Rick Raw: Office Rudeness Epidemic –Civility is Lost in Today’s Cut-throat World

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

Lately I’ve noticed that attorneys and doctors hire receptionists and office personnel who do not necessarily have people skills. Rudeness is epidemic. Lost on most professional employers is the fact that the first contact a potential client or patient has with their business is with the receptionist or other person who answers the phone. That phone voice creates the first impression of the business. The person answering the phone (he or she--mostly she) can drive away business just by the tone of her voice.

Recently I needed a lawyer. Most of the offices I called I got curt replies, and rude responses from women who have no idea how to talk to people in a pleasant business-like manner. Then when I hired an attorney, paying him a substantial amount of money, he was never available. So I had to talk to his assistant, who would never take my calls, claiming she was too busy. When she finally called me, she was rude and had an accusatory tone with me.

Can rude office bitches be the norm in today’s world of acrimonious communications? Well, excuse me, but pissing off your clients and patients is not my idea of encouraging long term business success. Last week, I called a cardiologist because I was having chest pressure and I was concerned I may have a blockage in one of my arteries. I got the same bitchy, care-less attitude from the woman on the other end of the phone. The first thing she did was send me a ten pages of forms to be filled out. Go to any hospital, and you’ll meet this archetype office bitch.

Wow, it’s a good thing I wasn’t having a heart attack. My primary care physician is a friendly, competent doctor, but his office personnel are a pack of bitter women who hate their jobs. By now, my medical history should be available on the Internet for me or my specialists to access, which makes filling out forms unnecessary. Man, I hate filling out forms for every doctor I see. In today’s world of instant communications, duplicating information on forms is stupid.

Yeah, I know I’m going to be accused of being a sexist prick, but I ask this pertinent question: What the hell is wrong with young women who work in professional offices? Well, the problem rests solely on the shoulders of the business owners who hire anyone off the street for a pitiful salary and expect them to be nice to their clients or patients. They get what they pay for! More significantly, having people or communication skills is not a priority when these cheap bastards hire office personnel. Of course, it should be.

These professional dunderheads do not realize that a receptionist is an important job. Her phone skills are very important. Yet, invariably, the person hired immediately cops a negative attitude about her low wage job. I hear it in their voices and it’s pervasive. The receptionist should be an office manager who knows a lot about what’s going on in the office. Yet, in reality, they know almost nothing about the office in which they answer the phone. It’s an extremely annoying problem.

As for me, I’m always polite and gracious on the phone. I know that dealing with the public can be frustrating, and there are many rude people who call into offices. Still, civility is lost in today’s cut-throat world of sharks and money grubbing swine. Being polite is almost a quaint idea from the past. Yet, it doesn’t cost anything to be cordial to people, either on the phone or in public. The old adage that if you’re nice to people, they will respond accordingly doesn’t apply in today’s world.

My advice: If you can’t be cordial on the phone then don’t take a job as a receptionist. Likewise, professionals should be very selective who they hire to answer the phone. Let’s bring
back civility in voice communications.