Why, when you are going through the automated menu system, do they ask you to key in your phone number only to then have “May I please have your phone number” be the first question you are asked once you are actually speaking to a human?

I find this absolutely infuriating as I’m sure most (if not all) people must.

Don’t ask me to key it in if the person I end up speaking with isn’t going to have it displayed on the screen in front of them!

I haven’t singled any particular company out here, because the majority seem to do this — STOP IT! 

The ‘back’ button on the side of my Blackberry stopped working a couple of weeks ago.  The device still works, but navigation between screens using only the scroll wheel & menus was a becoming a little too cumbersome.   Plus the same capability is now available in a much smaller package with a camera and MP3 player.

So this weekend, it was off to Rogers for the Blackberry Pearl.

Now, let me start off by saying I am an ultimate Rogers customer.  My household has the following Rogers products:

• My Blackberry/mobile phone
• My wife’s mobile phone
• Hi-Speed Internet
• Three digital TV terminals (HD PVR, HD Digital, Digital)

All this works out to about $400 per month, or about $4800 per year.  I would assume this ranks me high as an individual consumer for Rogers and they’d want to keep me happy or, at least, somewhat satisfied. 

Back to my experience at the Rogers store on Saturday.

I walked in, went up to the first sales person I saw and said, “I want to buy a Blackberry Pearl.”  So a pretty easy sale of one of their most expensive items.

As he was processing my purchase and linking the new device to my account, I was informed that there would be a $35 Administration Fee!  He asked if I minded this.

I said, “Well, actually I do, but I’m guessing there is nothing you can do about it.”  Big surprise, there wasn’t.  I then asked what it was for.  He said, “Administration.”  Really, well in that case… by all means charge it… 

I guess they couldn’t find $35 out of the $4800 I’m already giving them to handle ‘administration’ of my account.

I was then advised that the $250 I was paying for my new Pearl (based on a 3–year contract) was actually $300 less a $50 mail-in rebate.  This required me to fill out a short-form, copy my receipt and send it in to Rogers.  I did that today.  It was a couple of minutes, but why?

When are companies going to stop with the damn mail-in rebate?  Particularly when, like in this case, you are sending it to the seller (Rogers), not the manufacturer (Blackberry).  

For the love of god, I was standing in your store making the purchase, just charge me the price less mail-in rebate and save us all the trouble. 

If you (Rogers) then need to sort out something with Blackberry afterwards, use the ‘administration fee’ I paid and leave me out of it.

Other than the city’s drivers’ fundamental challenge understanding the concept of merge lanes …

For about seven months now, I have been driving down Metcalfe street every morning to get to our office here at 55 Metcalfe.

And every morning, I find myself surprised, yet again, that there is a dumpster blocking an ENTIRE lane of traffic on Metcalfe — a street where we ban parking before 9 a.m. — at the corner of Metcalfe and Laurier.

I dare not suggest the new hotel — Hotel Indigo – doesn’t need to get renovated, but seven months of a dumpster blocking traffic?

I have two questions about this, given my temperment this morning:

How come I’ve never seen a story about this dumpster, which has been a constant irritant all these months, and

How much does it cost to take up a lane of traffic in Ottawa for seven months? Is there some way for me to find out?

My fear is that the permit to do this is something like $1,000, and therefore next summer we will see a host of RVers finally figuring out it’s cheaper to get a demolition permit and park on the street than it is to go to a campground.

So, to our new mayor, His Worship Larry O’Brien: end the madness, and clear the streets.

UPDATE: This morning, after I wrote this post, the dumpster was magically gone … but my questions remain, and my commitment to pursue them remains undimmed.

When was the last time you arrived for a doctor’s appointment a few minutes early to check-in and complete any paper work, and actually saw the doctor at your scheduled appointment time?

Very rarely? Never? I’ve had to wait half an hour when I was the first appointment of the day?!?!

As a consultant, this drives me crazy.  If I was constantly late for meetings (and significantly late) or always kept clients waiting in our reception area for 15, 30 minutes or more before seeing them, I wouldn’t have clients for very long.

But it’s more than that.  It’s about respecting other people’s time.  Hey Doc, I also have a job to do, appointments to make and personal commitments to keep.

I came down with something on New Year’s Day.  I stayed home from work on Tuesday and Wednesday, but thought I was up to going in on Thursday.  Around midday, I realised I wasn’t up to it, but whatever I had was now starting to drag out, so I decided to go to the doctor.  My doctor (who I started seeing recently is actually pretty good at running on schedule) is closed on Thursday afternoons.  So I went online to look up a walk-in clinic I’d been to before – Appletree. I was going to call and see how long the wait was.

When I found the website, which isn’t anything special, I noticed an icon “Current Wait Times and Locations”.  I clicked on it and wow!!!  They had the approximate wait time to see a doctor at each of their 11 locations in the Ottawa area listed right there on the site.  And it also indicates when (time and date) the wait time for each location was last updated.  I wasn’t ready to leave right away, so I checked back a couple of times and each location updated their wait time pretty regularly.

The location closest to me had a 2 hour wait listed, but the second closest location was only about 30 minutes, so I went to that one.  When I got there, I saw a doctor in, you guessed it, about 30 minutes.  Amazing!

Ottawa has five hospitals.  The General, Civic and Riverside are part of the Ottawa Hospital.  Then there is the Queensway Carleton in the West end and Montfort in the East.  Guess how many list approximate wait times for their Emergency Rooms?  Zero.

If a small network of clinics can offer this service, why can’t any or all of the large hospitals that have significantly greater resources?  Sure you can call, but it would be nice to quickly view and compare the various wait times at several locations to decide where to go.  Maybe drive a little further, but not have to wait as long.

Needless to say, next time I need to see a doctor, my first stop will be www.appletreemedicalgroup.com.

Another note, at the Appletree location I went to on Preston Street, all the Doctor’s had electronic, tablet-style, clipboards used to document the visit and generate prescriptions that both you and the pharmacist can read.