I booked an appointment a while back ago for 12:15 today—it’s for a 1.5 hour appointment.
The place emails me yesterday and ask me can I do 15 mins later. I say no, sorry, but happy to reschedule if that won’t work for you.
They email me again and say: “hey it’s 15 minutes, wouldn’t that be possible?” (That irked me a bit)
Me: no, I’m sorry I have plans at 14:00. (2 p.m. for Americans)
Then, late last night they say: “Ok, we can keep original time.”
I walk in this morning and sure enough the provider m says she’s going to be a few minutes late. I sigh, wait.
She’s comes to bring me back right at 12:30, completely disregarding me saying I can’t change my time. (It’s only 15 minutes..but still. I had another commitment).
So I said, I’m sorry I will not be able to stay for this appointment, I said I can’t start 15 minutes late.
Her: shocked pikachu face.
While only 15 minutes, I feel like it was kind of disrespectful of my time since I already said no twice, and I’d be paying like $200 for this appointment. So, AITA?
Edit to add: I live in Germany and this was a medical aesthetic appointment (microneedling), and my appointments have been on time.
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I booked an appointment a while back ago for 12:15 today—it’s for a 1.5 hour appointment.
The place emails me yesterday and ask me can I do 15 mins later. I say no, sorry, but happy to reschedule if that won’t work for you.
They email me again and say: “hey it’s 15 minutes, wouldn’t that be possible?” (That irked me a bit)
Me: no, I’m sorry I have plans at 14:00. (2 p.m. for Americans)
Then, late last night they say: “Ok, we can keep original time.”
I walk in this morning and sure enough the provider m says she’s going to be a few minutes late. I sigh, wait.
She’s comes to bring me back right at 12:30, completely disregarding me saying I can’t change my time. (It’s only 15 minutes..but still. I had another commitment).
So I said, I’m sorry I will not be able to stay for this appointment, I said I can’t start 15 minutes late.
Her: shocked pikachu face.
While only 15 minutes, I feel like it was kind of disrespectful of my time since I already said no twice, and I’d be paying like $200 for this appointment. So, AITA?
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> 2) I kept and showed up for the appointment instead of rebooking.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
If you genuinely had plans at 2pm, no, you’re not the arsehole.
If you didn’t have plans, and you were making a point, then yes, you’re an arsehole.
NTA she tried to steamroller ypu into accepting the 15min late start by lying to you. If possible I’d go elsewhere in future and let her know why.
I get it, you also felt disrespected and lied to.
NTA. They needed to be honest and not waste your time.
Did they think it would be better for you to waste an extra 15 minutes sitting in the waiting room than cancel your appointment?
I don’t think leaving makes YTA, in particular because you said you could no go later, so no. I just would never expect to be perfectly on time from any type of medical visit. Even when they take me back on time I often don’t see the provider until much later. So no, you’re not an AH at all. Especially, if you weren’t rude. I would just say that you might be unrealistic with your expectations of time regarding the medical community pending on the type of visit.
Nope. I get that things change but when you made them aware that you wouldn’t be able to stay totally not the AH. People should be made aware and given the option to reschedule if places are running behind. I often will schedule appointments over my lunch break or before work that gives me a limited time. Most people don’t have much if any pto. Not respecting appointment times is offensive.
NTA. Personally I wouldn’t go back there. When they didn’t get their way they lied and wasted your time.
NAH.
What is the provider? This will get me downvoted but if you have a specialist appt which is hard to get (ie with someone booked out for months) then you should not book anything close to the time without expecting to have to move the appt slightly. Shit happens and they are dealing with life changing decisions which can and do delay the schedule. 🤷♀️
I do bookings for surgeons and the amount of patients who get shitty over an appt being shifted slightly when the surgeon is quite literally coming out of an operating theatre … obviously everyone’s time is valuable and you SHOULD stick to the commitments you make, but imo it’s important to look at the bigger picture – if they’re worth $200 for an appt and it is hard to get one, then cancelling the day before because of a tiny time change is going to prevent someone taking that spot and you should probably just have been late to your event.
NTA. I overslept once and was already in my car omw to a Dr appt. Called them and said I’m going to be 5 min late, but I’m enroute. Said I’d have to reschedule. Waited 3 mos to get in. Same Dr’s that have zero issue making me wait an hour past my scheduled appt time consistently. In 20 yrs this was the only time I’d been late. Like only their time is important
ESH, but you more
If it were at least an hour, I’d be on your side. If you can’t spare fifteen minutes, that’s poor planning on your part. Fifteen minutes can be bad traffic, another client that was late or needed more time, any number of things that aren’t disrespectful, just a consequence of dealing with the unpredictability of life, and it’s not the provider’s fault you planned things with no buffer.
However, they should have just let you reschedule. That’s where they slightly went wrong.
But, if fifteen minutes late is a common occurrence in that place, especially if this is a doctor’s office, plan for that next time, or risk having to reschedule again.
I feel this one in my soul. Our provider for my husband is regularly an hour late. But if you’re 15 minutes late, they reserve the right to charge you full price and potentially even cancel your appointment. Every time she’s late, I want to ask if we get to take off money from our bill to accommodate our time that she’s wasting. She’s even late for first appointments of the day.
I like that you told them ‘no’ and walked. Do it for us all.
NTA
Info: What sort of provider is this? Here in the states, medical providers are frequently 15-60 min late for appts. It’s expected. So not sure why you’d book something so close and assume they’d be right on time. Unless it’s a massage or something?
YTA I have never had a Dr appointment start on time. You should have allowed for 15 minutes even without the time change. If your timing was so tight that you could not spare 15 minutes… you should have rescheduled your appointment with more than the 12 hour’s notice that you gave them.
NTA service providers don’t accommodate lateness in the other direction, so why should you?
Medical appointments are subject to delays due to prior appointments from the provider. If a patient is late, has an unforeseen complication, etc., it will affect the entire rest of the day’s appointments.
In this case, there was inflexibility from both sides. A tight patient schedule and a long appointment from the provider who probably will not be able to fill the slot at such short notice.
An unfortunate combination of schedules.
NTA
NTA. I had a dentist office call me about a year ago and ask if I could come 15 minutes earlier. I agreed/hurry up to leave to get there at that time. And then when I arrived? They had me sitting in the waiting room for nearly an hour.
As we were (finally) walking back to the exam room, I heard a lot of laughing. I remarked that it sounded like a party or something. The lady told me they were having a birthday party for one of the staff. So. You make me hurry up to get there early, leave me sit forever in the waiting room and it’s because you are having a birthday party?
The medical professionals don’t care if they are late or make you sit forever, but if you arrive a couple minutes late there’s a huge to-do about it?
I think there’s a distinction between a doctors appointment (health reasons) and micro needling appointment (cosmetic reasons) that determines the judgment. If you couldn’t wait 15 min for a doctor/specialist who may have been saving someone else, I’d say Y T A. However, you probably picked this micro needling time slot and, if they couldn’t accommodate and honor the original time slot you paid for, then no you can’t wait around for the service and they should have just rescheduled. NTA in this case.
Americans understand a 24 hour clock. You don’t need to explain it
NTA and I’d suggest you find a new provider because I bet they knew she was still going to be 15 minutes late when they said the original time wouldn’t change.
Definitely NTA. I understand doctors don’t want last-minute cancellations, but on the flipside they need to respect the patient’s time as well. They don’t want to be stuck with an opening, but have the schedule so packed you end up waiting two hours. Very infuriating.
This is the most German AITA I have ever read. A soft NTA, I suppose. She should’ve stuck to the original time you decided. That said, shit happens. When booking appointments, it’s good to have a small buffer zone of 15-30 minutes, for things of that nature. Not taking that into account doesn’t make you the asshole, but it’s good to keep in mind.
I don’t understand why you stayed there until 12:30 waiting to be taken back. It sounds like you did it just for the shocked pikachu face… if you truly couldn’t wait for the appointment to start at 12:30, you must have had an acceptable time in mind. If that time was 12:20, for instance, why weren’t you at the front desk at 12:20 saying “I cannot wait longer for the appointment to start, this needs to be rescheduled now”
Esh
YTA. If you couldn’t wait 15 minutes why did you stick around in the waiting room for an extra 15 minutes after your appointment time and THEN tell them you can’t make it? Why not tell them at 12:05 or 12:10 you need to reschedule?
Was it a massage? If so YTA, those appointments never run entirely to time, there’s always 5-10 mins at the end for changing/chat/advice etc. You’re not ta for leaving after they disrespected your time but you are for booking it so tight that you didn’t have 15 mins wiggle room.
YTA
Not giving yourself 15 minutes of wiggle room is bad planning on your part. There is plenty of reasons your appointment might have started a little late or run a little long.
I also don’t understand why you were still there at 12:30 if you truly had so little time to spare. If you were that squeezed, you would have already left.