First of all, you need to allow a good 30 minutes of your time to make the call. The appointment making itself will take less than a minute, but getting TO the person who has the pencil and can write it on the calendar takes 21 minutes.
Next, memorize the phrase "Yes, I'll hold." because you will use that even more frequently than you will spell and re-spell your name to the incompetent secretary.
And, please make sure your name contains no letters that can (and will) be mistaken for something else. In other words, no M's, N's, S's, F's, T's, P's, B's, or D's. If you MUST have any of these letters, make sure your name is easy to understand and very common. Jennifer and Steve are fine examples. This will take up 7 minutes of your 30 min turn time.
When providing your address to re-enter yourself into their system since they apparently have a new one and misplaced you during the transition, make sure you know how to spell the abbreviation for boulevard, because they wont. The last 3 minutes will be used to translate your foreign address and reply with "No, thats all, thank you." and hang up.
The End.
