My great out-of-town friend “Bobby” -all names herein changed to protect the innocent- recently built a new medical office building. It’s a smallish commercial structure big enough for his solo-doctor practice as well as space for a couple of small-scale tenants.
While not a huge project, it nevertheless dominated Bobby’s time for a couple of years, from its inception on to dealing with banks and government agencies along the way to managing construction details, equipment installation, and a myriad of other things. And of course, Bobby and his staff of two employees continued running his established medical practice in his leased office space a mile away from the building site.
All in all the building progressed fairly smoothly and eventually the time came to move the practice into the new space. Now understand that Bobby’s two employees, Molly the front desk manager and Lida the clinical assistant, had been at the game for many years. Bobby had “inherited” the ladies from the medical practice he had acquired 18 years previous -he had offered them continued employment and they accepted – and they had already been working in that existing practice for almost 20 years.
“Molly” and “Lida” were accustomed to doing things the good old fashioned way, and although they were excited about moving into the new space, they weren’t that excited. The fact was they were a little intimidated and nervous about the big change; the ladies knew that Dr. Bobby was planning some significant updating of some of the systems -to go along with the modern new facility.
For instance, the ancient phone system would of course be replaced, and computer hardware and practice management software were going to be introduced. Plus, Molly’s beloved typewriter’s days were numbered. Dr. Bobby had been cringing of late when he’d hear a patient out front say something like, “Oh is that a typewriter? How quaint!”, or “Look son, that thing is called a typewriter.” I mean, such did not exactly convey “high tech medical office.”
The truth is, Molly and Lida were on the cusp of retiring; it could be argued that their hearts weren’t in it so much anymore. Nevertheless, they were hard-working, kind, and loyal employees whom Dr. Bobby and the patients loved.
The chaotic, action-packed week arrived during which the practice was moved into the beautiful space in the wonderful new building. Everybody loved the place.
There were the usual mild headaches involved in finishing everything up; getting all of the office and clinical equipment up and running smoothly took extra time and energy from everyone. The ladies seemed to be settling into their new surroundings well, and Dr. Bobby did not immediately take Molly’s typewriter away from her.
Unfortunately, in the weeks following the move there remained a recurring phone problem that was more than a little aggravating to all concerned. Bobby would be concentrating on treating a patient when from the front office Molly would call out in exasperation, “Doctor! The phone is doing that thing again! I can hear the patient on the line but they can’t hear me!”
The problem had not yet been directly experienced by Dr. Bobby or Lida, but then they weren’t on the phone so much like Molly was. The phone company was enlisted to troubleshoot the problem, and the technicians were visibly perplexed. They assured Dr. Bobby, however, that they would figure it out and take care of the thorny issue. Meanwhile, Dr. Bobby and his staff continued to be bugged by the unreliability of communicating with their patients via the phone.
So again, the recurrent problem with the phone was that Molly could hear the person on the line speaking but apparently they could not hear her and would soon simply hang up. Tough to run a business with that going on! The days went by and the phone company technicians were going batty trying to exorcise the haunted phone. They brought in their top regional experts and were considering tearing out some of the drywall to access and replace lines the following week when there arose an interesting development.
Dr. Bobby was in the front office with Molly one afternoon looking over a patient chart when the phone rang and Molly answered it. Sure enough it was one of those times when, “Doctor it’s doing that thing! I can hear them but they can’t hear me! I’m sure they’re about to hang up!'”
At that moment Dr. Bobby noticed the way Molly was holding the new state-of-the-art wireless phone handpiece. Her thumb was positioned just right, in just such a way as to completely cover the small microphone opening. A happy jolt coursed through Bobby as he realized that the puzzle was solved.
Yes, the phone was no longer haunted, and without divulging any details Dr. Bobby was quick to assure the phone company that, “everything is working great now! What you did last must have done the trick. Thanks!”
And it wasn’t long afterwards that Molly, and Lida, happily retired, and believe me they’re doing just fine.
– Johnny Robinson
