# Dental office



## Smurf2011 (Sep 5, 2016)

In Germany, August and September is holiday seasons. Most people take 3 week holiday during this time, especially doctors and dentists.
When a doctor or dentist go for holiday, they would set up automatic phone answering message which tells from which day to which day the doc is on holiday, and refer another doc for you can visit while this doc is on holiday.

Something is very strange about my dentist. I first called outside of his office hours last week. The voice message only talks about their opening hours. Then I called their office during their opening hours, an assistant picked up the phone and said they are on holiday last week.
Since I walk by their office when I come to work, I noticed that their mailbox was full all week last week. No one picked up mail for the office all week last week.

My questions are:
(1) If the dentist is on holiday whole week last week, what can his assistants do alone in his office whole week? Billing, and sterilizing for whole week? unbelievable. The only reason I can figure out is that he did not plan this vacation beforehand, and he cannot suddenly ask his assistant to take vacation. Because people need to plan for vacation beforehand. Is this reasonable explanation?
(2) If his assistants were in office last week, why didn't they pick up mail whole week. Isn't it assistants' job to pick up mail? Did he took all keys for mailbox, because he does not trust his assistants? This is not reasonable, right. If he cannot trust his assistants even on this, why should he hire them?


----------



## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

It's entirely possible that the person who picked up the phone when you called was actually from the dentist's answering service, not someone physically in the dentist's office. It's fairly common practice to forward the phones to an answering service when the dentist is away or is not taking calls for some other reason.
Cheers,
Bev


----------



## Smurf2011 (Sep 5, 2016)

Dear Bev,

Thank you very much for your reply.
I am pretty sure it is not answering service, because I have never seen any doctor do that in Germany for going to holiday. All doctors I know leave automatic voice message that tells from which day to which day they are on holiday and which doc you could go to during this time.
It just does not make sense to use answering service for this, and I have never seen any one do that. And the person who picked up the phone said only they are on holiday today, and bye. Much less helpful than voice message. Besides, in order to use such service, you need to pay money. One has to be out of his mind to pay money for such unhelpful thing. It just does not make sense.



Bevdeforges said:


> It's entirely possible that the person who picked up the phone when you called was actually from the dentist's answering service, not someone physically in the dentist's office. It's fairly common practice to forward the phones to an answering service when the dentist is away or is not taking calls for some other reason.
> Cheers,
> Bev


----------



## Smurf2011 (Sep 5, 2016)

Dear Bev,

I checked out what answering service does. They will live receive phone calls, and then either forward the call to you, or send message to you.
The one who picked up phone only said they are on holiday, and bye. Apparently not answering service.



Bevdeforges said:


> It's entirely possible that the person who picked up the phone when you called was actually from the dentist's answering service, not someone physically in the dentist's office. It's fairly common practice to forward the phones to an answering service when the dentist is away or is not taking calls for some other reason.
> Cheers,
> Bev


----------



## Nononymous (Jul 12, 2011)

Why are you obsessing over this? German professionals operate differently. Sometimes weirdly, to us.

Older Germans, as you may know, often refuse dental anesthetic, preferring pain to the sensation of numbness. I tried to tell my dentist to never ask a North American if they wanted anesthetic, always assume, or they'd flee screaming, but as he grew up in East Germany this movie reference was lost on him: 




Also you presumably know by now the rule that any official task requires a minimum of three visits to an office: one to determine the opening hours, one to determine what paperwork is required, and one to actually make the first attempt at completion. The internet may occasionally reduce that by a step or two if all information is correct, and it's a full moon during a leap year.


----------

