You Gotta Have The Right Attitude

My last post spoke about this maid and two kids from hell who came for an appointment a week early. Well they made another appointment at our other branch for the same procedure and did not bother to cancel the one they made earlier. What’s more, the maid complained to my colleagues at the other branch that the staff at our clinic were rude, especially me. I really don’t blame her for saying that. I can understand how she feels, seeing that she has lived through so many years of hardship with poop where her brains should be.

Anyway, I had another interesting encounter with a client sometime last week. This lady, lets call her SumTingRong, came in asking to purchase a box of heartworm tablets. She claims that she and her dog just came from Hong Kong and that her dog has been on some heartworm tablets that she couldn’t remember the name of. All she can recall is the name went “Melva-something-something-something”. After helping to jolt her memory by listing down all the brands of such tablets I have ever come across, Bryan came to the rescue when he realized she was actually trying to quote the active ingredient of the drug.

In order for SumTingRong to buy that drug from us, we required her to register herself as a client and her dog as a patient. So I handed her a form to fill up while I went to get her a pack of the tablets. When I came back to the counter, she told me that she will only provide me with her name and contact number. Now that of course was not proper procedure. So I told her that I was instructed to get at least her ID and her address as well in order to open an account. She then demanded to know why we needed her ID. I thought, “Duh! I don’t know you, how do I know you are not impersonating someone to get drugs?” But of course I couldn’t exactly put it like that to her so I told her as tactfully as I could that it was a company policy. She then gave me a look of disdain, as though I was some lowlife who had no right to speak and she started complaining that it was in violation of her privacy.

Violation of her privacy??? What have you got to hide?

So I told her that even when if she were to go see a doctor at her neighborhood clinic, she has to produce some form of identification during registration. She retorted that it doesn’t apply here as we are only an animal clinic, to which I told her that if she doesn’t want to get the medication from us, she can choose not to fill in the form.

She then asked me if I was trying to give her an attitude. (Duh! What do you think? I wish I could give you one tight slap to go with it.)

I told her that if that’s what she wants to think, she’s entitled to her own opinion.

She then gave me a cocky look, started shaking her head and she said that she was going to have a word about me with my boss.

I told her “Feel free to do so.”

She then continued filling up the form while muttering (very audibly) about my attitude problem, so I went inside and asked Mei to take over me at the recept as I really didn’t want to look at the piece of crap standing at the counter. Besides, I had a very strong urge to slap her silly, which would have resulted in all kinds of legal implications, so I chose to distance myself from trouble.

From inside, I heard SumTingRong telling Mei that I have a serious attitude problem and that she wanted our boss’ number. Mei of course couldn’t give her that so she gave her the number to our admin department instead.

SumTingRong actually called our admin department to lodge a complaint as soon as she left the clinic. Gladys called me a while later to ask how I was doing and to tell me about the complaint. She said that she tried explaining to SumTingRong about the requirement of NRIC being a company policy and SumTingRong actually cut her off and told her “I haven’t finished talking yet.”

Who’s the one with an attitude problem? You decide.