my doctor’s office constantly leaves me on hold — how do I deal with this at work? — Ask a Manager

Remember the letter-writer whose doctor’s office constantly left them on hold while they needed to be working? Here’s the update.

I wrote in a few months ago about struggling to schedule doctor’s appointments when I worked at a busy reception desk. Thanks very much to both you and the kind commenters who offered sympathy and suggestions. It was nice to receive confirmation that there wasn’t some easy solution I was missing, and I appreciated the suggestions to use an earpiece from other people who’d done front desk work.

I also saw a few suggestions that my question wasn’t really a work question, which got me thinking about why I’d written in the first place. The real concern underwriting my (admittedly not well-phrased!) question was that having to make these calls was hurting my standing at work. I am (mis)classified as exempt and expected to remain available to answer the phone and address clients during my lunch. Any time I spend where I’m not visibly working as hard as possible is regarded with suspicion, and as I mentioned in the original letter, it has been suggested that I might have to start using vacation or sick time to cover these calls I have to make outside my nonexistent break time. When I wrote in I was concerned less with dealing with my doctor’s office (which I felt sucked and wasn’t going to change) and more with managing the optics/potential consequences at a workplace that, on reflection, also sucks and also isn’t going to change.

So ultimately, I did resolve the doctor’s office problem with doctor’s office solutions. First, I spoke with my doctor, and they gave me permission to use the client portal’s chat functionality, which is supposed to be exclusively for non-urgent medical questions, to request appointments. But more importantly, I changed one of my medications to something I can self-administer at home instead of one I have to go to the doctor’s office multiple times a year for. This reduces the frequency of my scheduling attempts and has the added benefit of saving me sick time. I’m lucky I had this as an option.

I hope this information is helpful to anyone else in a similar situation, and I hope in a future update I’ll be able to tell you I’m working somewhere different.

Me again, here to say that if you’re a receptionist you’re almost certainly not legally allowed to be treated as exempt, and they owe you overtime pay (including back pay) and you should contact an employment lawyer in your state. Meanwhile, carefully log all the hours you work so there’s a record of what you’re owed.