The Walmart of Vet Care

It was cowardly and yet necessary that I quit my new job after my first full day. After I was crying on the phone to my ex at lunch time I wasn’t really sure how the heck I was going to make it through the rest of what ended up being a damn ten hour shift. Granted, it’s been a long time since I’ve been new at something let alone trained to do something I have no prior background on, but I am NOT an idiot. I learn quickly when given the chance to learn something properly.
That was not what happened on my very long day Monday. The manager who I knew would drive me nuts at least a little, turned into a raving lunatic all the while treating me like I didn’t understand her completely contradictory and vague instructions. The staff could only shrug at me when I had questions, explaining that they too never knew what she was talking about half the time either.
I had offered the week before to get in a half day of training. She just had me stand around and glossed over things that I had hoped to get a head start on learning. I only put in a couple hours before leaving again without feeling like anything was accomplished. Then first thing Monday afternoon bam she expected me to do everything right the first time and immediately. She was short handed and I could understand that but I hadn’t done a single thing on the computer system. I had been given an extensive cheat sheet for the keystroke short cuts that got everyone around on the scheduling and cashiering system. Since starting my search for a veterinary job I had seen plenty of scheduling systems that made a whole lot more sense than the one presented to me.
I was never given all the details. Not once. Not even when the manager snidely demanded that I start answering the phones. What was I going to do? Put people on hold? That’s what I did. But I couldn’t even keep dealing with customers coming in the door along with the ringing phone. The company policy states that in three rings or thirty seconds, the phone must be answered or put back on hold. What a retarded circus that ended up being for the poor girl that was up there with me. She was doing a sight better job training me than the manager but she got a little overwhelmed with two phones, three phone lines, and customers coming in the door.
That’s how I came to be crying on the phone to my ex at lunchtime. I got a ten minute break that no one told me I have to ask for within a certain time only to come back work another ten and then take my previously scheduled hour long lunch. It was a beautiful sunny day and I spent it outside next to my car, but all I really wanted to do was throw down my borrowed scrub top and tell the manager to go to hell. I’d never been so pushed and condescended about my ability to deal with the public in front of a customer. She’d actually yelled at me to speak louder in front of a poor woman who just wanted to pay her bill and leave.
The rest of the day went the same. The manager took it upon herself to stand behind me and, instead of teaching me what all the different options and windows did, she merely barked the keys that I should be pressing and the choices I should be making in order to keep things moving. She’d even slapped my hand when I tried to use the mouse to explore the system myself. I’ve never been so frustrated to the point of tears on a job in my life. Customer after customer came up and even though several asked for the same thing I had no idea what I was doing. I simply pushed buttons as the manager told me to. We even closed down with customers still in the back. I tried to say something but everyone ignored me.
Listening to the manager and the head vet plotting against people that worked under either woman was just astounding. If they thought they had such idiots working for them, then why were they hired? The thing that completely sold me that I was quitting was talking with two of my co-workers. They had asked about my previous job and why I had chosen to take this one. When I mentioned the six-month raises both of them had laughed. The manager, they explained, always found a way to keep them from fulfilling the classes they had to completely in order to be eligible for the raises every six months. One of the women hadn’t been able to get a raise for the last two YEARS. After the day I’d had with the manager, I wasn’t surprised at all. Some how she had made herself seem like the victim of idiot staff when she was a completely incapable leader and trainer.
So it occurred to me this morning that this particular vet company was the Walmart of Vet Care. Lots of locations, paired up with an extremely cheap pet supply company and they had totally monopolized the industry. Their Wellness Plans make it just seem impossible to go anywhere else for Vet care. Just like Walmart they make it seem like there was no other way to go.
That just scares the shit out of me. It’s all an act, an environment of need and greed. They have this whole list of words that as staff we’re not allowed to say in order to make things happy, PC, and fluffy for the general public. Don’t get me wrong, I am a devoted pet owner and it’s been a bit of a family tradition that our pets are apart of our family. I like the idea of staff wanting to ask about my Ginger as a furry member of the family and not an “animal” that needs scary “injections”. But when it comes to talking about possible problems with your pet, MAN! Everything gets graphic and terrifying really quick. The company’s policy is that because pets have a shorter life span, they should be coming in for check ups more regularly than once a year. This makes sense but the extent of some of the tests they run and the medications that are forced on pet owners blew my mind. If my cat is an indoor cat, she honestly doesn’t need the multitude of preventive vaccines. Not so here, get them all or the cat will die a horrible death says this company.
As a part of my education and in order to get raises there is this long list of "instructional videos" that employees have to watch. These are same ones that we show to the pet owners while their waiting for the PetNurse to show up. While I'm sitting there watching video after video, I notice a pattern. They make every little thing sound utterly horrifying from the words they use and the pictures they show. Everything isn't fluffy anymore. Then they hit you with their over all message, "If you do all these thousands of dollars of preventative testing, medication, blood work, ect. then you won't have to worry about the Corona Virus that could make the lining of your dog’s intestines shed." Total and complete scare tactics to keep people coming in every six months or more!!
At one point Monday I had a situation involving heartworm medication (at $29.95) being thrown on the bill without the owners knowledge or consent. It was when my co-worker quietly told me that I just needed to tell the woman it was necessary, that I was first appalled. Not only is the Veterinary staff pushing this idea in a half assed manner, I was supposed to slip it past the customer when the Vet staff didn’t bother. I just can't work for a company like that.
I’ve spent all Monday night and yesterday wondering what to do. Was I over reacting? Was I being weak and letting myself out too easily? Was this my one chance to get the hell out of the museum? My ex really narrowed it down to the part that really matters beyond all else, "Would you take Ginger there?" I emphatically said no, without any hesitation. "Then why would you want to work there?" He's very right. Nothing more needed to be thought about or dealt with.
I still feel a total sense of failure about not getting out of the museum. I guess I'm still trying to rationalize my way around the whole thing. In some ways I’m affecting more than myself by not leaving. I’ve also had two very nice going away parties, which seem utterly ridiculous now. I know that there has to be a better vet environment out there and that I shouldn’t settle for something if I’m just going to be unhappier than I was at my current job, and getting paid a lot less to suffer through it as well. What’s the point in that?
Yay for Corporate America. I just don't want to be a part of the "largest vet care company in the world" or so their little video told me. I don’t want to be a part of a company that is going to treat staff and their customers like their mindless idiots, while selling themselves as "Treating your pet like family". BLAH!!