The more things change, the More they stay the Same....

I had a doctor's appointment with my new provider yesterday.  I had to change health plans when I had to leave Mikkelborg to take care of Mary-Elizabeth.  I landed at Group Health.

Yes, we all used to call it Group Death and I clung religiously to my Regents Blue Cross but since I had new body parts they  automatically made me un-insurable by the same people that paid for them in the first place.  So Group Health it is.  This is where I spill my guts about how incredibly impressed I have been.  These people all but come and wash my windows for me.  Everyone that works there is happy.  It is sort of like Children's with better food.  So this is the context for the rest of the story.

My new doctor learned that I was a lawyer and told me she had e-mailed the Attorney General about problems with her Phone/Internet service.  (Clearwire is not clear.)  She was complaining about how the service did not work, it was deathly slow, the techs had suggested that while she sleep, she unplug it.  I told her that phone issues was an old old problem and told her my favorite phone problem story.

Dad and  his partners added on to the clinic in Hayden Lake.  They thought it would be useful to have phones in the new office space.  Despite repeated and frustrating attempts at repair, there were constant issues with the phones.  A favorite for the office manager Virgina was the issue of not being able to call from upstairs to downstairs. 

At some point Virgina threw up her hands and just quit paying the bill in protest.  She was a regular at PUC meetings and had gone through all the proper channels and was done.

One night, around 2:00 A.M. The sheriff was found pounding on our door.  Low and behold our phones were not working. Neither were the phones of the other three doctors.  A child was trying to be born and the hospital sent the Sheriff to find a doctor because alas the baby needed to make an appearence.

A couple of hours later the manager and a crew were stringing temporary  phone lines through the windows in order to hook up the bedroom phone until morning.

My doc felt better because she was not alone.

So the moral of the story: 

Sharing a story helps.  Being alone sucks and it is nice to know that you are not. 

Don't fuss at me if I don't answer my phone, I know that if it is important the sheriff will come.

History repeats itself in slightly updated versions.

Final point:  If you write the AG, you are only allowed to use words like Yahoo and idiot only once in an e-mail.  I am going to provide Dr. M with a thesaurus because the world is a frustrating place sometimes and there is a need for lots of words to express our frustration.

Oh, I love Group Health.