A Series of Unfortunate Events

We have a list, at the Depot, of Medicare patients, their names and addresses, and when we last checked in with them. We're supposed to see that everything is ship shape once a month, so when a driver runs out of things to do in his particular neighborhood, we do Medicare checks.

Today a driver ran out of things to do, so I gave him a name. He called up, and the lady who answered said that her husband had died 8 days ago and that a different medical supply company had come and picked everything up. This happens sometimes and it's a huge pain in the ass. We have to track down the company and get them to let us wander through their warehouse looking for our crap. Well, we did all that and we couldn't find our crap.

So I called the lady and asked if she was suuuuure our mattress wasn't in the garage or a storage space or something. She started to get angry and lectured me for 5 minutes (I have a little call-timer on my phone) about how people need to leave her alone and how she's grieving, and how she has no place where she could have accidentally stashed our mattress. All very understandable grievances.

After my lecture I called the sales guy to let him know that our $5000 mattress had disappeared. He asked to know the other medical supply company's name and number and the grieving lady's name and number. Then he went on a calling rampage that involved grieving lady hanging up on him, possibly more than once.

While his calling rampage was going on I decided I would pull the file and call corporate to stop billing. But I couldn't find the file. The reason I couldn't find the file was that we had picked up the mattress last week and it was in the "off" drawer.

For those who would like a flow chart, the flow goes like this:
List not updated -> Lady tells us that a single medical company picked up everything. (There were at least 3 companies involved.) -> Since the warehouse was searched and nothing found it is assumed that the lady is lying and just doesn't want us to come over. -> Sales guy is mean to her and she hangs up. -> Lady has a bad day. -> I have a bad day.

Stupid snowballing chain of events. (Although I have to say, the sales guy seemed peculiarly fine with the whole thing.)