It’s often hard to explain to people who don’t work in jobs involving facing a constant stream of members of the public, exactly how challenging it is to provide services, advice, help and support day in and day out. As much as we think we are ready for it when we embark on our journey to become vets and finally emerge from university rearing to go out and save thousands of lives like scrub-clad superheroes at the final furry frontier, nothing really prepares us. A large number of vets are not really “people” people at all. If we were, we would have become human doctors, wouldn’t we? (did you know in a lot of countries, you need the same or higher grades to get into veterinary studies vs. medicine? Very few of us are vets by second choice!)
What a lot of us disregarded back in vet school was that every patient comes with a pesky human attached at the end of the lead or hanging onto the pet carrier handle. These days, I’m told vet training does finally involve some courses on human psychology and how to deal with the emotions of, and interactions with, our own species which I’m sure is helpful. It’s probably still not enough, mind you.
I remember the gleeful feelings of relief we all shared with each other in jokes and comments on social media and chats during the COVID pandemic when we were able to exclude all our clients from the consultation rooms and just have their pets all to ourselves! Aaaahhhh, PEACE! I didn’t really hear one vet complain about that scenario…. But hoo boy was there a lot of stuff being shared regarding the bad behaviour of clients during the same period. Many of us were on the receiving end of undeserved vitriol, rage and cruelty from people who were having a hard time personally with lockdown frustrations, their fears and freak outs.
We vets were doing our very best to continue to help all the pets we could amidst a shocking amount of poor behaviour from their owners. But hey, we WERE lucky in some ways as we were allowed to keep working in most countries as essential workers….and we had the plus side of the novelty of the peaceful safe space of the consult room: Just us, a nurse and your pet (none of whom, by the way, died from the supposed extreme trauma of a ten minute separation from their family member left outside to keep their airborne virus particles to themselves…ahem.)
Anyhow, the reason I bring up the pandemic is because it was the first time that I personally started actively keeping track of our clients’ behaviour. We have always had the odd client behaving disgracefully and taking out their personal frustrations or mental-health problems on us, but during the COVID pandemic it went next level and we were shocked when some of our usually civil long-term clients turned savage. And that’s when we started to keep a list on our white board called the Mean Clients’ Hall of Shame. Yeah, you know who you are and if there’s a next time, keep your shit together and DO BETTER!!
But let’s not dwell on negativity. The pandemic came to an end and normality returned and we soon rubbed out the list of offenders and replaced it with a pin-up in the tea room of all the good guys. Every time a client goes above and beyond to make us feel appreciated and seen, it means the world to us. There are those who bring edibles in the form of chocolates, biscuits, cakes, etc. There are those who bring cards or write emails, Whatsapps or Google reviews to tell us we did a good job and our efforts were noticed. Every one of these helps us keep doing our best and every vet I know keeps those letters and cards and files those emails like treasures in a special place to revisit on the bad days when we get yelled at because vet medicine costs money and sometimes our patients don’t get better and for some people it seems, somebody needs to be to blame.
Being a vet for most of us is a big part of who we are, it is not “just a job”, so we take everything way more personally than we should and we all know we humans have that annoying negativity bias and tend to take the bad feedback way more to heart than the good stuff, which is so damned stupid. This of course leads to all sorts of terrible mental health consequences and we all do so need to bloody well lighten up a bit, right? Are you listening at the back? You with your A-type personality anxiety whatnot and poor coping skills?
To those who use any sort of animal health services: Just know that your words and actions always matter and please remember to be kind and give ALL people the benefit of the doubt before assuming they are wrong or bad operators, especially your vet and all who work to keep your furry friends and family fit and healthy! The one star ranty Google review that made you feel like you got your own back, might be the last thing one of us reads. If you don’t know what that means, here’s a link to NOMV.
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