I find it quite remarkable that with almost
everybody running around with a mobile in their hand, some service providers
have difficulty in telling you when exactly they’ll arrive at your
home. Take my blood-taking people.
When they are to come to the house their
idea of giving you a time is to say ‘we’ll be there between nine and two o'clock’. This
means that sometimes you get a pleasant surprise by their arriving mid-morning, and other times you’re stuck at home till two.
One day two o'clock came and went and they hadn’t
arrived. Half an hour or so later a phone call informed that they would be there
within the next two hours – presumably no later than five. Long story short,
they didn’t arrive at all. This happened to be a Friday.
Obviously they weren’t going to come either
on Saturday or Sunday, but I did get a call to say that the matter would be
treated as urgent and they would be there on Monday.
Now I looked up the meaning of ‘urgent’ in the Thesaurus
and the meaning given include:
1.crucial
2.vital
3.pressing
4.imperative
5.serious
6.important
As the blood-test was supposed to have been
taken on Friday, and it was now to be taken on Monday, I agreed that the matter
was urgent. And visualised the person racing in first thing Monday morning. .
Talk about naïve. The person did arrive on
Monday. But no earlier than normal.
Does that mean that when they give you that between 'nine and two o'clock' spill they really mean they may or may not get around to you? And only when they say the
matter is urgent, that they definitely will come – at time that suits them.
But we should be grateful for small
mercies. More recently I received a phone call telling me that they will arrive on
a certain day, only to receive a letter telling me that they will come on a
totally different day. (presumably in that office people with phones don't speak to people who type letters) l have to assume that whatever day they come it will be between ‘nine
and two’ or ‘two to five’ or not all. Unless. of course, it becomes urgent.
Today is supposed to be one of the days. As it’s
already one o'clock there’s a good chance that today will not be the blood-test day.
Update: I was at my computer when there was a knock on the door. Yes, they did make it between 9 and 2 o'clock. It was exactly 1.59. Is there some power game going on?
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