Diary of a Wolfeman

I ran into this at lunch a few weeks back and just found the picture – I had to upload it to FailBlog.

moar funny pictures

I recently went to the Doctor’s office for a specific checkup. It took about 4 hours total, and I spent about one hour of that time cooling my heels waiting either for the doctor or a lab technician. After I saw the Doc, he said he would call in a scrip to my pharmacy. Later that day, no word from the Doc to the pharmacy.

I tried to call back the next day, and fought my way through their phone system for a full five minutes to eventually get stuck leaving a voicemail. They never called me back, nor did they call the pharmacy.

I let it sit a couple days while I waited for them, and eventually decided to give Tolerant a break from nagging me and tried to call them back – and all of their published phone numbers rang through to the fax machine. 5 different times.

Waited another couple days, called back on three different occasions. The first two saw me fighting through their phone system only to get voicemail again, but the third time I called I finally managed to get a human, who said she would make sure the scrip got called in. When I went to pick up said scrip, it turned out to be for an over-the-counter medicine and some special instructions that he fucking well could have handed me in person and just told me what to buy.

In total, the bill came up as $131 in labs and $217 for the visit. The insurance company will only allow them to charge a certain amount, so I then received a bill for the difference. Add all of that up and divide by the three hours, and you get a number a bit less than what my company charges for an hour of my time. Here’s the difference:

If I keep you waiting while I do something for somebody else, I don’t bill you for the time.

If I tell you that you need a part or some software, I will tell you what it is, why you need it, and why you should get this particular brand. I will then sell it to you. If I can’t sell it to you, I will provide you with explicit instructions on where to get it as well.

If for some reason you need to call my office, you will be told by the prompter to press a number for each department, at which point a human will answer the phone. You will not be forced to go through a minimum of 5 minutes of recorded messages before a human might pick up.

My phone system will never put you through to the fax machine.

My clients will call me the next time they have a problem. I won’t be calling my doctor again, I will be going somewhere else.

Two Saturdays ago I wore my Transformers T-shirt when Pookie and I went out-n-about running errands and grabbing lunch. Just about everyone who seriously looked at the shirt recognized it, and had something to say about the new movie, whether they were looking forward to seeing it or had already been and enjoyed it. This worried me, as I had already heard some pretty worrisome things about the new movie.

What really worried me was the realization after lunch that the more effusive the excitement about the movie, the more obviously unintelligent the speaker. For instance, the guy at the video store was saying how one of his co-workers (a big fan of the franchise) was looking forward to the movie. Being an avid movie-man himself, he wasn’t about to talk down any movie that would possibly earn him dividends later on. The checkout girl at the stop-n-rob, however, praised the movie high and low through her missing front teeth. (At least, I think she was praising the movie – she was using words out of context. Badly.)

My friends and other folks who I deem to be high on the thinking chain, however, were all uniformly against the second installment as a “waste of valuable resources, and time you cannot get back.” This guy does a great “review”.

Plot holes you could drive the Titanic through, dis-continuity problems, terrible writing and you get tea-bagged by a robot.

Yeah, I’ll be skipping this one.

So the poor Zoe T. Monster Kitty has had a grooming issue for some time now. The dear is a long-haired black cat, and without a fair amount of attention, her coat knots itself up pretty damn bad.

Now, she used to take excellent care of herself, but then she got a tooth infection at some point and stopped a fair portion of her grooming routine, and the nats started to pile up. I brushed when I could force myself to, and cut them out when I couldn’t brush (she is rather unfond of both procedures), but it had finally gotten to the point where we just had to shave her.

I called around to various groomers, and the short of it is that it would be more expensive than buying the tools and doing it myself, plus I would have to put her in the car – another activity she is terribly unfond of. (Zoe does not travel well.) So, Tolerant and I ran out to PetCo today and picked up a new set of trimmers, some meaty treats and some advice from a pro:

“Trim the claws first, then apply any sedatives you may desire and your vet approves. Mow in the direction of the fur and just use the trimmer without a guard. Don’t pull on the skin and go slowly, and you should be able to come up under the nats and cut them out bit by bit.”

We had to do it in stages, and I started from just about her shoulders and went back from there. The end result is similar to a lion cut, but looks much worse because I am a terrible groomer. Here’s the after shot: (I don’t have a good example of a before handy)

This shot was taken after the final indignity of tossing her into the sink for a quick rinse to wash away the remaining dander and trimmings. The poor thing.

I’ll be checking my shoes rather carefully before donning them for the next month or so.