So today was a pretty busy day. I knew it was going to be busy. I had prepared myself to drown in paperwork. I had five new cases report today for intake. The process is lengthy and involves lots of carpal tunnel inducing typing. I knew last week that I was going to have these cases report, so I had made appointments accordingly. Each new intake can consume anywhere from thirty minutes to over an hour, depending on how much they feel like talking. Foolishly I had made my appointments based on my ability to adhere to a schedule. I, of course, am not lacking a clock or the ability to read one. I scheduled each case to report on the hour, one hour after another.
Naturally, my very first appointment was late. He was late by twenty-five minutes. Obviously, this had the potential to blow my entire day's line-up. So, I asked him why he was late. I expected one of any of the standard answers: "I overslept." "I had a flat tire." "I missed the bus." "I forgot what time I was supposed to be here." What I got was none of these. Instead, he responded, "I WAS here at eight." Of course, I tried to explain that 8:25 is not the same as 8:00. I should have known that would be too much to understand. This time he was adamant when he said, "But I got here at 8:25." Okay, I tried again by agreeing with him (positive reinforcement is supposed to work on children and imbeciles, right?). While I agreed that he had arrived at 8:25, which was, in fact, 25 minutes late, he simply looked at me in wonder and asked "What's the difference?" Oh, I don't know, maybe about twenty-five minutes??
By the way, another appointment was two hours early and my last appointment was almost forty minutes late. In the past, I've considered getting each of my clients a calendar so they'd know which day of the month to report. Apparently that needs to be a package deal with a clock. Of course, it would need to be digital, because I really don't need the headache of explaining the Mickey Mouse hands on an analog clock.
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