Phone Manner

I'm supposed to have a hearing appointment, and I'm late.

Technically, half of the company has hearing appointments, at least the half that works on calibrating the hearing aids we produce. Don't want to over-compensate if one of us is hard of hearing and didn't realise, I suppose.

I'm standing in front of a closed and locked door, and the lack of lights aren't promising. Neither is the lack of any of my co-workers. I know I have the right address, but maybe the wrong office?

Thank god for appointment notifications that provide a phone line. A man with an accent promises to pass me onto the front desk of the Macquarie Park clinic. What that's supposed to help is beyond me, given the 'CLOSED' sign staring me in the face, but at least I'll be talking to someone local.

60 seconds and a short dial tone later, a woman's voice answers. "Hi, this is Natasja calling from KINNECT, how can I help?"

Her voice is Customer Service professional, but not the 'shut up and go away' professional I usually get from company phone lines. Maybe there's something to that theory that you can hear a smile. "Hi, I'm at the clinic, but there's no-one here."

I can faintly hear the tapping of computer keys, "Are you at KINNECT, or Kinetic?"

I look at the sign above the door again. I'd only really looked at the first letter before getting distracted by the fact that it was closed. My guilty silence obviously spoke for me, because she didn't wait for an answer. "Not to worry, go up the hill until you reach a set of glass doors, then take the lifts up to level 2, and we're right next door. Would you like me to stay on the line?"

There was a warm amusement in her voice, but no mockery. I could see a set of stairs, presumably with glass doors, just at the top of the drive. The temptation to accept her offer was strong, but I felt bad enough. Besides, I'd need my phone battery to call work if the appointment ended up running late. "No, I should be OK."

The sense of her smiling on the other end of the phone grew. "Then I'll let our Nurse know what is going on, and see you in a few minutes."

She hung up, and after a quick check for any oncoming cars, I sprinted up the hill.

The woman behind the desk, as I tried to steady my breathing to something approaching normal, had auburn hair in a frazzled twist, kind eyes, and an iPad ready to go with the electronic forms I needed to fill out.

A quick check of my ID, and she passed it over, her free hand conducting along to what was likely on-hold music on the other end of her headset. Probably Orchestral, from the occasional broad sweeps. The whimsy made me feel a bit better. "Sorry for the mistake."

She shook her head. "We keep asking Strata to put signs up. They keep saying no. You aren't the first, or even the first today, and you won't be the last."

That was a relief. I might be a bit of an idiot still, but at least I wasn't the only one. "What would the sign say? 'Wrong place, check your confirmation email'?"

She laughed, a surprisingly hearty sound, as though I was actually funny. Not many people did that. "I prefer 'Not KINNECT, go to Building A', but everyone has their own opinion. One of our Queensland offices has a Konekt just across the road. They have the real War Stories."

Ouch. Yeah, that would suck. I finished the form and handed the iPad back for her signiture, about the same time the call she was making picked up. "Hello, this is Natasja calling from KINNECT." A short pause as the other person replied, and she handed the iPad back, open to the next form. "I was hoping to make a couple of bookings for next week."

The other form had only a few questions, and I was waved to a seat in the waiting area as she began listing off assessments.

A few seconds later, another woman, this one with a round face and a wide smile, appeared to start my assessment. Despite the panic I'd been in only minutes earlier, the short interaction over the front desk had left me in a much calmer state. No one looked like they were just there for the pay, or counting the hours until they could clock off, so it must be a decent place to work.

I wasn’t late, and my heart was no longer pounding in my eardrums.

Good thing, too, because the first test was the Audiometry. Hard to do that when your heart is too loud to hear anything.

Using first person for patient privacy, and because this kind of mix-up happens on average of once every other day. 9 times out of 10, if an applicant calls needing directions, they're at the wrong office.

The rest of the time, they either took the wrong exit off the motorway, or parked in the shopping centre across the road, and are trying to figure out how to get to the office from where they are.