Saturday, January 26, 2013

That's me in the corner.

So, this one client has been increasingly annoying for over ten years now, and try as I might to gently encourage her from seeking care elsewhere, she is frustratingly loyal to VBB Veterinary Hospital. There are a lot of things about her that annoy me, but hands down the most annoying thing she does is try to get me to attend her church.

In the time I've known her, I've gone from ignoring her church invitations, to politely saying "no thank you", to offering generic excuses along the lines of "I'm sorry, that's simply not possible," to explaining that I have my own place of worship that I prefer, and finally things got to the point where I said "please listen because I am only going to say this one time: I have my own religion. It is not the same as your religion. I not only am not interested in changing my religion, but I am also personally offended by your continued attempts to solicit my participation in your religion. Please stop this, or I'm not going to be able to be your veterinarian any more, and I'd feel terrible about ending our professional relationship over this." 

One might have thought that would put an end to the problem, right? 
Or, failing that, one might have thought I'd be cynical and jaded enough NOT to expect her to cut it out.

Sadly, one would have been incorrect both times, and I was bitterly disappointed that this client continued her attempts even MORE vigorously. Unfortunately the Boss Behaving Badly around here put the kibosh on the idea that I might fire this client...

So - imagine my response to this voicemail:
Hi Dr. VBB! This is Ms. Prossy Letize calling about my new little doggy. Well you know I don't get around so well anymore and I'm mostly in the chair all day, and little Barkmeister has taken to, well - you know.  He jumps up and [Sotto voce] humps me [normal voice again] for 20 minutes and I can't get him off of me!  What do you think could be wrong? Have I made some kind of mistake in his upbringing?  I don't really want to bring him in, unless you have some idea of what might be wrong with him that you could treat. Let me know what you think. Bye now.

Words fail me.

14 comments:

  1. You are far too nice. Tell the Goddamned boss to see her if she wants to keep her. And don't you dare waste a breath returning her call.

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  2. I feel your pain. A very nice young man working at my local veterinary office was always going on and on about his church and trying to get me to go. I am happy to say he no longer works there. I don't know why, but I'm just happy not to get the good news every time I go to the vet.

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  3. When I was a reporter, I would get this all the time. Was doing an interview with a cleric and we were gettin on famously when he asked me what church I go to. I replied (it was a different faith from his.)
    Immediately, I was the Devil incarnate.
    So much for siblinghood between faiths.

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  4. I would tell her that leg humping is a well-known sign from the animal kingdom that she is not fulfilled in her spiritual world and that she needs to consider changing churches....

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  5. Dear doG! Don't remind her of the evolution of humping, not that she'd believe you anyway.

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  6. Dog being God spelled backwards.... oh the possibilities :)

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  7. Imagine if you were an agnostic dyslexic insomniac....

    You'd lay awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.

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    1. Imagine you were an English teacher. You'd lie awake at night fretting over the grammatical errors you saw in blog comments that day. :)

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  8. I feel certain that some people, should just not own animals, full stop. Normally those that have too many and cannot afford them all or those that are just clueless, mollycuddle them and treat them like a child. Amazing phone message by the way :)

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