"I'm never shopping THERE again!" Share your story!

[Elisabunny]

i took my children to a fairly new pediatrician. i have a 5month old and an 18month old. they were both there for a wellness check on friday. both babies have been tugging on their ears when they're tired, so i asked him to check their ears 'just in case.' he did. no problems noted.

saturday my 5month old had a fever, was whimpery and gagged on a mucus ball.   my poor baby! i called the oncall nurse and she said to bring her in. i paid my $35 copay and the doctor saw her. he didn't appear too concerned until i mentioned the whimpering. he then checked her ears- and found they were too waxy to determine whether or not she had an infection. so he cleaned out one of them, and sure enough! she had an infection. he wouldn't clean or inspect the second ear.

he then told me she had accumulated that much wax in BOTH ears... overnight.

his bedside manner also leaves much to be desired. he chewed us out for electing not to give our 18month old the chicken pox vaccination, although we assured him if our son got to be an adolescent without getting chicken pox, we would innoculate him then. i get tired of being lectured about which vaccines we choose to give our children- we're selective and thoughtful about the process, yet it seems as if the doctor feels we're excessively negligent. each time we go in to see that doctor we get a lecture on it. he also lectured me the first time i brought my daughter in for not getting her the vaccine that prevents diahrrea. he then looked at his notes and said: 'oh- she's already too old for it.' he again lectured us this time for not giving it to her, despite her now being two months older than the first time he said she was too old for it.

he also checked out the 5month old with the stethescope. my son was interested and patted his little chest so the doctor would put the stethescope on his tummy as well. the doctor grunted and asked me what he wanted. i told him he wanted to have the doctor use the stethescope on him. the doctor said: "oh." then moved on to the best item of business. i know he didn't HAVE to cater to my son's whims. but it would have been a good opportunity to get him acquainted to medical tools and thereby reduce anxiety the next time he goes in. bah- maybe i was exasperated because of all the transpired beforehand. he just didn't seem good at his job.

sadly, with our health insurance, it was hard enough finding THIS doctor.

There's a vaccine to prevent diarrhea? That doesn't seem like a good thing; I've been told by my pediatrician's office that diarrhea is the body's way of getting rid of the virus.

I believe it's for a specific virus that causes life-threatening diarrhea, sort of the gastro-intestinal equivilent of RSV.

[MommyPenguin]

he also lectured me the first time i brought my daughter in for not getting her the vaccine that prevents diahrrea. he then looked at his notes and said: 'oh- she's already too old for it.' he again lectured us this time for not giving it to her, despite her now being two months older than the first time he said she was too old for it.

There's a vaccine to prevent diarrhea? That doesn't seem like a good thing; I've been told by my pediatrician's office that diarrhea is the body's way of getting rid of the virus.

I believe it's for a specific virus that causes life-threatening diarrhea, sort of the gastro-intestinal equivilent of RSV.

Rotavirus, I think.  Leading cause of diarrhea in infants and young children.  Can lead to death, although *very* rarely.  My little one just got that vaccine the other day.  She was actually late getting it, but they didn't mention any problem with not doing it due to her age, so either she wasn't *too* late or they don't do the age cutoff thing at our immunization place.

[ica171]

he also lectured me the first time i brought my daughter in for not getting her the vaccine that prevents diahrrea. he then looked at his notes and said: 'oh- she's already too old for it.' he again lectured us this time for not giving it to her, despite her now being two months older than the first time he said she was too old for it.

There's a vaccine to prevent diarrhea? That doesn't seem like a good thing; I've been told by my pediatrician's office that diarrhea is the body's way of getting rid of the virus.

I believe it's for a specific virus that causes life-threatening diarrhea, sort of the gastro-intestinal equivilent of RSV.

Rotavirus, I think.  Leading cause of diarrhea in infants and young children.  Can lead to death, although *very* rarely.  My little one just got that vaccine the other day.  She was actually late getting it, but they didn't mention any problem with not doing it due to her age, so either she wasn't *too* late or they don't do the age cutoff thing at our immunization place.

That makes sense. I was wondering how they could vaccinate against something that was usually a symptom.

[Jocelyn]

This reminds me a story from years ago. My mom and I went to a chain diner. I knew that the boyfriend of one of the women I worked with was the chef there. I ordered chicken fried steak, which is supposed to come with chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, white gravy and a vegetable. It came out, I took a bite and it was sausage gravy. Not at all what I expected, and I was pretty annoyed. I didn't send it back, though, because it had taken a while for our food to come out in the first place. I just scraped it off and ate what I could. I told my coworker about it the next day and she giggled and said, "Yep, that's BF. He was having a bad day." Uh...OK...so he did it intentionally? Did that make him feel better? I just said "oh" and went about my business.

Perhaps she meant, 'He was having a bad day- he put the sausage gravy where the white gravy is supposed to be, and messed up a bunch of orders before he realized what he'd done.'

[Jocelyn]

Rotavirus, I think.  Leading cause of diarrhea in infants and young children.  Can lead to death, although *very* rarely.  My little one just got that vaccine the other day.  She was actually late getting it, but they didn't mention any problem with not doing it due to her age, so either she wasn't *too* late or they don't do the age cutoff thing at our immunization place.

I've had rotavirus. I've never been so sick, and I lost a LOT of weight-like close to 10% of my body weight. At one point my doctor told me that if I weren't able to hold down (and in) liquids in the next 2 hours, for me to meet her at the ER.
That would definitely be a vaccine I'd be asking a pediatrician about, considering its effect on a reasonably healthy adult!

[Virg]

Jocelyn wrote:

"Perhaps she meant, 'He was having a bad day- he put the sausage gravy where the white gravy is supposed to be, and messed up a bunch of orders before he realized what he'd done.'"

That's how I took it too.  I saw it as an admission that he made mistakes because he had a bad day, not that the gravy mixup was intentional.

Virg

[jedikaiti]

Jocelyn wrote:

"Perhaps she meant, 'He was having a bad day- he put the sausage gravy where the white gravy is supposed to be, and messed up a bunch of orders before he realized what he'd done.'"

That's how I took it too.  I saw it as an admission that he made mistakes because he had a bad day, not that the gravy mixup was intentional.

Virg

One can only hope, but perhaps the tone when it was spoken said otherwise.

[JoW]

The car story reminded me of an incident that happened when I was car 23 shopping years ago.  I had a DH at the time.  His car was to be the trade-in.  In the first stage of shopping we went to several dealerships, looked at several different types of car and test-driving a couple.  We deliberately left our checkbooks and the title to the trade in at home.

At one dealership the salesmen immediately asked us was if we had the payment book for the trade-in with us.  If we weren’t prepared to make the purchase right then they didn’t want to talk to us.  They didn’t even want us to sit in a car, let alone take it for a test drive, if we weren’t prepared to make the purchase that day.  This even after we told them that the title was at our home less than 15 miles away.  The salesmen finally pointed out one car that was unlocked so we could get in but not drive.   We got in, decided we didn’t want to deal with those guys, and left.  Bought a car at another dealership 2 weeks later. 

And yes, it was salesmen, plural.  We were the only customers on the lot at the time.  The salesmen were busy talking to each other.  They couldn’t be bothered to help us. 
Someone else in my office had a similar experience with them.  She test-drove a car, admitted she liked it, and was immediately escorted to the sales office and had purchase paperwork shoved in her face.  She walked out, too. 

[Shalamar]

I remember when we were shopping for a new-to-us car.  We wanted a blue Toyota Echo, and we found two that were identical in two different dealerships.  Everything about them was the same - the features, the price, the year, etc.  We phoned both dealerships and made appointments to go for test drives.

At Dealership #1, the salesperson was so completely clueless, we wondered how she'd managed to dress herself that morning.  Despite knowing that we were coming to test-drive an Echo, she knew nothing about them and could answer none of our questions.  (It was an ECHO.  One of the most basic models ever.  Not a  Lamborghini.)

At Dealership #2, the salesperson answered every single question we threw at him.  He was pretty nice, too, without being too "salesperson-y".

Guess who got our business?

[ica171]

Jocelyn wrote:

"Perhaps she meant, 'He was having a bad day- he put the sausage gravy where the white gravy is supposed to be, and messed up a bunch of orders before he realized what he'd done.'"

That's how I took it too.  I saw it as an admission that he made mistakes because he had a bad day, not that the gravy mixup was intentional.

Virg

One can only hope, but perhaps the tone when it was spoken said otherwise.

The way she said it definitely implied that it was intentional. Like he was annoyed and intentionally screwing up orders was his way of relieving stress. I don't know for sure because I didn't ask, and it's possible that her delivery was misleading, but that's always been the way I interpreted it.

[parrot_girl]

I remembered one from when we were house hunting 9 years ago. We'd driven over to check out an open-for-inspection and realised that we'd gotten the time wrong and it was just about to close. We were driving off when I looked in the rear-vision mirror and saw the agent chasing us up the road, waving his leaflets at us!
So in we went, the agent happily extolling the virtues of this lovely three bedroom brick veneer with gorgeous large backyard (well, it was large, and I imagine it would have been gorgeous once you'd gone at it with a weed whacker) etc etc. I wandered through- bedroom, bedroom, lounge, kitchen, bathroom...hm. Through again, same result. I checked outside to see if there was an extension I'd somehow missed. Nup.
"Excuse me," I said, "But where's the third bedroom?"
The agent's jaw dropped and he strode through the house, head turning from side to side. He came back to us.
"Oh," he said. "I must have miscounted!"

So we didn't buy from him. I refuse to buy houses from people who can't count to three.

[Piratelvr1121]

Our house was listed as a 4 bedroom, but when we got in we realized it was just a 3 bedroom and I'm still not quite sure what they were counting as the fourth bedroom.   It wasn't our agent who had listed it so I don't really blame him for it at all, and he seemed just as puzzled by it being listed as a 4 bedroom. 

Ironically, now it is a 4 bedroom because we built a room in the basement for our eldest when we found out we were having a 3rd child.

[nuit93]

Our house was listed as a 4 bedroom, but when we got in we realized it was just a 3 bedroom and I'm still not quite sure what they were counting as the fourth bedroom.   It wasn't our agent who had listed it so I don't really blame him for it at all, and he seemed just as puzzled by it being listed as a 4 bedroom. 

Ironically, now it is a 4 bedroom because we built a room in the basement for our eldest when we found out we were having a 3rd child.

The house I grew up in was listed as a 4bd, however the 4th bedroom was a whopping 7'x11'.  My twin bed took up a third of it.

[ica171]

Our house was listed as a 4 bedroom, but when we got in we realized it was just a 3 bedroom and I'm still not quite sure what they were counting as the fourth bedroom.   It wasn't our agent who had listed it so I don't really blame him for it at all, and he seemed just as puzzled by it being listed as a 4 bedroom. 

Ironically, now it is a 4 bedroom because we built a room in the basement for our eldest when we found out we were having a 3rd child.

The house I grew up in was listed as a 4bd, however the 4th bedroom was a whopping 7'x11'.  My twin bed took up a third of it.

I once visited a house that was listed as 4 bedrooms. There were two tiny bedrooms on the main level, and in the unfinished basement there was a curtain separating it into two halves. Each half had a metal garment rack for a closet. Recently my ex best friend's ex husband listed their old house for sale, and the agent boasted "four huge bedrooms." No. Two were OK, one was small, and one was tiny. I'm glad I have a good agent already, but even if I didn't I would refuse to deal with agents who think words don't have meaning.

[Jocelyn]

I really don't get why realtors would do this. Do they think people won't notice there's a bedroom missing? Or that the 'huge' bedroom will not accommodate a bed larger than a crib? But then, you have to wonder why some houses are even built, with those impossibly small bedrooms, or bathrooms in inconvenient locations. I once looked at a house that I really liked...until I realized the shower was in the basement. It was a showerhead with a circular shower curtain rod around it, right in the middle of the basement! I had no intention of putting up with a 'bathroom' like that!