believe” or “let me know if I’m wrong” when the facts of the matter are apparent to all.
          Point is, modulation has to happen on both ends. OP is 100% aware of Julie’s brusque style — that’s not in question, and we’re all in agreement that she is being rude. But OP is 50% of the interaction, and it doesn’t sound like she’s reassessing her own style at all — only expecting Julie to change.

        2. Ellis Bell*

          Co-signed, it doesn’t sound deferential or overly polite to me at all. It simply sounds like a conversational, well written email.

      2. Caramel & Cheddar*

        Agree. LW is asking for Julie to fix the invoice, but is open to the possibility that the LW is wrong about the tax issue. Maybe there’s something LW doesn’t know about tax as it relates to this client or the items being charged and Julie left the tax off on purpose. (I work somewhere that has all sorts of permutations on tax that most colleagues couldn’t begin to explain or keep track of.) This time it was Julie’s mistake, but next time it might not be, and it’s not weird to be open to the possibility that you’re the one who is wrong.

      1. Red Canary*

        I don’t think OP is being insincere, but their communication style might be contributing to the clash here! If this is how they naturally communicate, while Julie is naturally someone who is a bit more curt, then I’m not surprised they’re rubbing each other the wrong way.

  19. couture zebra*

    LW1: It depends if your employer has enough employees (15) to be subject to federal law, but if so, you might be able to get an accommodation under the ADA, because you need to be able to communicate with your doctors office due to a health issue. FYI: you do not need to disclose what the medical condition is, you need to disclose what you need accommodation, ie, the need to communicate with your doctor. You will likely need a note from your doctor supporting this.

    What that accommodation looks like is hard to say, but one thing that comes to mind is that your lunch break might possibly be at the same time your doctor’s office stops taking calls for their lunch, if they do that, so an accommodation might be to just shift the time of your lunch break.

    Or give you permission to to ask clients in front of you to please wait a moment as you take a call coming in (or off hold) from your doctor’s office, acting to the client like it’s a business call, but also stepping away from your desk into a slightly more private space if you need to discuss something clearly about health, rather than scheduling an appointment, etc.

    1. Starbuck*

      I’m laughing because the LW would need documentation from her doctor to get the accommodation, which would require communication with the doctor’s office. This seems like just adding more steps that are the whole problem in the first place.

  20. LW3*

    I was a bit careless when writing in, and I used the two words interchangeably, but I was indeed fired. They are not replacing me due to budget concerns, and realizing maybe the role shouldn’t have been created in there first place. I live in Europe, so the structure of employment is a bit different. Thank you for answering my letter! I will continue to ignore her, guilt free.

    1. Isabel Archer*

      Do yourself a kindness in this difficult time and block the former coworker on your phone altogether.

      1. Smurfette*

        Agree!

        And OP I’m sorry you had this crappy experience. Firing someone because they couldn’t do a job *that isn’t what they weren’t hired for* is so much BS.

        In my country (we have very employee-friendly labour laws) you’d definitely have a case against them.

        And the fact that they’re not replacing you / don’t in fact need someone in that role underlines to their incompetence.

      3. nerak*

        Was also going to say, just block her! You owe this person nothing, she is not your friend, and you should never have to hear from her ever again, so block and be free!

    2. MsSolo (UK)*

      If they’re not replacing you in the role, in the UK that would be a redundancy – the role would have ended regardless of who was in it, high or low performer, because the role itself was redundant to the business needs. Generally, you are supposed to try and find another role for someone being made redundant, but I know a lot of people who’ve either been told there are no other roles, or the only role available are so significantly different it doesn’t apply (like offering a curator a job in the museum cafe). Certainly, for applications and interviews, the fact they got rid of the role means you’re justified in calling it a redundancy (or laid off) rather than being fired.

      (and definitely keep ignoring her! Block or mute, if you can)

    3. Ellis Bell*

      If the it was the role itself which was axed, that is very different to you being found inadequate for the role. If you had no performance concerns whatsoever and it was simply a budgetary decision, you need to be careful about the word ‘fired’ as it is implying they got rid of *you* instead of getting rid of the *role*. In the UK what you are describing is a redundancy, unless you were also disciplined and fired for cause before the budget cut happened.

    4. Generic Name*

      Huh. Maybe firing versus layoff mean different things in different places? In the US, a role being eliminated and therefore the person in that role being let go is a layoff. A firing is when someone is let go because they couldn’t/wouldn’t do their job or stole or something.

      1. Starbuck*

        And “couldn’t do the job” has more than one possibility – not fulfilling the expectations you signed on for is one thing, but having the position significantly change duties/scope beyond your experience after starting definitely isn’t the same.

        1. Generic Name*

          I mean the former, not the latter. The latter should be a layoff, but if they tell you that it’s a firing, then you were set up to fail.

  21. Green great dragon*

    Lw could suggest their Drs office gets one of those systems that tell you how many people are ahead of you in the queue. if it’s several, lw can keep their earbuds in and work as normal, when it gets to the last one or two they can step away or warn their customer they may need to stop suddenly.

  23. Mid*

    LW 1: If you can take your lunch later or earlier than typical, that also might help with wait time. If they open at 9am, try calling at 10:30 (after the first wave of morning calls but before lunch) or 2:30 (after lunch but before everyone trying to cr in the end of day.)

    LW 2: It doesn’t sound like this is fully your situation, but I work in a role that has a LOT of people emailing me requests for things. I usually include the niceties on the first email to that person that day, but tend to just reply with the file for every time after that. I didn’t realize that anyone would be hurt by that or see it as rude. I wish more people would just email me what I need without including half a paragraph of niceties, honestly. You aren’t wrong for finding it rude, but I also wonder about Jane’s workload and if she’s feeling overwhelmed or has to sent 300 invoices a day, etc. Or if other people at your company prefer she just sends the file and no words in the response email, so she’s done that now.

    1. MsM*

      I’m wondering exactly where invoices fall in Jane’s job responsibilities – they could be something she’s been trying to offload or that take time away from things she really needs to focus on, and so having to go back and make corrections hits differently than it would if she were being asked to edit something else.

      No, I’m not projecting at all, why do you ask?

    2. rebelwithmouseyhair*

      I have built niceties into my signature, making it a template for a nice email, so all I have to do is add the actual thing I need to say between the Hi, hope you are well and the Best regards.

    3. kalli*

      I know some people who will scan a document and put the recip’s email in so they get the scan straight away instead of forwarding it.

      I have clients who will scan each page individually, forward me like 9 emails of scans and then send a 10th to say they sent it, and an email every two-three hours after until they receive a response.

      People and computers, what do. The only issue here is needing to chase work up, which isn’t OP’s problem to deal with.

  24. CraigT*

    OP3: Were you laid off, or were you fired? Huge difference. Also, why haven’t you blocked your former coworker? Takes about a second on my phone. Takes a few more seconds, if she’s using email. Stop allowing yourself to be pushed around

  25. Angstrom*

    LW2: In my office “See attached” — and nothing more — is a normal response to a simple request for a file.

  26. Paladin1138*

    As someone who lives in a rare “30 minute” time zone (Newfoundland Canada, specifically – we are 1 hour and 30 minutes ahead of Eastern Time) I am VERY careful about timezones in correspondence, and I spell it out so there’s no confusion as all.

    I usually end up just defaulting to using “2pm Eastern Time” when talking to anyone outside of my own weird little timezone because no one knows about that weird 30 minutes.

    1. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      We love your time zone in our office because when we want to say “it’s 5:00 somewhere” at about 4:30 when we’re aching to leave, we say “It’s Nova Scotia somewhere” because that buys us our half hour. Perhaps I should swap to Newfoundland.

      1. AndieK*

        You should: Nova Scotia is on Atlantic Time, which uses an integer number of hours offset from UTC/GMT, and so can’t buy you a half hour. It’s an hour ahead of Eastern Time, so in practice it probably accomplishes what you want!

        If you are particularly looking for something that has an additional half-hour offset from UTC/GMT, then you have to go further east to Newfoundland. I’ll note that the province is (now) called “Newfoundland and Labrador” but my understanding is that while legally the whole province uses Newfoundland Time, in practice Labrador (the mainland with under 25k people) uses Atlantic Time and Newfoundland (the island further east with about 500k people) uses Newfoundland time.

    2. iglwif*

      Off topic: When I was a little girl in Alberta in the late 70s and early 80s, the only radio station every played in our house was (what was then called) CBC FM, and the little news updates on the hour would always say “It’s X:00, X:30 in Newfoundland.”

      I had no idea what or where Newfoundland was until whatever grade it was where we learned all the provinces and territories, but in my mind it was this magical, possibly mythical place where everything happened half an hour sooner, and I really wanted to go there and check it out.

  27. Higgs Bison*

    “Otherwise, I think you’re probably stuck with confining them to lunch.”

    What’s your recourse if hold times exceed the length of your lunch?

  28. Oh my, let's be efficient*

    I mostly agree with Alison on the email thing…I used to always put a greeting and closing and words in the email. I realized that served no purpose for emails to a single user – this isn’t snail mail where the recipient needs to know who sent them this and which occupant of the dwelling it belongs to. I now only include anything in the text of the email if it is relevant (ie this was last updated this month, if you are looking for the original document please let me know) or if there is a group email in which everyone should see the response but it is truly only relevant to a single person…so…maybe the change was about you, maybe it just happened to coincide with when you needed extra work from this person, but I definitely wouldn’t request someone so extra work that clearly isn’t necessary…unless you are managing this employee then it works be your prerogative if you’d like to force her to set up an email template that autofills what you want in the text of the email every time, but I also don’t know why you’d want to waste your time reading “hello recipient, here is the thing, cheers sender” with every email. Leaving it blank makes it clear no further action is required.

    1. Red Canary*

      A greeting and closing are just more polite. And look– I like to get to the point in my emails, but saying “Hi Jane, please see attached, Thanks,” comes across better than a blank email. Sometimes it’s annoying to write! But a tiny bit of friendliness does make your work relationships smoother (and it means you don’t get your supervisor telling you that you need to work on your email communication, which is feedback I have had before).

  29. Cat Lover*

    Ah yes, good ole time zones. I admit it took me until college to understand EST vs EDT (I’ve been in Eastern time zone my whole life minus a few years). I tend to default to ET/CT/MT/PT. Thankfully I do not deal with the Arizona type places that do their own thing. My siblings are spread out from coast to coast so I’m always cognizant.

    Fun little story- when I was in elementary school, my best friend moved to London for two years (a year or so after I just moved back from France). This was the height of AIM chat, so our parents put us “in charge” of figuring out the time zones so we could find mutual times to chat each other :) generally it was right after I got home from school/ right before she got ready for bed. 22 years later our friendship is still going strong.

  30. 653-CXK*

    LW#2: I’ve been prone to sending out one-line terse emails, but sometimes it happens when I’m in the middle of something else and I need to concentrate. E.g. “Llama shaving report completed; see above.”

    I think tone in an email is important. Warm tone from the sender? I will be happy to help you and perhaps give you extra information (“Here’s the llama shaving report – and also, if you need it, predictions for the next month’s llama shaving report.”) Frustrated or snippy tone? I’ll still help you out (“Thanks for letting me know – I thought I sent you the correct report; please see above.”). When it gets to “who do I need to speak to to get this done” or “We’ve been more than patient” territory, that report gets sent with a CC to my boss and other people who are involved (“I’m looping in my boss; we’re waiting for the last llama shavers to complete their reports for us and they should be in [insert time frame here]; we’ll keep you posted on the progress.”).

    Trust me, I’ve been tempted to send a “get off my back, you’ll get the report when I’m ready” response – but it isn’t worth it.

  31. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

    LW4, you’re overthinking this. I roll my eyes when people do it too, but they’re absolutely not indicating that they personally don’t observe Daylight Savings Time. Just say “Eastern Time” or “ET” in your reply. “EDT” risks looking nitpicky.

    (My related pet peeve is when people say “are you free for a meeting at 3 pm” when they know we’re in different timezones and don’t clarify whose 3 pm they’re asking about!)

    1. uncivil servant*

      Yup. I think a lot of commenters are overthinking this a bit, but as long as you know where the other person is located a “my time” or “your time” is kind of the baseline! Anything else can be solved with a quick google.

    2. rebelwithmouseyhair*

      I assume if someone is not specifying my time or their time, that they are thinking of themselves. And being ever the pedant, I’ll specify in my reply.

    3. Kuddel Daddeldu*

      I’ll send them an invite for a time that makes sense (i.e., is during reasonable business hours both ends) if that’s an easy call to make; if both make sense, I pick the one that’s convenient for me (because that’s what theymeant, right?).
      Then the calendar software can make the conversion.

  32. Charley*

    #2: It doesn’t seem likely that you have much hope of your relationship with this person in a meaningful way, so as long as you get what you need from her to do your job, if I were you I’d try to reframe my thinking into seeing the lack of email fluff as a positive, or at least neutral quality.

  33. Victor WembanLlama*

    Every year some friends and I get together for a fantasy baseball draft and to rank the time zones. Here are our results for 2024:

    1) Eastern
    2) Pacific
    3) Central
    4) Mountain

      1. illuminate*

        This tickles me. I don’t have very strong opinions right now but would love to have a tierlist ranking party with my friends like this. Since many are from far distances I assume it would be lively!

  34. Audrey Puffins*

    I used to work in a busy high school, I learned not to take bare bones emails personally. Admittedly, it doesn’t sound like Julie is knocking these out in between lessons and you’re lucky she even had three seconds to spare for you, she does just seem to be choosing to be this way, but sometimes you don’t have any context to add or the time to spend on pleasantries. So although I’d never dream of sending emails like that myself, I figure it’s just Julie’s way and she doesn’t necessarily mean anything by it (and even if she does and she’s being passive aggressive for some reason, you can just cheerfully refuse to pick up what she’s putting down unless and until she actually uses her words).

  35. Bookworm*

    Letter 1 – do the doctor’s appts need to be made over the phone? My medical group has an online patient portal and I can request appts via the portal. Maybe not as quick as on the phone, but you also don’t have to wait on hold.

  36. Jane Bingley*

    I’ve moved away from the acronyms and started using attendees’ city names instead (eg: this meeting is at 8am Los Angeles/10am Chicago/11am New York).

    Also, the tool World Time Buddy is an absolute lifesaver, especially if you work globally and need to account for DST changing at different times of year in different places!

  37. SS*

    I work with volunteers frequently in my role. One is particularly persnickety and he once corrected me when I wrote “EST” when it should’ve been “EDT.” Let me tell you, it *definitely* came across as overly particular. Now, I just use “ET.”

    I have a friend who has a need to be right even when it doesn’t matter. Correcting EST vs. EDT comes across as needing to be right even when it doesn’t matter! Resist the urge to correct it.

  38. AnonAnon*

    #1: Do you have any kind of employee assistance program at work? Through my EAP we have a benefit of someone who can make appointments on your behalf. I have used the service when I needed to make second opinion appointments, for example.
    I think you can give them a list of dates/times you are free and they can schedule.

    1. musical chairs*

      This is the best advice, I hope that the LW has a service like this! A lot of people are ignoring that they are receptionist and are specifically supposed to be and appear responsive on behalf of their employer as a main part of their job

  39. Week Old Sourdough*

    LW2, I would not take this personally, though I am curious if you work with Julie IRL or have talked to her? Is she cold and curt typically, or mostly fine if not overly warm?
    If I knew and worked with someone closely, I wouldn’t think twice about a sparse email- we converse IRL enough not to need niceties formalized in writing. If you have never met her, this might be worth a phone call just to introduce yourself. Perhaps that could bridge whatever gap you think is there.

    Regardless, she is free to act one way and you another, this is not something I would take personally or think is even very rude.

  40. Pdweasel*

    LW #1: Tell your doctor that this is going on. Often times they don’t know what’s happening with the front desk/scheduling side of things. But what you’re describing is BS and needs to be addressed.

  41. Former claims adjuster*

    OP1- small protip I figured out when I used to have to call doctor offices and hospitals all the time for my job: try calling them first thing in the morning before everyone else is awake and calling them too.

    It they open at 8am, call at 8:03. It really cut down on how long I had to wait for most facilities.

  42. PieAdmin*

    If LW1’s hold times are indeed “extremely long”, lunch might still not be enough time, especially if her lunch is only 30 minutes. I wonder if she could speak to her doctor directly and explain that she really needs the schedulers to return her calls. Maybe they have a general policy against doing that but can make an exception.

  43. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

    LW2, it’s kinda… weird that you think sending that email would do anything except make the issue worse. It certainly paints a picture of some possible underlying reasons for the tension.

    1. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      And yet it did work and you are wrong. She updated upthread that she sent the email before Alison responded and it worked out great with the coworker.

  44. RagingADHD*

    LW2, I am a brief (but not blank) emailer who works with a very, very over-enthusiastic emailer who explains obvious things in minute detail, apologizes excessively in advance for routine requests, and takes everything extremely personally.

    This coworker of mine is exhausting. They think they are a great communicator, but they are not, because they make simple things complicated, and complicated things unintelligible.

    I have, on occasion, missed a question that was buried under five paragraphs of convoluted verbiage, because my eyes glazed over and I was skimming. My bad, but I’m doing my best.

    When I (or anyone else that I’m cc’ed on) misses something like that, the follow up is excruciating. They don’t mean to be condescending, I know that intellectually – they’re a very nice person IRL. But instead of just saying “and what about x,” they break down the question and give a long-winded explanation of why they need the information (which we already knew).

    Nobody is refusing to answer their questions or needs to be persuaded. We just couldn’t see it for all the noise.

    I don’t hate this person and am not trying to send them passive-aggressive messages, but the longer I work with them, the more and more brief my emails are. So far, I am still managing to say stuff like “here you go!” but there are days when I have to put my head down on my desk for a minute, just to work up the strength to wade through one of these full-screen tomes that could have been two sentences.

    I am not saying you are exactly like my coworker. But I am looking at your expectation that Jane should send a formal cover note with a salutation and sign off, *every time she forwards an internal copy of an invoice,* and it makes me wonder whether you might operate more on my coworkers’ end of the range, rather than mine.

    It is entirely possible that Jane just has a really different communication style and is trying to minimize the time spent emailing, rather than deliberately being rude to you.

  45. Lusara*

    Re LW1, most doctors offices close for lunch, so unless her lunch break is at a non-standard time, she can’t at lunch.

  46. sadness*

    To the standard/daylight time: at last job interview they said : 2pm EST in May. I wrote back asking if it was EST or EDT. the recruiter told me there was no difference, that they were the same thing. (His words). Ok then ….

  47. Bookworm*

    Forgot to include about letter #2:

    The bare bones email with just the attachment is pretty common in my office, especially if you’ve been going back and forth on getting something just right. But usually we’ll just say “here you go” or similar and attach the document.

  48. Marple*

    LW 1 – Can you use your office phone to make the call. Then when someone walks up to you from the public you can let them know you’re on hold and may get interrupted but you want to try to help as many people in the meantime. They won’t know it’s a personal call and will appreciate that you are trying to squeeze them in. It can work the same for phone calls except that you would use your own phone to call the doctor’s office. This has worked for me.

    1. musical chairs*

      They work as a receptionist. They cannot tie up their employers main line for long periods of time with an outbound call.

  49. Maleficent*

    LW1 – on my Android Google Pixel, there’s an option called Hold For Me. Also, I use earbuds and sometimes a neck speaker with Bluetooth microphone. These tools together (Hold For Me + neck speaker) allow me to do other things while being able to VERY quickly pick up the phone when I’m off hold. I hope this helps!

  50. Somewhere in Texas*

    LW #1- Any chance you can do a single AirPod in your ear while you are on hold? You can courteously explain to any clients approaching that you are on hold, but you can take care of them while you wait. This alerts them to you not being rude and gives you a little grace if you have to step away if you come off hold.

    It might also be helpful to explain this to your supervisor with all the details you shared here so they are on the same page.

  51. Carol*

    I work internationally and just writing “eastern” for example wouldn’t cut it. Even abbreviating to ET wouldn’t be clear. I do think I usually write EST regardless of if it’s EST or EDT

  52. samwise*

    OP 1. Several thoughts.
    1. Use some of your PTO or sick leave (I know…) and go to the doctor’s office in person to get your scheduling done/questions answered.
    2. Does the doctor’s office have an online portal? If so, give that a try.
    3.Your doctor’s office sucks. The next time you see your doctor, explain the problem, especially the hangups by the office and the unreturned calls
    4. Your doctor’s office sucks. If possible, find a new doctor, then let your current doctor know why you are switching, and post an online review, as well.

    1. Anon Attorney*

      I was going to suggest the same thing as #4. If it’s possible, switching doctors may be the answer here because not every office is like this. I have switched doctors because the first office was too busy to be responsive and had long wait times for appointments, and I like my new one a lot better.

    2. Orv*

      It’s important to do #4 in the correct order. I left an online review after my doctor’s office handled something badly, and now I’m blackballed from their whole provider group, in a town that doesn’t have many doctors. It wasn’t even that negative a review, like 3/5 stars.

  53. Mermaid of the Lunacy*

    #2 … I work with a similar prickly person and it’s infuriating when simple requests are met with responses that have to work in a little dig. My favorite this week was “I can’t be expected to be the company historian” when I asked if she remembered something from a couple of years ago. WOW.

    I’ve turned dealing with her into a sort of game just to keep my sanity. I am sweet as pie. I ignore her digs. I will keep asking the same question five times if I need to to get what I need from her. I’ve given up expecting her to be nice. More importantly, I’ve given up walking on eggshells around her in the hopes things might be different THIS time. They never will be, so I might as well just have a little bit of fun when I have to deal with her. I am always civil, I just don’t expect anything different.

  54. IReallyNeedAName*

    LW1 I feel your pain. I have the same issue and have been doing the same as you; staying on hold until I have to help a customer. Is there someone else in your office and could be cross trained to take over in cases like this?

    Most of the doctors in my area have stating using online portals. This has helped a lot as you can send a message and they actually respond.

    1 time they called me when I was helping a client. As soon as I was done, I checked the message. I immediately called back and left messages for 2 days and no one called me back and I couldn’t get a person on the phone. I show up for my appointment and they were extremely rude and told me that I would have to reschedule (next appointment over a month away) because I didn’t answer when they called me for the pre-check. I informed them I didn’t answer because I was actively working with a client and I called and left messages for 2 days afterwards and they didn’t answer or return my calls. I said a lot of people do work, cannot always drop everything to take a call and that some employers don’t allow cell phone use during work hours. “Oh, I didn’t think about that.”

    I use the portals, try and schedule appointments online and when I have to call, I just hang on until and can’t and call back. This is an issue with pretty much every doctors office in my area, so it does no good to change doctors.

  55. Anon Attorney*

    LW 2 – I made the mistake of complaining about something like this at my workplace and so I recommend letting this one go. I recently got a new supervisor (my old supervisor is now one level higher) and the new supervisor has a very formal way of communicating that comes off extremely icy and disrespectful to me, when I always come off as warm and friendly and expect the same. I complained about that to my old supervisor and she didn’t see anything wrong with the e-mails and made me go to a training about different communication styles. So – learn from my mistake, LW! Just accept it’s a different communication style and don’t take it personal, or else it comes off as petty.

    1. TheBunny*

      Agreed. LW is getting the work product. Complaining she’s not nice enough while doing it will sound petty

    2. spcepickle*

      Yup – In person I am super friendly but because I am not always confidant in my writing it comes across as super formal. Tone is hard in written communication.

      1. Anon Attorney*

        Exactly. Ditto with my supervisor. I just wasn’t used to the written communication style, and had to depersonalize it.

        1. TheBunny*

          It’s definitely a challenge sometimes…but ultimately a lot better than making a complaint that is essentially “She’s mean to me. “

    3. Rachel*

      To be fair, you can’t actually control whether you “come off” as warm as friendly. You may try to BE warm and friendly, and possibly you’ll come off that way to most people, but we can’t perceive ourselves on behalf of others.

      1. Anon Attorney*

        I don’t 100% agree with that. You can control how clear you are and double check to make sure something can’t be interpreted poorly. That said, I agree that I needed to be more open to the fact that in the workplace, perceptions differ.

        1. RagingADHD*

          Oh, something can always be interpreted poorly. There is no way to totally eliminate that possibility.

    4. iglwif*

      Agreed. I’m more of a Jane in emails and less of a Julie; I’ve worked with a number of Julies and I dislike their communication style, which seems curt and cold to me, but it is 100% not worth the social capital to complain about it or try to change it.

      The one thing LW2 can and should try to change is the thing where Julie takes an unreasonably long time to send things she’s been asked for that are her job to send. But it has to be about the effect on LW’s ability to do HER job and not about what Julie’s emails sound like.

  56. Observer*

    #1 – Long hold times.

    That stinks. Is it possible for you to have earbuds and keep one earbud in? This way you can work with people while you are on hold but can pivot *immediately* when you someone FINALLY comes on line?

    Also, is there any way to can do any of these things on line? A lot of practices, especially the ones attached to large practices are moving more things on line – like one of my providers allows me to schedule / makes changes on line, so I can do this on my own time.

  57. Dovasary Balitang*

    #1 – I’d recommend getting Bluetooth earbuds, hooking them up to your phone, and keeping one in while you’re on hold at the office. It won’t disrupt anyone else in the office, you can keep your spot in the queue, and quietly move to a private room when they finally pick up. And you can (maybe) hide it behind your hair if necessary.

    1. Dovasary Balitang*

      Also… I would be furious at how that particular medical office is operating and I hope you are too! Once you can switch providers, I find a scathing Google review is the only complaint that actually gets any traction.

        1. Observer*

          Not necessarily true. There are absolutely practices that have at least one reasonable option. My GP does schedule on their portal, but everything else is there, and they *do* return calls.

          A couple of specialists are in a major health system where my GP is affiliated. Their on-line scheduling just . . . works. They do telehealth for some things, which is great for those things. And the one time I had a potential issue with something they did actually call me.

  58. Three Owls in a Trench Coat*

    LW1:
    Is there a patient portal? I would use it for ALL communication with the doctor’s office, including a complaint about the phones.

    If there’s no portal, you may need to find another doctor. I recently went through a significant scare, and the specialist I was referred to was great. Her office was terrible. They didn’t give me intake forms when I arrived, and no one would return any of my 5 voice messages. The only person I could get to was scheduling. I ultimately canceled my follow-up appointments and found someone else, which delayed my treatment. It wasn’t until the week before my now-canceled follow-up that the doctor herself called me to ask why. I let her know why. Unvarnished truth. She said she was aware other patients had similar complaints, and I replied that maybe she should consider either raising hell with office management or joining a different practice.

  59. R*

    LW #4 I feel your pain. It’s really frustrating because you *know* what they mean but it’s still not correct but it’s so trivial it’s hardly worth correcting. Alison’s advice is what I also use, both because it’s shorter and more flexible, and also because I never remember if I need to use D or S

  60. Contracts Killer*

    LW #1, there are some apps that will stay on hold for you and some phones have it built in. My Google Pixel has “call assist” and it will stay on hold for you and ring when someone answers. I did a quick internet search and it looks like there are several apps, some free, that do this, including “Hold For Me.”

  61. MHG*

    LW3’s texts from the former coworker are reminding me how much I hate the question, “How’s the job search going?” I get that people are trying to be nice, but there are no good ways to answer the question. I usually say, “Not sure!” with a laugh (during times I’m searching) but man, I wish it’s one people would stop asking. Just go with “hope the job search will go well for you soon” and move on.

    1. JustaTech*

      I was on the outside of a situation like LW 3’s – a coworker got laid off because of COVID, and our other coworker just kept texting her asking how her job search was going (in summer of 2020!) and offering suggestions and stuff.
      Then “helpful” coworker would complain to me that laid off coworker wasn’t responding, or only responded briefly.
      I said “I know you mean well, but she’s really upset and having a hard time, and isn’t going to take any communication from us well, and you *know* that she’s going to hear what you’re saying as criticism” (this had been a huge issue between them when they worked together).

      In that case “helpful” coworker did actually want to help, but she’s also a huge [stuff]-stirrer, and has serious Main Character Syndrome.

      I feel that “how’s the job search going” is like “how’s your dissertation coming” or “how’s the baby-making going” – they’re questions that you shouldn’t ask, because if it’s going well people will tell you, and if it’s not going well they probably don’t want to talk about it with you.

  62. Ex-prof*

    LW 1– What is even up with doctor’s offices? While reading this I just got a call back for an appointment after I’d left two messages, the most recent one a week and a half ago.

    Shouldn’t they be hiring more receptionists?

    Another doctor I stopped seeing because she had zero receptionists– no staff at all, in fact, and was doing it all herself, from appointments to insurance filings… or rather not doing it.

    1. Elbe*

      I’ve been noticing this a lot, actually. I recently switched doctors offices because this, but have also had bad experiences with bakeries and spas and salons and other businesses, as well. It seems to be a trend across the board somehow.

  63. a.n.o.n.*

    We usually just will say the location when we’re scheduling calls, so “1pm DC time” or
    “10 am California time.” Helps avoid ambiguity (from a recovering pedant who also can never remember when we’re in standard and when we’re in daylight)

  64. TheBunny*

    LW#2

    I meant to add, and forgot, to also make sure you’re follow up emails are reasonable before you cc her boss.

    Asked on the 1st and need the invoice on the 19th? Emailing a follow up on the 2nd, or even the 6th, isn’t being proactive…it’s allowing that she’s not “nice” to you to color whether or not her response timeline is reasonable.

    If you email on the 1st and it’s due the 2nd…why did you wait until the last minute?

    Not saying you are doing any of this…but if my team came to me and complained someone hadn’t done something immediately that was due in 14 days, my reply would be that maybe they have things due in 11 days that they are working on.

  65. spcepickle*

    I get many emails a day with either an attachment or a link to something I need to signed (government work means stupid steps).
    If it is an attachment I sign it, reattach it and send it back. That is often the whole email.
    With a link I reply back – signed.

    I am friendly, my team likes me, most of my other emails include more words.

    Emails that answer your question without any other hello / goodbye are not rude and you should 100% drop this rope.

    You can focus on the part where you don’t get a reply in a timely manner. Start giving a deadline in your emails, and if it is disrupting your workflow to wait loop in managers.

  66. Ginger Cat Lady*

    I feel that doctor’s office one, so much. I’m not currently working as I deal with health issues, and between making appointments, attending appointments, dealing with insurance, and doing my at-home PT, it’s about 30 hours a week. And being on hold is easily 8-10 hours of that. I can’t imagine if I was trying to hold down a job at the same time.

  67. Dawn*

    #1 – Some phones nowadays have a “hold for me” function – much as I hate to recommend them lately, I know Google’s been including it with their latest phones, and that might be an option for you.

    Also, since they keep trying and failing to call you, could you maybe discuss with the office whether it’s possible to email in your case if they actually want a reply? I had an arrangement like that with one of my specialists, where they didn’t usually email but knew I was unable to answer calls during the day.

  68. urban planner*

    LW #1 I recently switched doctors because of a similar issue. My previous doctor’s office didn’t even have long hold times – you had to leave a VM (after listening to an excruciatingly long message) and then a receptionist would call back on their schedule, inevitably at the worst possible time for me. After the zillionth instance of helplessly watching my phone ring from the doctor’s office while in an important meeting with my boss, I switched. I told my doctor why I was leaving and he was genuinely surprised and had no idea it was an issue. He offered to try and get my calls prioritized but by that point I was already getting set up with my new doctor.

    1. Liz the Snackbrarian*

      The lab tech at my doctor’s office has her phone go straight to voicemail when she’s on another line and you can only call until 3 PM and she doesn’t return calls. I would try her at various times of day and never get through. Plus when I try to schedule an appointment I would get like “You are number 20 in the queue” messages. I think I am over this practice.

      1. Elbe*

        How do they expect anyone to deal with this long-term? How would they deal with this long-term? The nature of healthcare is that many non-emergency situations still require treatment in a reliable timeframe.

        Maybe they think every other provider has similar awful policies, and they are banking on people just not having any other options? Or, they know that it is terrible but there are outside factors preventing them from improving?

        1. Dawn*

          I think an awful lot of medical offices these days overcommit and use this as a tool to manage their workload. The philosophy is that anyone who genuinely needs care will find a way to get in touch, whether it’s taking time off or sheer persistence or actually showing up in person.

          And some of that is just straight up terrible, and some of that is outside factors – we simply don’t have enough medical professionals anymore to provide full care for everyone. In my city, 1 in 5 people doesn’t have a family doctor and it’s been that way for years. Not for lack of trying, there just aren’t enough. My own doctor told me straight up that he’s overcommitted but he knows how badly people need a family doctor and he’s trying to serve as many people as he possibly can, and asked me to take issues to my specialists whenever possible because he just can’t make time to see me all that often.

        2. Nightengale*

          Outside factors

          I’m employed by a large health system
          There is only so much I can do
          Decisions are made 4 steps up by bean counters who try to standardize everything while simultaneously send out feel-good e-mails about individualizing patient care

          I can’t make the portal work (we tried to turn it on for established patients to schedule f0llow-ups and somehow it started letting new patients self-schedule. Trust me when I say that doesn’t work for my practice/specialty. But it would help a ton if the follow-up patients could self-schedule)

          My office manager and I can’t get permission to post positions for support staff we need.

          I couldn’t get permission to schedule appointments for patients. I didn’t want to do that for patients calling in all day, but for patients maybe I was already on the phone with, or doing telehealth with, or seeing late in the day after the scheduler left for the day. I asked. I begged. I was told “if we let you do that, we’d have to let all the other doctors do it.” (ok?)

  69. Somehow I Manage*

    OP1 – I’m getting here later in the day so I haven’t read all the comments, but wanted to chime in with an idea. Forgive me if this has been suggested. I’m wondering if you can arrange a little cover for yourself with this situation. Can you talk to a coworker, let them know you’re waiting for your doctor’s office to pick up after lengthy hold times, and ask them to cover when you need to step away? Thinking this would be something like covering you in the event you need a restroom break. And you could loop your manager in just that Jack might be covering you so you can take that short call when they finally pick up.

    As for what to do with the phone on hold… is there a way you can pop in a single earbud, have the phone call engaged, but have the volume down enough that whatever the music/message on hold is isn’t too distracting? Then take a page out of my daughters’ playbook and, if your hair length allows, have it down over your ear so it isn’t terribly obvious that you have an earbud in. Or, if that’s not possible, just have your phone on speaker with the volume down enough so it isn’t distracting. Then hop up when the person you’re waiting for finally picks up.

    I hate that you’re going through this, and I absolutely share your frustrations.

  70. Tradd*

    About the time zone issue:

    I’m a customs broker/work in international transportation. I often deal with Asia, so people who are 12 hours ahead of where I am in the US. I will open up my emails on Monday and see people based in Asia screaming at me on multiple emails for not yet replying to an email that they originally sent on Saturday morning my time. I repeatedly tell them I do not have access to email outside of business hours, but they either don’t care or don’t account for the time difference.

  71. Mgguy*

    I can be a bit of a stickler about saying “CST” and “CDT”(my current time zones) or whatever, but also recognize that for a variety of reasons people just use “standard” constantly and I won’t begrudge anyone for my personal quirks(stuff like this can be an occupational/educational hazard of being an analytical chemist-most of us love measurements, units, and being precise/exact in communication of those).

    As my name on here might indicate, I have an old MG. Within the MG owner community, we have one fairly prominent mechanic/technical writer who is well known for his articles, more recently Youtube videos, and also for being prominent at most shows and meets. I’ve gotten to know him fairly well, and in communication(such as setting up a time to talk, or for his phone in “technical hours” or whatever) he will always specify “New York Time.” I realize that’s an antiquated usage, but it also fits his personality and communication style well, and is also completely unambiguous. Interestingly enough, as best as I’m aware, he actually lives in the central time zone(he’s in Michigan) so presumably operates on “Chicago Time” in daily life, but there again communication is always “New York Time.”

    As it so happens, I also live in Illinois, which is one of the states that has signed onto the multi-state pact to abolish standard time. I’m very much in favor of it, but if that ever takes effect it will be interesting(I forget how many states trigger it, and how many are currently on it). Where I live, a lot of people, including my wife, work in Missouri(we are considered part of the St. Louis area). A lot of people who work in Chicago live in Indiana and Wisconsin. There are other little pockets of the state where people live in one and work in the other(Quad Cities in Iowa/Illinois, for example, or maybe to a small extent people working in Paducah, KY who live in Illinois). I can see that being a nightmare for anyone who spends part of the year with their work and home clocks out of sync.

  72. Sybil Writes*

    LW3: Be grateful that you have so little experience with this type of “work friend” that you haven’t immediately recognized her game. She is the worst kind of gossip – one who doesn’t just ‘pass along’ juicy tidbits, but actively seeks them out, is willing to shake your tree to see what falls out. She wants to be the one from old company who can update others as to whether you are struggling or finding a new position. Worst case – she’s just nasty. Best case – rather than actually developing healthy friendships, she is willing to manipulate you so she can give the impression to others that you and she were closer than you were. Even if the truth lays somewhere between, you would do well to be done with her. To the depths of my soul I suspect kindness plays little to no part in her behavior.
    Good luck with your search and I am sorry you got the old bait and switch treatment in terms of job description.

  73. Anony4883*

    2. My rude coworker sends me the most bare-bones emails possible

    It sounds like a small enough issue that I wouldn’t bring it up. This is one of those where if you bring it up, then it might make the relationship you have with her worse. I have a lot of colleagues, mainly those not very good with email or are extremely busy that will just send attachments and not write anything. I do it the same way back to them. If someone is polished, then I will be polished back. I usually go off of what the other person seems to do more.

  74. MA Dad*

    My beef with Daylight Savings (as if anybody asked) is when it got changed from “Falling Back” in early Nov instead of late October around 20 years ago. Kids lost 1 hour of Trick or Treating time so instead of going out at 5pm, they go out at 6pm when it’s dark enough for houses to turn their lights on and they are still turning their lights off around 8pm.

  75. 1 Non Blonde*

    LW 2: would you be this angry if a man were acting this way? A lot of “problems” with female employees, in my experience, tend to be because they’re not acting as perky, polite, friendly, etc, so when you encounter someone who doesn’t deal with niceties, people are gobsmacked and consider them rude. If she’s not doing work until you hound her for it, that’s one thing, but expecting her to be sugary sweet in every interaction is something you need to get over.

  76. kittybutton*

    Thank you LW#4!! I am one of the people who always says EST/CST/etc. and just didn’t realize the S had anything to do with daylight savings (and for the record, I am the kind of person who typically endeavors to get things like that right!). I won’t make that faux pas again!

Comments are closed.