Confusion reins supreme

I usually don't blog about work too much, but since I had the morning off today, and there was some, well a ton of confusion at work on Friday that carried over with a phone call from the office this morning I feel a need to get it off my chest so I can go into work this afternoon, cool, calm, and collected.

I am kind of a "contract" employee of sorts. I rent space out of a chiropractic office, and am part of the office, but not part of the office if that makes any sense. I take care off all my own booking, payments, administration, and just hand over my rent cheque at the beginning of every month. I found that this was the best solution after many, many, many problems with the office staff booking appointments for me. I am a little bit of a control freak (I can admit that fully) and due to the physical nature of my job I require my appointments to be booked in a specific way. The office staff had a hard time booking the appointments this way so I took over the task fully, and my appointment book is now my sacred blackberry that is with me at all times.

I have noticed lately that the girls (the assistants) will sometimes peak at my schedule if a client of mine has a question about their next appointment, and there has been alot of little post-its waiting for me when I come in. Both cause a problem. First all it takes is one little button to be pressed by accident and pfft, there goes my day's appointments. Which has happened, and let me tell you, I was not a happy camper. Secondly, I really don't like post-its. The owner/chiropractor loves them so they are a regular fixture in our office. For actual notes, they don't work. They're too small, and they get lost, and they are a huge waste of paper!!!

So last Tuesday I come into the office, and waiting for me are quite a few notes, scribbled on my note pad, on post-its. It was nuts. On one of the post-its was a note about an appointment that was to happen on Friday. I understood it to say that that the appointment was to be cancelled. Apparently it wasn't. This led to a huge mess on Friday. Let me tell you that one lazy client who can't be bothered to call my voice mail+one small post-it+messy handwriting=one huge mess that I had to clean up.

As a result I had to leave a very detailed MEMO for the girls (the office staff/assistants) telling them there are to be no more notes. My clients all know that if I am not in the office there are to call my voice mail. Under no circumstances are there to be little post-its left for me. It's creating too many problems. The new office manager (who is thankfully a friend of mine as well) called me at home this morning and we are in agreement and she is to tell the rest of the staff.

Hopefully this week will be much smoother than last week.