If you are reading this BLOG, you may have recently had a less than desirable interaction with Jamie. Part of his job is to insulate our amazing, fabulous, superstar Team from people that seek to insult our integrity, question our protocols, or simply be a jerk in general. Not a single one of our Team members has to endure insults, cursing, belittling, or guilt-trips while they do the excellent job they do every single day.
Our industry has one of the highest rates of suicide because of the way the general public treats us on a regular basis and this has only intensified over the past year. If you do not believe me, check out this article from Time:
https://time.com/5670965/veterinarian-suicide-help/
Or perhaps this one from The Washington Post:
A quick Google search will find you countless others, but I challenge you to find a single article from any reputable source that says the veterinary community is anything but an exceptionally compassionate group, one that says we are “all about the money”, or frankly, anything bad about our profession filled with fabulous people that are there to help animals.
Please understand that if we tell you no, we are not doing it for fun or our entertainment, in fact we hate it. We LOVE to make our clients happy and help pets feel better, as this is quite literally our primary goal, but there can be circumstances where this is simply not possible. Please allow me to share with you what we had to endure over just one single day last week.
We received not 1, not 2, but THREE calls from people yelling at our Team because we simply do not have the capability to see every pet, every time, at any given moment. One lady screamed and cursed at us because our doctor would not leave a CRITICAL SURGICAL PATIENT that was under anesthesia, to see her dog that vomited, ONCE, earlier that morning. Another individual, after already berating us on the phone, blew us up in an online review because we could not check his dog’s itchy ear while our doctors were performing emergency surgery on a dog that had been attacked by another dog and suffered life-threatening injuries. The third was a client that showed up unannounced, during our exceptionally busy surgery intake time for clients that were already scheduled in advance, demanding that we delay the ELEVEN other pets we had scheduled, to see his highly aggressive dog for a procedure that takes at least 2 people 30 minutes to complete.
We DESPERATELY need you to be more patient and understanding. We know you are worried about your furry friend and WE ARE TOO, but there is only so much we can physically (and emotionally) handle. Just “squeezing you in” is a MUCH bigger ask than you can possibly know, and we must insist that you please work with the options that we provide. We are exhausted and we deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. Adding appointments to an already full schedule jeopardizes the care provided to ALL our patients and we are unwilling to compromise the high level of care that we are known for.
I understand completely and appreciate all you do for our three pets. Thank you!!!