Entitlement?

I wonder where the sense of entitlement comes from. From rich people, I get it. Not because I feel that they are any better than anyone else, but because they have been catered to their entire life. When a person never hears no and never has to compromise, it makes sense that they would feel that the world works this way. But it doesn't. Or, at least it shouldn't.

The past few days have been so icky here weather-wise, so I was pretty understanding when someone called our clinic yesterday at 8:50am saying that they would have trouble getting to their 9:15 appointment. (Although, the weather has been the same for days, and everyone else seemed to have accounted for that, but whatever. It happens). I politely told them that, due to our full appointment schedule, the latest appointment I could give them was 9:45am. If that wouldn't work, I could easily reschedule them to Monday morning. The guy was grumpy, but agreed to be there for the 9:45 appointment. At 9:50am, he calls back, and talks to another person. He proclaims that he has not left the house yet, and would not be there at 9:45am because of the weather. (Apparently he has not gotten the memo that, even in sunny 80 degree weather, it is not possible to be somewhere on time when you leave the house five minutes AFTER you were supposed to have shown up!). So we said that he could still come, but he would be worked in between the previously scheduled appointments (you know, the people who bothered to show up on time!), and he should be prepared for a lengthy wait. He said that he would NOT wait, and that now he was just NOT COMING, because it was completely WRONG that he should have to wait. And then, after canceling the appointment completely, he showed up 10 minutes later. All this for a dog who had bump that had been there a week or more.

A recap- This man lived less than 10 minutes away, as he left home after 9:50am and showed up at 10am. YET, at 8:50am, he was apparently unable to make a 9:15am appointment, and subsequently unable to make a 9:45am appointment. This leads me to believe that he did not want to take off his jammies and miss the Saturday morning cartoons, and thus stayed in bed until his favorite was over. And because of this, all the people who got up early, scraped ice off their cars, carefully negotiated Christmas shopper traffic in order to be on time for their respective appointments, were supposed to step back and allow lazy bones to go first.

Why did this man feel this was OK? I would NEVER feel that this was OK. Why was he entitled to be seen right away, in front of everyone else??? You make an appointment, you keep your appointment. And if you can't make it, you apologise profusely and either reschedule or you wait. Politely, because YOU are the one that screwed up. Not the clinic. Not the people who were on time. YOU, Mr. Tardy!

Accountability. A tough concept that no one seems to get anymore.

(And yes, Mr. Tardy waited behind Mr. and Mrs. Ontime. Because it is how things should be.)

Ha!