A case study in Catastrophic Thinking...

Can I share a little pet peeve? Well, I'm going to anyway.

I hate it when business voice mail messages start out by saying "Please note that our menu options have recently changed".

Gee, Monica, why would that bother you?

What a great question internets.

You see their menu options have not recently changed. They are the same as they were 6 months ago, one year ago, three years ago. They just keep that same message there so you will sit up and pay attention I guess. Or maybe no one knows how to go in and update it to get rid of that part of the message. But still I worry that maybe they really have gone and changed their options again and this causes me angst.

You see, I really do know that the path that I should take for some numbers I call once in a while without having to listen to the whole spiel. For instance for billing at that medical practice I should press, 2# then 5# then 4#. But no. They always warn me that their "options have changed." And on some stupid level I believe them.

So what's the worst that could happen? I guess if I pressed 2# then 5# then 4# I might not get billing. I might get a surgeon's cell phone while he or she were in the midst of surgery and then they'd take the call, because who else would be calling them on this number but someone important? Then they might be upset that it was only me mistakenly reaching them while trying to reach billing and THEN THEY MIGHT ACCIDENTLY LEAVE THEIR CELL PHONE INSIDE OF THAT POOR PATIENT. Because they'd be so flustered and all.

So do you see my dilemma?

To cope with this I actually convince myself that at virtually every office across the globe, someone somewhere really is changing their menu options. So I'd better listen to the whole thing. Just in case.

I know I've not explained myself well yet again. Oh well. Is it Friday yet? -Monica