Educating Managers

[Ron Nossaman]

>Ron,
>
>The way I see it, it wouldn't have hurt anything to let the guy know up front
>that you would be charging for wait time.  "Yes, sir, I can wait, but you
>scheduled me for this particular time, and here I am, so you should know in
>advance that my clock just started, and you will be charged for waiting time."
>Or something.  Just a gentlemanly gesture, and you, dear Ron, are a gentleman.
>:-)
>
>Regards,
>Clyde

Clyde,
You're right, of course. I should and normally do attempt to treat people 
as fairly as I can. I tend to tell them what I think they need to know if I 
have to sit on them to do it. This was a truly bizarre situation. If he had 
asked in a straightforward manner, he'd have gotten a straightforward 
answer. After standing there listening to him talk around it for five 
minutes with all the cliche conspiratorial winks and elbows, I utterly lost 
interest in cutting him any slack and wished I could go somewhere and rinse 
off. I wish I had a recording of the conversation, because I've never 
experienced anything else like it. Sitting in the reading room, I expected 
maybe fifteen or twenty minutes wait. Background static inconvenience for 
this kind of work. A little added to the bill for educational purposes, and 
no real harm would be done. It didn't occur to me even after that weird 
monolog that he intended to intentionally screw me out of an hour and a 
half of my working day. Boy was I wrong! This guy had to have known what 
kind of delay he was expecting, and didn't apparently have any qualms about 
not warning me about it if he thought he could get it without cost. If I 
had happened to have another appointment that afternoon, I'd have left a 
bill for a minimum service call and made my appointment for a client more 
worthy of attention and consideration. Since I didn't, I stuck it out. But 
I had run entirely out of generosity by the time the first hour of the wait 
had come around.

Maybe I played it wrong. I interrupt now and bluntly point out that waiting 
time is charged for, even though it seems inconceivable to me that it could 
be otherwise. Another one of the many things I learned the hard way.

Ron N