The secret is that you must quit worrying about which client you get and which one you lose. FILE
By Seraphine Ruligirwa-Kamara
How is your back this morning? Yep! That’s what I asked; how is your back? I sure hope it’s better than mine, thank you for asking.
I hurt my back attempting to beat David Rudisha to the finish line during the holidays and ended up in untold agony, which took hours of physiotherapy and cocktails of drugs.
Oh! how I dread oral medicines. If I could get any medication as an injectable, I’d be ecstatic about occasional illnesses - even self-inflicted ones. I am happy to report I am on the mend.
Did I mention the number of hours I spent at the orthopedic surgeon’s clinic? It was classic. I got to his office and requested the earliest appointment.
“Oh he doesn’t work on appointments”, came the matter-of-factly reply from his lovely assistant. “Well, when do you expect him?” “Anytime from 2pm unless he is delayed by the hospital rounds. Take a number. You’re 12th on the queue.” Wow!
The 11 ahead of me were reading magazines, talking or texting on their phones, some had a leg propped on a stool, another was on a wheelchair, another was lying across one whole bench to herself and the rest seemed already more depressed than I was beginning to feel.
‘‘What do I do?’’ I asked myself. No, I think the more appropriate question is what can I do? I’m in pain.
My back feels like it has a throbbing heartbeat of its own and the physiotherapist sternly warned me peering at me over his spectacles to stay off the ticking back. He meant that I follow his counsel or else!
Do I request the lovely lady to pencil me into the next hour because I am in pain or just let her know I need a more available doctor because I need one asap?
Looking at her knowingly studying my thoughts from my facial expression, I can tell I’d get an “am sorry that’s the doctor’s current schedule” and a swift shift to her next occupation.
The thing is that the doctor runs his clinic his way. If you don’t like it, join medical school, do it differently, run a better clinic and very best wishes to you.
In the meanwhile, join the queue at number 12 and patiently suffer your back pain within his schedule. The name ‘patient’ takes its literal meaning now. Ha! And you thought you understood the word, didn’t you?
What’s your line of work? If you serve a different type of clientele, I bet you have a bit more time on your hands—not that it’s all available for business but you have it.
When I just started out as an over zealous entrepreneur, I didn’t know that. A cheeky client would request a 7am meeting in the depths of industrial area and I’d quickly agree to it. I thought I was being nimble. The early bird catches the worm, right?
Dead wrong. Meeting the client at his convenience, huh? Oh please! I did this a few times only to find that the client was “stuck in traffic but was on his way”. And that would be a phone communication 10 minutes after 7am.
No comments:
Post a Comment