"Phoning the hospital"

Q. How difficult can it be to leave a message for someone to call you back?

A. Extremely!

The automated answering service for the main phone number mistakes ‘Neurology’ for ‘Immunology’ every time, and I know it is not politically correct to ask if I have an accent, so I shall save the embarrassment of asking, no I do not have an accent or anything else that should prevent my being understood. Then when going through to an operator, I’m put through, but as the secretary is not there at present, in order to leave a message for her to call me back, I am asked for an I.d. number followed by the hash key. As I’m not a staff member I am not privy to that information. I go back to the operator again and explain my predicament,

I’m then put through to yet another number, this time it’s for the secretary of some other doctor who is not the secretary for my doctor.

Help this is driving me round the bend!