Okay, okay, okay. Yes if you haven't heard, I was censored on Friday. No big deal.

It just spices up the blog a little. Now the Friday's thread is officially a bootleg. Only the email subscribers got a look at it. Even more reason to be an email subscriber. And for those of you who saw it and were offended...I apologize. One of the points that the AGD was on the fence about was if it was legitimate or not. I assure you I was only doing what I did at the request of the family, not of the funeral home director. Every thing was totally on the up and up.

Man life is crazy right now.

School is back in. Luke, my oldest, is playing tackle football again. And no, he really isn't that much bigger. He is 92 pounds soaking wet. He loves playing though. He is the starting defensive back, second-string wide receiver, and second-string quarterback.

I think they are playing teams that are more their size instead of the David versus Goliath match-ups they did last year. My other son Noah is playing baseball.

Madison is the easiest. No longer swimming, but playing piano. And David turns 2-years-old in a couple of weeks.

Trying to get this lecture thing going is fairly consuming. I love it though.

Okay. I have dental chairs that are respectable. On the grade scale they are a "C". They are a brand called Royal. They are the workhorse of the dental chair. But as far as bells and whistles....not much. It's just a chair. When we were buying chairs the rep said, "You can have these awesome ADEC chairs for X amount or you can have these Royal chairs for X minus a lot. Which one do you wanna buy?"

I went with the "workhorse". But I have always had chair envy. My periodontist who I see twice a year has these awesome ADEC chairs with this super soft leather that are SOOO comfortable. I knew of a local chair refurbisher. I have seen them at meetings and had long talks with them. I have felt the leather on their stuff and it is so smooth and soft. I took the company's card and promised to call them.

Well, time passed me by and even though I thought about it all the time I couldn't find the right time to pull the $1,000 trigger (per chair). Another meeting came around and I went to the company booth. I took their card and promised to call them. I wanted it. But time passed again.

But it wasn't until I was writing that one blog about maybe spending some money on your facility to make it look nice...I think our office looks really nice, but I am convinced to finally refurbish at least one chair. I called them up. And we talked and I told them what I wanted. She added it all up and told me that it was going to be $1,400.

I was like, "Shut up John. Don't say anything. Just buy the stupid thing." I said, "Okay". But when she sent me the email for me to confirm I had to say something. I told her that $1,400 was a little bit more than I was prepared to spend, and asked "is there any way you can give me a meeting price or something." She came back with, "Let me talk to my manager".

I was going to buy it but it never hurts to ask. Heck people do it to me all the time. Anyway, she come back with, "I talked to my manager and he said that we can't change the price, but we can talk about a discount if you would like to buy six or more."

Look, I already told you (and her) that I was going to buy the chair. But, I also told her that $1,400 was more than I was prepared to pay. I was trying to tell her that "money is not really growing on trees right now, but I really want your product". And I thought that was perfectly clear. So her response really chapped me.

Wouldn't it chap you?

"I know you are struggling to pay for one, so why don't we try to get you to buy six."

And I told myself I wasn't going to let this one go. I wrote her and told her that she could've have just said no. I also told her that why would I buy six if I was telling her that $1,400 was more than I wanted to pay. Saying the second part was telling me, No. 1 that she wasn't listening to me, and No. 2 that she didn't care about me.

Am I being to sensitive? I don't think I am. But I was thinking, "Are we like that?" Do we listen to our patients? Do they say something and we give them our robot answer without thinking about what they just said.

(In your best robot voice) You need a crown!

"Yeah, Dr. John. You told me that last time. But, I also told you that I lost my insurance and I am barely getting by as it is. I told you that I am giving you all that I have just coming in for a cleaning."

Or "I am calling to schedule your cleaning appointment. I see that you missed your last recall appointment. "

Well, what if that person told the last person to call that they had just lost their job and couldn't possibly come in for a cleaning. Then we call them again saying, "Are you ready to schedule?" That is when people get all ticked off on the other end saying, "I told you I lost my job!"

No one wrote it down. We weren't listening.

We do all this to get patients in the office. We do all we can to do awesome dentistry. We do all we can to have the place looking nice. We do all we can to have a great staff. But we, for a split second, forgot to listen. We have so much going on that we forgot to care. Bam, that patient is gone.

I have to tell you that this profession is hard. I am glad I have all of you going through it with me.

Have a great Wednesday,

John

ps. AGD Impact came out today. Anyone read it? Anyone see an article from a young punk in Apopka, FL? Let me know what you think.

If you don't get the Impact, email me...I will see about getting you on the mailing list.

Jgammichia@aol.com