The No Show

Remember when I said I had a lesson yesterday? Yeah it didn’t happen. Turns out JoNY was sick but just didn’t find a way to call anyone to let them know.

Let’s make this story a little worse. We’ve had no rain at all this fall until yesterday when it just decided it was going to rain all day. So I drove to the studio in the rain. Luckily, the strip mall wasn’t crowded so I did find a spot right in front of the studio and it was only a short run through the rain to get to the locked front door.

Stood there in the rain (well I was covered) with my dance shoes peering into the window of the mostly dark studio looking for any sign of life. There’s a mail box place next door so I had lots of people coming to drop off packages wonder why I’m standing outside the darkened door of a place that is clearly closed. I was checking my phone for messages and nada. So, after waiting about five minutes past my lesson time, I went home.

See the studio is actually closed on Monday but they’ll do lessons by appointment. When JoNY first suggested moving a lesson to earlier in the day, I thought about Wednesday but they start with some staff meeting. She actually brought up Monday so I figured it was OK.

Later on, OwnerGuy called me. I was busy with something and I didn’t recognize the number so I just ignored it. If you aren’t in my contacts list, I’m not going to answer the phone. He left a voice mail apologizing for it and wanted me to call him back to see about rescheduling. I did try the studio number but it rolled to the answering machine. For some reason, calling his cell seemed a little weird so I just let it be figuring I’ll see him today.

I mean there’s really not much he could do about rescheduling. I mean he probably would have offered another slot last night but I really wasn’t in the mood to make a return trip to the studio. I appreciate the effort and I know, as a studio owner, it is never good for an employee to just blow off a lesson without letting anyone know. It is kind of rude and unprofessional.

If she was sick, I get not wanting to do the lesson but you don’t leave someone hanging like that. At work, the rule was that you always called in. Even if you felt like crap, it isn’t that difficult to get on the phone and leave a message. I’m sure she doesn’t have my number at home but certainly she’s got OwnerGuy’s number. I suppose I shouldn’t go too far down this path because I’m only repeating what OwnerGuy told me and I should wait for all the details.

But what am I going to do? Am I upset that I got left hanging in the rain outside a darkened studio. Of course, but are you going to get mad at someone for being sick? That seems a bit silly. I kind of getting all of this out of the way here so I can go back to being impassive tonight.

I’m sure she’s going to apologize. I hate apologies sometimes. I mean it is nice but it really doesn’t fix anything and the only way to fix something is to do a make up lesson but that just means I’ve got to find another slot. So she apologizes but I’m still out a lesson and have the inconvenience of having to adjust things to fit another one in. And it does nobody any good for me to be all mad at her because that doesn’t fix anything either. So I’ll just take the apology and move on.

I’m also probably sure that OwnerGuy is speculating about why I’m not calling him back. (They like to do that) Again, there just isn’t really a reason to. The situation is what it is and if we can find a time for another lesson, there is no need to do that until the next time I’m physically in the studio.

And if I call him back, then I’ll probably get another apology and I’ll say something stupid and bland like “It’s OK”. It really isn’t OK. Somebody should have let me know that my lesson was off. But they didn’t and we can’t go back in time and change it so the deed is done and it is what it is. It doesn’t make me happy but can you really answer a apology by talking about how pissed off you were (well I wasn’t that pissed off because I kind of know stuff happens). It bothers me but it isn’t on my list of the top ten grievances of all time.

Well enough about that. Unless I hear differently, I do have a lesson tonight so we’ll see how all this goes.