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HTH did this HAPPEN??!
Sorta suck, sorta confusing, definitely a mess!
Me - RVT, 2nd oldest person on staff, grey, but less of it, VERY long hair
Co-worker1 - L, swell front desk bod, knows her stuff, does it well
Co-worker2 - Kid, a just graduated from high school very nice girl. Smart, but new and young
Co-worker3 - M, our suspected culprit, oldest person on staff, very grey very short hair
1st woman - Counter Sister, or CS
2nd woman - Phone Sister, PS
I work in a Very Large Corporate vet hospital chain, that does not have a lab work arm... HQ just moved. It is today's Dr's last day, and he Does Not Care (no fucks left to give at all) and he's taking a 3 hour lunch because he can. He's done the mornings work, and he's all caught up on the day. There are no appointments during this time, he's allowed to do this. Besides, what are they going to do? Fire him? Notsomuch...
I'm up at the front desk, where I do NOT work, checking out somebody getting meds for a pet. Cluster over at the other pinpad, much talking, etc. I pay no attention because my pin pad is misbehaving and I'm trying to get the poor man handled so he can leave. Although I'm not aware of this at the time, the mess at the other side of the counter is CS and her 2 dogs. I finish up and go back behind the door where I belong!
Time passes in which I work on the weekly semi-inventory and ordering. I have my lunch, and am oblivious to the front desk, unless she comes back and shoots the breeze with us.
Kid answers a phone, puts them on hold, and looks super perplexed, and worried. I see her face, and ask if I can help her? She looks at me and says "I don't know what to DO..." I take over the phone call and introduce myself.
Hooboy. Whoa Nelly. And Oh Shit! PS is irate, and looping her conversation. I recommended you people to my sister because blah, blah, blah. In turn, I loop my response... It does not end well, and takes a TON of my time to document, because I suspect heads may roll.
PS claims CS made an appointment (during a time in which we DO NOT make appointments at ALL) and had this appointment date and time confirmed via telephone reminder call. CS gave her personal info (name, pets names) to L, who found her in the database, but also found NO appointment, and the file was 'owned' by a different branch, not ours. L called that branch to see if CS HAD an appointment there. Nope, also their Time During Which There Are NO Appointments! L re-checks CS's file, no appointments shown in the computer, and they DO show when and where past and future appoints were/will be. CS goes away super disgruntled and unhappy.
PS calls us, gets Kid.
Kid hands call over to me. Joy and Rapture.
PS starts telling me her story. Important fact - she either misspells her sisters last name or Kid misheard it, so File Not Found. Also gives us wrong pet name for 1 of the 2 dogs. I explain that I cannot find her sisters file in the system, and that we cannot make an appointment for somebody without having at least a cursory owner file set up. AND, that once set up, those files cannot be deleted or erased EVER. They may get temporarily lost if we have a Computer Suck, but corporate back up will eventually find them, and the file will be in the system. AND, when we have that kind of computer suck, corporate flags the nation and we know that the computer is having issues..... Appointments can get deleted, but the record of them having been made and then declined is also in the system for us to see. We Have Records Up The Wazoo, OK?!
PS says sisters dogs need to be seen today. That they needed to be seen at the beginning of the week, but that we were booked out and Saturday was the soonest we could fit her in (which means we had had a cancellation for a few minutes that CS was slotted into, because weekends are booked out nearly a full month ahead. Weekends be popular!) I explained that a) we don't MAKE appointment for the time CS claimed she had one; b) we had NO appointments on file for CS at all, at any time; c) we had no doctor in house for this time period, d) we are completely booked up for the afternoon with no empty spots in which to squeeze CS, and e) if the pet really needs to be seen, all I can do is give her info for one of our local ERs to whom we send a ton of patients that need more than we can supply, a-n-d f) I can email local corporate leadership about the entire mess to let them know this has happened.
PS - well that's not going to help the little dog is it?!
Me - Ma'am, these are my ONLY 2 options here. I can't find the file, I can't find any appoints for the file I cannot find, I have no openings until the end of next week, I cannot explain how this mess happened, I too am stuck!
PS - I am very unhappy with this situation! I recommended you because I thought you guys would HELP her and her little dogs. (Like we help little dogs faster than we help big dogs...?)
Me - I understand your anger and frustration, I would share it if I were in your position, but I am also frustrated that this has happened. I can give you the ER info, I can tell you we send many many clients over there when we can't get them in here soon enough. I cannot do more than this.....
PS - I'm not happy.
Me - I don't blame you, I'm not happy either. Would you like the ER info so your sister can take the dog in?
PS - She can't afford that, I wanted her to see you people because you are cheaper! And we had to wait a week!!!
Me - Yes ma'am, we are cheaper, but we don't have an appointment for the dog today and don't have a time slot big enough for the dog until the end of next week. Do you want the ER info? I am going to be writing this up and sending it to my corporate leadership.
PS - Emailing them won't help the dog, though, will it? Why can't you see the dog today?!?!?!?!?!?
Me - Ma'am, I don't have a doctor right now, he's on his lunch, and when he comes back, he has back to back appointments to the end of the day. I cannot change that. ALL I CAN DO is give you the ER info so you can take the dog in and get him seen. I will be emailing corporate so they can find out how and why this happened, so we can make sure it doesn't happen again, which I agree does not help the dog at all, and I suspect you will not have any response from them until at least Tuesday, because this IS Labor Day weekend, and they're not working this weekend. But it's all I CAN do. Do you want that ER info?
PS - yes, give it to me.
After I hung up, I documented the entire shit show in PS's file, and cut and pasted it into an email, which I then augmented for some more clarity.
And THEN L came up and told me her side of the show, and how PS had needlessly complicated things by misspelling her sisters name, and giving us different pet names...
How CS got told she had an appoint during a No Appointment time, how she got a reminder appointment about it - I have no idea. We suspect M did it, because she's booked appointments during that time before, but then there's always a record of it, it's IN the computer for us all to see. This time there is a void, a dearth, there are NO appointments for this person whatsoever.
If M did do it, I suspect this is one more nail in the coffin... She hasn't been herself for the past 6 months. She's gone from Old Lady Kinda Crusty to Old Lady Belligerent. The customers who used to really like her because she schmoozed well with them now complain about the bitch at the front desk who would not help them and was rude to them. I don't know what's going on, but I have a horrible feeling we're seeing early dementia play out. And I, and the rest of us, are really sick of having to clean up her mistakes... She keeps forgetting things we've known for months, and she keeps playing the victim and then sulking and refusing to speak to any of us. Whatever is wrong isn't going to play out well.... She used to be a good co-worker. She no longer is.
Me - RVT, 2nd oldest person on staff, grey, but less of it, VERY long hair
Co-worker1 - L, swell front desk bod, knows her stuff, does it well
Co-worker2 - Kid, a just graduated from high school very nice girl. Smart, but new and young
Co-worker3 - M, our suspected culprit, oldest person on staff, very grey very short hair
1st woman - Counter Sister, or CS
2nd woman - Phone Sister, PS
I work in a Very Large Corporate vet hospital chain, that does not have a lab work arm... HQ just moved. It is today's Dr's last day, and he Does Not Care (no fucks left to give at all) and he's taking a 3 hour lunch because he can. He's done the mornings work, and he's all caught up on the day. There are no appointments during this time, he's allowed to do this. Besides, what are they going to do? Fire him? Notsomuch...
I'm up at the front desk, where I do NOT work, checking out somebody getting meds for a pet. Cluster over at the other pinpad, much talking, etc. I pay no attention because my pin pad is misbehaving and I'm trying to get the poor man handled so he can leave. Although I'm not aware of this at the time, the mess at the other side of the counter is CS and her 2 dogs. I finish up and go back behind the door where I belong!
Time passes in which I work on the weekly semi-inventory and ordering. I have my lunch, and am oblivious to the front desk, unless she comes back and shoots the breeze with us.
Kid answers a phone, puts them on hold, and looks super perplexed, and worried. I see her face, and ask if I can help her? She looks at me and says "I don't know what to DO..." I take over the phone call and introduce myself.
Hooboy. Whoa Nelly. And Oh Shit! PS is irate, and looping her conversation. I recommended you people to my sister because blah, blah, blah. In turn, I loop my response... It does not end well, and takes a TON of my time to document, because I suspect heads may roll.
PS claims CS made an appointment (during a time in which we DO NOT make appointments at ALL) and had this appointment date and time confirmed via telephone reminder call. CS gave her personal info (name, pets names) to L, who found her in the database, but also found NO appointment, and the file was 'owned' by a different branch, not ours. L called that branch to see if CS HAD an appointment there. Nope, also their Time During Which There Are NO Appointments! L re-checks CS's file, no appointments shown in the computer, and they DO show when and where past and future appoints were/will be. CS goes away super disgruntled and unhappy.
PS calls us, gets Kid.
Kid hands call over to me. Joy and Rapture.
PS starts telling me her story. Important fact - she either misspells her sisters last name or Kid misheard it, so File Not Found. Also gives us wrong pet name for 1 of the 2 dogs. I explain that I cannot find her sisters file in the system, and that we cannot make an appointment for somebody without having at least a cursory owner file set up. AND, that once set up, those files cannot be deleted or erased EVER. They may get temporarily lost if we have a Computer Suck, but corporate back up will eventually find them, and the file will be in the system. AND, when we have that kind of computer suck, corporate flags the nation and we know that the computer is having issues..... Appointments can get deleted, but the record of them having been made and then declined is also in the system for us to see. We Have Records Up The Wazoo, OK?!
PS says sisters dogs need to be seen today. That they needed to be seen at the beginning of the week, but that we were booked out and Saturday was the soonest we could fit her in (which means we had had a cancellation for a few minutes that CS was slotted into, because weekends are booked out nearly a full month ahead. Weekends be popular!) I explained that a) we don't MAKE appointment for the time CS claimed she had one; b) we had NO appointments on file for CS at all, at any time; c) we had no doctor in house for this time period, d) we are completely booked up for the afternoon with no empty spots in which to squeeze CS, and e) if the pet really needs to be seen, all I can do is give her info for one of our local ERs to whom we send a ton of patients that need more than we can supply, a-n-d f) I can email local corporate leadership about the entire mess to let them know this has happened.
PS - well that's not going to help the little dog is it?!
Me - Ma'am, these are my ONLY 2 options here. I can't find the file, I can't find any appoints for the file I cannot find, I have no openings until the end of next week, I cannot explain how this mess happened, I too am stuck!
PS - I am very unhappy with this situation! I recommended you because I thought you guys would HELP her and her little dogs. (Like we help little dogs faster than we help big dogs...?)
Me - I understand your anger and frustration, I would share it if I were in your position, but I am also frustrated that this has happened. I can give you the ER info, I can tell you we send many many clients over there when we can't get them in here soon enough. I cannot do more than this.....
PS - I'm not happy.
Me - I don't blame you, I'm not happy either. Would you like the ER info so your sister can take the dog in?
PS - She can't afford that, I wanted her to see you people because you are cheaper! And we had to wait a week!!!
Me - Yes ma'am, we are cheaper, but we don't have an appointment for the dog today and don't have a time slot big enough for the dog until the end of next week. Do you want the ER info? I am going to be writing this up and sending it to my corporate leadership.
PS - Emailing them won't help the dog, though, will it? Why can't you see the dog today?!?!?!?!?!?
Me - Ma'am, I don't have a doctor right now, he's on his lunch, and when he comes back, he has back to back appointments to the end of the day. I cannot change that. ALL I CAN DO is give you the ER info so you can take the dog in and get him seen. I will be emailing corporate so they can find out how and why this happened, so we can make sure it doesn't happen again, which I agree does not help the dog at all, and I suspect you will not have any response from them until at least Tuesday, because this IS Labor Day weekend, and they're not working this weekend. But it's all I CAN do. Do you want that ER info?
PS - yes, give it to me.
After I hung up, I documented the entire shit show in PS's file, and cut and pasted it into an email, which I then augmented for some more clarity.
And THEN L came up and told me her side of the show, and how PS had needlessly complicated things by misspelling her sisters name, and giving us different pet names...
How CS got told she had an appoint during a No Appointment time, how she got a reminder appointment about it - I have no idea. We suspect M did it, because she's booked appointments during that time before, but then there's always a record of it, it's IN the computer for us all to see. This time there is a void, a dearth, there are NO appointments for this person whatsoever.
If M did do it, I suspect this is one more nail in the coffin... She hasn't been herself for the past 6 months. She's gone from Old Lady Kinda Crusty to Old Lady Belligerent. The customers who used to really like her because she schmoozed well with them now complain about the bitch at the front desk who would not help them and was rude to them. I don't know what's going on, but I have a horrible feeling we're seeing early dementia play out. And I, and the rest of us, are really sick of having to clean up her mistakes... She keeps forgetting things we've known for months, and she keeps playing the victim and then sulking and refusing to speak to any of us. Whatever is wrong isn't going to play out well.... She used to be a good co-worker. She no longer is.
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