It was something like a scene from Derry Girls or The Inbetweeners, but last week we actually had a teenage patient phone the practice pretending to be his own father to cancel the appointment he was meant to attend that day.
So…. his parents would think he was taking time off whatever he was supposed to be doing in order to go to the orthodontist and the orthodontist would think his parents had cancelled the appointment to arrange it for another day, and he’d be under the radar doing whatever he wanted. At least, that was the plan but my front of house team knew his dad and knew they weren’t speaking to him, and in fact they were pretty sure they weren’t speaking to anyone actually old enough to be his father.
So a quick phone call to his mum and some spectacular swearing later, the matter was resolved and he turned up eventually and there were smiles chairside but no mention of what had occurred.
You can’t underestimate the importance of your team’s local knowledge and vigilance, so I’m grateful for the excellent front-of-house crew at Swords Ortho.
