Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts

Friday, February 26, 2021

Me vs. technology: who won this round?



For what it's worth, this is a letter I wrote in response to a nasty experience I just had at the optometrist's. It's very hard for me to be assertive and normally I would just quietly fume and make myself sick. But I want to post this in case anyone else in the world has ever felt this sort of unnecessary intimidation. BTW, this wasn't even my main eye test, which was done on a series of perhaps nine different machines, but a "follow-up" which was then going to be followed by another "follow-up". BTW, I was warned to take all identifying marks off this in case they "took legal action".

Dear Dr. Somebody,

I feel I would be remiss if I did not report a very negative and stressful experience I had at my last appointment with your office. I was treated rudely and disrespectfully, and the instructions I was given could not have been more vague and confusing. I was surprised that the receptionist conducts so much of the eye testing, but I was willing to let that go as I was under a lot of pressure and needed to get it over with. Another problem was that she has an accent which was making clear communication with her very difficult. This is not a criticism but a fact. Along with my partial hearing loss, it meant I had to ask her several times what she had just said.

When I sat at the third machine (I can’t name what it was because I am not cognizant of the technology), she told me I would see “flashing lights” and that I would have to “push the big button” when the lights came on. I was not at all clear what this meant, as she just handed me a sort of wand without showing me what to do with it. When I asked her for a clearer explanation, as by now I was quite confused, she said, quite irritably, “But I already explained all this to you.”


I sat through the first part of the test staring into the machine (I wasn't allowed to blink) and waiting for the “flashing lights”, which I assumed would be identical to all the other tests I had already had, with a very bright light like a flashbulb. This did not happen. I only saw tiny pinpoints of light appearing and disappearing at light speed all over the outside of my field of vision, but I did not respond because I was waiting for the “flashing lights”. So I sat there doing nothing and feeling confused and very foolish. After a while I had to assume she meant these tiny pinpricks of light and tried to keep up with them, which I could not.

When she came in to switch eyes, I once again asked her to clarify the instructions. Once more she said, sounding exasperated, “But I explained all this to you already.” I have severe arthritis in my hands at the base of the thumb and could barely keep up, as it was quite painful, and my hand was sticking to the “big button” due to the hand sanitizer. I felt as if I was holding a joy stick and trying to play a very fast-moving video game which I did not understand. My eye-hand coordination has always been extremely poor, the lights were tiny, very hard to see and moving at incredible speed, and I was sure I was failing the test. I was not comfortable asking her anything else as she had already been so abrupt with me.


Perhaps this has never happened to anyone else you have dealt with before (I was certainly given that impression), but I do find it hard to believe, as you must treat a great many elderly patients. My last eye test basically involved reading lines of type and looking into a couple of machines, but I have not experienced anything remotely like this intimidating high-tech “state-of-the-art” setup. But all these marvelous machines accomplish exactly nothing if you go home feeling worse than when you came in. Customer relations should always come first, and your job should be to serve the public with patience, courtesy and respect. This is absolutely crucial when most people are already so overstressed that only one bad experience might put them over the top.

I have my glasses now, am happy with my vision, was already told my eye health was good for my age, and don’t need any more rude and disrespectful treatment that leaves me feeling foolish and only adds to my already sky-high levels of stress. Please cancel all my further appointments, and do not contact me again.

Margaret Gunning


(Blogservations. The machines have taken over. I was tested on no fewer than NINE high-tech pieces of equipment just because I needed new glasses. At first I was in awe of it all and felt like I was on the Starship Enterprise, though I did not know why the receptionist ran the first three tests on me in a "little room" off to the side. Did she have any actual training to do this sort of thing? The rest of the appointment was a blur of e-charts, flourescent eyeball diagrams, blood vessel maps, and complicated explanations by the optometrist of all the diseases of the eye which I might have, but don't, and which finally concluded that there was nothing wrong with my eyes at all, and that in fact my eyes were ten years younger than my (admittedly run-down) biological self. 

But it was in the follow-up, which I now call the "foul-up", that I became enmeshed in a collision course between complex machinery and total incoherence. "Push the big button"? 
WHAT button, where? And why that sour frown on her face even as I struggled to figure out just what the fxxx she could mean?


I won't go back, but I confess here and now that I haven't sent the letter yet and probably won't. I usually "think better of it" the next day - and when I think of the letters I USED to actually send, to doctors, psychiatrists, etc. to protest such minor things as institutionalized abuse, and how those letters became part of my "file/diagnosis" - well, let's just say it never paid off in the end. It was all seen as pathology, as EVERYTHING a psychiatric patient says or does is pathology. They're mentally ill, remember?

Oh, and one more thing. I didn't think anything could be worse than the time the optician took one look at my prescription and exclaimed "WOAHHHHWW" - meaning: God, are you ever blind! But what happened today "trumped" even that wretched experience.)

UPDATE. I sent the letter and sighed with relief to be DONE with it all, hoping they would at least honor my request for NO followup. This morning I received not one, but TWO phone calls from this person, though I specifically asked them NEVER to contact me again. I hung up after the first call, then the phone immediately rang again and it was that person, the one whose dismissive rudeness basically ruined my day.

 All of a sudden, I seem to be the one who is in trouble. The receptionist said she would only call back if there was a "problem", but the "problem" is that the instructions I received were so fucked up that I could not complete the totally unnecessary test. My daughter has a severe eye problem, has had two surgeries, and I believe has been botched by an incompetent surgeon. Now she needs a cornea transplant due to HIS incompetence. This may leave her BLIND, unable to work ever again, and forced to go through the legal system.  I don't usually use this language, but I am beyond upset - I am terrified for her - so FUCK THEM ALL!


Thursday, June 4, 2020

OUT FOR BLOOD: why my arms are black and blue




I won't preface this very much, because I am exhausted, stressed, and must go through all this again tomorrow. So because it's my blog and I can complain if I want to (and badly NEED to), here it is. I have to go back into the clinic tomorrow and report on this, which makes my stomach drop through the floor, but I feel I have to, for the sake of other patients who can't or won't complain (and most people don't).




Review posted online June 4

Bloodwork incident June 1/20    

On Monday, a technician in this clinic left large black and blue marks inside both arms when trying to draw blood. She poked and prodded, bent and held my arm down, went from one arm to another, then got 2 vials (they needed 3) and said it had stopped and she “didn’t have enough”. She finally called for another technician who drew the blood painlessly in about 30 seconds. Then my doctor said the results were “off” (lab error?) and I needed it done again! 

I have NEVER had this sort of experience in at least five years with this clinic. It has always been fast, efficient and painless. I do not know the person’s name, so I hope you keep records on this because I never want to go through this again. There was never an apology for the needless pain and anxiety/stress this caused.  Is there any way to arrange in advance or at least choose who does my blood draw? 




I assume this clinic wants feedback from patients if they have an incredibly stressful experience like this. If not, then the lab is remiss in providing the best service for patients, and I will have to go elsewhere. This did not need to happen, and I don’t want it to happen to anyone else.

Margaret Gunning


Monday, September 8, 2014

Fire sale: another way of burning books





Message From Customer Service

Your Account

Amazon.com

Hello Margaret,

I regret that we haven't been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction.

However, our decision to discount books is based on a number of strategic considerations, which can vary over time. As a result, we cannot confirm how long your title will be discounted.

Amazon may choose to discount a list price, and in this case you'll see both a List Price and a final Price on the Detail page for your book.

I can assure you that many people work to make our pricing calculations as competitive as possible for both you and your readers.

Please also be assured that the discount does not affect the royalties you receive for sales made while the book is discounted. Royalties will continue to be calculated from the list price provided by your publisher, which you can see listed here above the discounted price on your book's Detail page:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1927068886

I request you to contact your publisher to make any further changes to the price of your book.





If you've self-published your book through a company like CreateSpace and would like to make a change to the list price of your book, you may update the price through your self-publishing company. If your books are traditionally published, I encourage you to contact your publisher to update the list price for you.

Once the publisher provides Amazon with the book's new list price, the Amazon.com Detail page will be updated within 3-5 days to reflect this change.

It's possible that a future change will result in the discount's removal from your title. In that case, the discount will disappear automatically and immediately.





We won't be able to provide further insight or assistance for your request.
We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Best regards,
Preethi H

Thank you.
Amazon.com






The story: while setting up a more stylish-looking link to my Amazon page, I realized to my horror that the price of The Glass Character had been lowered from the list price of $19.95 to $4.73. That's right: $4.73, when it is a paper book that has been out for only five months. Kindle format goes for $7.96, and a used copy may be had for $16.21.

The correspondence above represents my fourth attempt to get through to Amazon for an explanation. At one point I was on the phone, and if I hadn't been so furious it would have been funny: the lady trying to direct me to the right department had the most buoyant Southern accent I've ever heard, and kept calling me "sweetie" and "hon". Over and over again, Amazon tells me they don't know why they are selling my new novel for $4.73 instead of $19.95. They keep repeating that I should contact my publisher for updated information on the list price and to convey that updated information to them: WTF? Updated? The list price is the same now as it has always been. I have absolutely no desire to change it. My publisher has absolutely no desire to change it. It will not be changed for ANY reason! But Amazon's implication is that they've only lowered their price because the LIST PRICE has gone down. Or at very least, because I don't know anything about how prices work and have somehow got it wrong, that the list price is really only two dollars or something. It's simple, silly!





I'm trying to see all this in a favorable light. On the bad side, the book now looks almost worthless, a cheap piece of pulp fiction that they are obviously trying to get rid of at church-rummage-sale prices. It has only been out for five months, and obviously it is already obsolete. On the good side, I just found out I get the same royalties on each copy, no matter what price it sells for. Or at least, that's what Amazon told me.

I am embarrassed, chagrinned, and full of pain and grief over this. I will never publish again. It's not my publisher's fault, as they are the only house in Canada who would take a chance on me. And they are doing what they can against the juggernaut. But I am tired of being casually mauled this way. I am sick of the hustling, the posturing, the rah-rah and other things I feel I should be doing. I am sick of the sense I am never doing enough, or never doing it right, the discomfort, the squirming shame for something I can't even articulate. I am tired of being told I should thank reviewers who have eviscerated me. Kiss the whip! And to do this whether I really mean it or not. And I am REALLY tired of those who take a wrench and a saw and try to "fix" the problem, rather than listening to me and trying to help me figure out what is really going on, and how I can be authentic in the middle of an insane game.





This whole industry has turned so poisonous that I can no longer be part of it. I stand behind The Glass Character because I still think it kicks ass, no matter who tells me what about it. I loved writing it, and so far the writing of it has been practically the only reward (that, and seeing my grandkids watch Harold Lloyd climb the building at the launch). But after this, no more. Four copies for the price of one just hurts me, and it has nothing to do with greed or how much I will "make" or how much I will be "known" or ANYTHING like that. I swear, I have not been able to get across to a single person why this bothers me so much. I'm trying to yell under a bell jar again.

I've been publishing short fiction on my blog for several years now, and it has been gratifying, though a "real book" somehow always seems to carry more - what, cachet? I don't know. It lifts you out of the realm of hobbyist. But If I feel another novel coming on, I will go and lie down for a while, and if it's really bad I'll take a little vacation. Like my very good friend Matt Paust, who keeps me laughing at all this insanity no matter what, I will blog my next novel, chapter by chapter. If someone reads it, great. If no one does, I don't much care because I have no control over that anyway, and I will save myself an enormous amount of stress.





My readership here is extremely uneven, mostly rather sparse, but with one post garnering nearly 100,000 views, and several others over 10,000. (Why? Hell if I know. This thing is anything but hip and high-tech, because I despise those things. The day it turns slick, I will either unplug my computer for good or finally jump out of my psychiatrist's 17th-floor window.) Being a published author was my dream, and after a ridiculous amount of work and grief and tears and perseverence, it actually came true three times. But by the time the third one came out, everyone who could hold a pencil was a published author, whether they could cobble together a coherent sentence or not. As Moxy Fruvous put it, "Everyone's a novelist, and everyone can sing/But no one talks when the TV's on."

What they're asking for is product, the more uniform the better. I just don't see the advantage in contributing something that has already been contributed over, and over, and over again, and shoved in people's faces the same way. But I hear it in my ear all the time: well, that's what you gotta do now, sweetheart. A writer has to hustle.

A former post is recreating itself, growing back like a chopped-off limb. It was such a howl of grief and rage, so nerve-baringly honest, that I knew I had to delete it. But it's back again because, by God, I was not put here on this earth to dissemble. I am an oddball, I do not belong, and so be it. Do not try to convince me otherwise because it will make me insane. This is all about dignity, and identity, and dreams. It's all about those in power casually poking holes in those dreams, and slapping down hope. I've asked a few other writers about this situation and have had four or five different variations on "well, what can you do?" Our powerlessness appalls me.





$4.73, folks. Or you could get a used copy - that's always a better bargain, isn't it? It will only set you back $16.21. The Kindle, if you can afford it, is $7.96. They must want you to buy the paper version - or do they just want to unload it? Fire sale prices, obviously. I don't know what to think.

Dear sir or madam, please buy four or five of these books for the price of one. I don't care what you do with them after that. I just don't want them to be pulped like the other two. Anything but that.




Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look. . .