Does anybody listen anymore

What is up with people these days? Are we so wrapped up in what we have to do or say that we have stopped listening?

The phone number at work here is 886-2020 - unfortunatley the optometrist down the street has a phone number that is 885-2020. The phone here is answered "Good (time of day) thank you for calling Mr. Culley's office. How may I help you" And the response frequently is "I'd like to make an appointment to for eyes OR I'm calling to confirm my appointment for tomorrow." Our receptionist has been tempted on more than one occasion to just make an appointment and hang up. I understand the numbers are very close BUT people listen to her or me or whoever answers the phone - it seems we are too caught up in what we want to say that we stop listening.

What irks me even more is when voicemail picks up and it goes through the name, the address, the e-mail etc AND people still leave messages for someone else - for example Mr. Neilson (it doesn't even sound like Culley) gave the cancer society the wrong mailing address so his tickets were returned and customer service called and wanted to know could he call and give them the correct address - apparently Mr. Neilson left the wrong phone number too - ha ha - so I call and spend 10 minutes of my valuable time trying to clear this up because I can't just call - they have to pull up his file and check his information and ask me what the information here is and then yes have to ask me if there is a Mr. Neilson here - really c'mon stop making me want to bitch slap you - if there was a Mr. Neilson here don't think I would have said that within the first second or two!!

Or someone calls the optometrist and leaves a message on the machine that they won't be able to make their appointment or will be late and yes we have to call Dr. Sloss and inform him we were told that their patient was not coming or will be coming late.

So please people listen to that message as annoying as it may be - you just may be calling the wrong number and some people just may not pass on the message.