Couch 217: The Order of the Phoenix couch

How would ypu guys feel about this situation?

June 30, an hour before your appointment with the dietitian you sometimes see for your celiac disease (roughly every 6-8 weeks), she emails to reschedule the day’s (in-person) appointment. She’s just learned she’s been exposed to covid and must isolate for two weeks. Asks to reschedule for the week of the 20th.

You write back within the hour to say sure, hope you’re okay, here’s my availability the week of the 20th. No response. The week of the 20th draws closer, you know there’s been no response, you’re reluctant to write in case she’s sick. (You also google to see if there’s an obituary, and consider asking Info, who knows her, if she knows what’s up.) Finally on the 25th you write and ask what’s up.

You get an out of office response: “I’m on vacation from the 17th to the 27th.” And then a couple days later, a response to your last email, “Sorry for the late response!” and listing some possible appointment times.

You haven’t responded yet, because this just seems so unprofessional to you. Self-isolate, okay, that’s good. Not respond to a client when you asked her to reschedule, not good. Then go on vacation, for the week you wanted to reschedule her for without contacting her, also not good.

She has done this failure to respond thing once before, though not this spectacularly. I still find seeing her useful, but am really put off by this episode.

Wow, dietitians are at least as touchy as therapists. Email exchange:

Me: “Hi, I’d like to come in [one of the offered dates]. By the way, I appreciate that you’ve been dealing with a lot this past month, but I would just ask that in the future when we have to reschedule by email, we both be timely about responding. I’m not always good about that, either [not actually true with her, but it has been with others].”

Her: “Please confirm for the [date]. I think you should consider whether I am the right RD for you. I continue to feel I don’t meet your expectations.”

That is the first I’m hearing that she feels that way—and why is wanting timely communication an expectation that is hard to meet? It also has nothing to do with her role as an RD.

I find her useful but she’s not so useful that I want to keep her at all costs. And I suspect I don’t really need her celiac help very much anymore.

@@ - wow. So she WAS lying about the covid exposure. AND shes a witch. Called it!

Sounds to me like she is BEGGING for a yelp review.

Boy. Two kinds of people in the world. This is the kind you stay away from, if you can.

Wait. How do we know she's lying about the Covid exposure?

That response would irk me. A lot. I might be reconsidering working with her after that.

Elementary! Because she proposed an appt for the 20th, when FACE IT! She did not know yet if she had been exposed, OR NOT! ERGO, the 20th was a false date! Summa, EVERYTHING she said on June 30th was a lie!

Eta - are you sure this is how sherlock holmes got his start?

My therapist randomly texts me. Something she started doing a few weeks ago. She never did it before. It's really strange. She texts me appropriate stuff like "thinking of you" or "hoping you are doing well" but it's still random and out of nowhere. Any one else's T ever initiate contact?

Yeah, maybe two or three times in four years. Apparently he thinks about doing it more than that, but doesn't for reasons. It always felt nice when he did send something supportive out of the blue.

Yeah, maybe two or three times in four years. Apparently he thinks about doing it more than that, but doesn't for reasons. It always felt nice when he did send something supportive out of the blue.

You forgot that there was dust on her email that could only have come from the ground beneath the oldest palm tree in a single square mile oasis deep in the Gobi Desert.

I don’t think she was lying fwiw.

Maybe I am just being ungrateful!