"Any job worth doing...

By NAN BROWN
As published July 5, 2007

...is worth doing right." These are words of wisdom that were ingrained in my brain by my mother from a very early age.

So everything I do I try to do to the best of my ability. It has always been that way and it will continue to be until the day I die. That's just the way I am.

So it is next to impossible to me to fathom why others don't take the same pride in their work. I've just come off a heck of a week where I found myself mopping up other peoples' messes, and what it all boils down to is the work ethic in today's society - or the lack thereof.

I feel as though I need to have my telephone surgically removed from my ear after all the time I've spent on the phone lately straightening out the mistakes of others.

It all started with a response I received from my cardiologist's office to my call about complaints of being lightheaded and having kidney pain. I was informed they wanted me to make adjustments in my medications because my latest blood work showed my potassium level was too high and also my kidneys were showing signs of stress. I couldn't help but wonder why no one had contacted me before about these results.

I was told to immediately stop taking two medications and reduce the dosage of a third then report to the lab for blood work first thing in the morning two days later to be rechecked. I was assured by the nurse I spoke with that as soon as she hung up with me she was going to fax an order for the blood work to the lab.

Out of an abundance of caution the day before I was to go in, I called to make sure the lab had gotten the faxed order. They hadn't. I called the cardiologist's office to let them know this and was again assured an order would be faxed immediately. I checked with the lab again later - still no order.

The nice woman I spoke with there said she would also call to inquire about it. Finally as a result of our combined efforts, the order was faxed otherwise there would have been no point in me showing up for the blood work on Friday morning as directed.

As of the following Wednesday I had heard nothing from my doctor's office about the results, so I called and was told they were in but my doctor was out-of-town on vacation so he wasn't there to review them and I would have to wait until he got back.

I asked if another doctor could take a look at them and was told the other doctors didn't like to do so. I assumed in the meantime I could only hope that my potassium had gone back down to acceptable levels and my kidneys wouldn't give out on me.

Under the terms of our health insurance Jack and I are required to order long term prescriptions by mail. I recently mailed an order, and one of the medications included was one I had just been instructed to discontinue. I called the mail-in pharmacy and spoke to a representative verifying they received my order.

I explained the situation to her and said I would like to have that medication removed from the order. She assured me she was taking care of it as we spoke.

Two days later I got a call from the pharmacy saying they couldn't fill the prescription for one of the drugs included in my order because it was no longer covered by my insurance company. It just so happened to be the drug I had cancelled two days before. I told them of my previous conversation with their representative, and they said there was no record of the cancellation.

Jack and I have both lost track of the time we've spent on the phone in the last several weeks trying to get refunds on two separate items we bought but then returned. Both were major purchases so each of the refunds had to come from the corporate office of the vendor involved.

After more than two months amid claims of lost paperwork, we finally got one of the checks in the mail. As for the other refund, we're still waiting, so it's time for me to call again.

As if all this wasn't enough, last week the remote control retractable awning we purchased from and had installed by a supposedly reputable local company less than three years ago fell off the side of our house. Early indications are it wasn't installed correctly. My ear aches just thinking about how many phone calls this one's going to entail.