Appointments

Frankly, I'm sick of people being late, forgetting about appointments, etc.  Let me be more specific.  A few days ago, I set an appointment with someone who wanted to come see the hamsters, for 11 am today.  11 comes.  11 goes.  11:15 comes, 11:15 goes.  I'm working on laundry and other stuff, and I intend to go upstairs and get their phone number so I can text them.  By 11:25, I'm upstairs and texting, and ask if they're still coming.

Oh, their son is sick and they're home and "OMG they completely forgot."  Seriously?  Would you forget if you had a doctor's appointment?  I highly doubt it.  If nothing else, if you couldn't make it, you'd call, apologize profusely, and reschedule.  But yet, people think oh they can make an appointment at a rescue and oh if they forget, no big deal, I have nothing better to do than sit home and wait for them.  Right?  Oh wait, their time is valuable.  But apparently, MINE isn't.  It's getting old.

Someone I know in the chin community just implemented an appointment fee, and after this recent influx of people not showing up or showing up super late (within the last week or two, had four people show up over 30 minutes late, or not at all, and only ONE of them texted to let me know they were going to be late).... it's sounding quite appealing.  So here's how it works:

To make an appointment, people have to put down a $15 deposit.  If they show up, within 15 minutes of their scheduled appointment time, that $15 is credited towards whatever they buy / get / whatever.  If they show up late, forget, never show up, whatever, they don't get that $15 back.  Tough cookies. 

I like this.  I think I will be implementing this soon.