About a week ago, I received an email from the school district in my community promoting a Spa Day opportunity at the city’s vocational school. I clicked through the link provided in the email for more information and landed on the district website where I found a phone number to call for a consultation. Yesterday morning I phoned to presumably schedule an appointment for 2 services for $25 – a budget friendly price that I would happily pay for a facial and pedicure provided by students.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple.
Do you see anything about paying in advance in person? Isn’t that an important detail?
To begin, the phone number provided on the website was to a number that didn’t get answered. You know how weird it is these days for a phone to just ring and ring without the option of leaving a message? Very, so I searched the district website until I located a main number for the school and called the office directly. I told the woman who answered what I was trying to accomplish, and shared the number I had previously called with her, only to learn that that number wasn’t a number, according to her, in the building. She said she didn’t know why the district would put that number on the webpage because she wasn’t familiar with it. Hmmmm. She suggested that I phone back in an hour when the teacher would have a class and thus, be available. I thought that was odd because generally when a teacher is teaching a class, that makes them unavailable. Curious.
I phoned back in an hour, calling the main office again, and on my second attempt, I was put through to the proper person who could schedule my services. Or so I thought. The woman presumably in charge of the event, explained that all appointments and services required payment in advance. In person. I asked what the hours were for the acceptance of payments and was informed that I could come by the school between 8:00 a.m. and 3 p.m. aka when I’m at work. There was no option for online payment or flexibility with regards with where or how to pay. Absurd.
While I’m a bit annoyed by this situation, more than that, I’m sad. I understand that there are probably issues with no show appointments and I am not opposed to paying in advance for my services, but the system for accomplishing this task should be far better than it is currently. Right now, it’s just plain ugly.
