This week on the podcast…
This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss jump back into the mailbag to discuss a letter from a veterinarian who is fed up with naughty client behavior. This vet is even more fed up with feeling like their hospital management does not have their back or the backs of the team when it comes to holding clients accountable for things. Clients are being mean, they are wasting a ton of time and no one seems to care. This vet is asking how to help their team draw some lines in the sand and when to reach into their toolbox so that they can manage up and let their management team know “Hey, we need your help here!”. This was a fun topic to discuss so… let's get into this.
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Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag
Thank you to our sponsors! To learn more about this week's sponsor, GuardianVets, check out their website HERE.
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Episode Transcript
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey Stephanie Goss. You got a second to talk about Guardian Vets?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. What do you want to talk about?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Man, I hear from people all the time that they are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm sure you hear from these people as well, “Our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy and the phones just don't stop.”
Stephanie Goss:
They never stop. That is a true story.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians knew about Guardian Vets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and Guardian Vets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support. And it really is a godsend.
Stephanie Goss:
Pre-pandemic, it was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after hours call help. But at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well, which I would think right now, is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded, everybody is drowning in phone calls and so we talk about it. We've talked about Guardian Vets a lot on the podcast and every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Guys, if you're not familiar with Guardian Vets, if you think that you could use them help on the phones or up the front desk, check them out. It's guardianvets.com and if you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free. So check it out, guardiansvets.com.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are tackling a letter from a mail bag who comes from a veterinarian who is very frustrated with some naughty client behavior and most importantly, and the [inaudible 00:01:51] of this episode that they're frustrated with feeling that they're not getting backed by management from their hospital to address naughty clients. Feels like [inaudible 00:02:01] fatigue and often occurrences of bad behavior are going unpunished or without accountability. And they are wondering, “Hey, how should I, as a doctor, expect my hospital management to deal with situations like this?” And we've got a great example in the episode. They're wondering, is it wildly unacceptable to expect the client be [inaudible 00:02:19] to discuss behaviors like this? At what point do we hold them accountable? How should they be held accountable?
All of this coming from a doctor who's being made to feel like these problems are trivial. That is not the case, it is not unreasonable and Andy and I hold have thoughts and feeling about how do we [inaudible 00:02:41] when a client [inaudible 00:02:39]? Let's get into this.
Speaker 3:
And now, to the Uncharted podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back as me, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie ‘Dirt Off Your Shoulder' Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
How's it going, Andy Roark?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Go and brush your shoulders off. It's good. It's good. Yeah. You know what I mean? Making it, making it. I had a immediate failure this morning. We were podcasting first thing in the morning and I got up and I've been inspired to try to give Skipper work a better place to live. I don't know why, I feel like, I just feel like I need to make Skipper work's life better. And so I got a new food puzzle for him and this morning I was like… You know how you jump out of bed and you're excited about a stupid little thing in your day? If you're not, you should be. You should get out of bed and look forward to something.
Stephanie Goss:
Goals in life.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It can be a tiny little thing. Anyway, I got Skipper a new food puzzle. And I'm like, “Today's the day.” And so, I took his food and I put it in his big puzzle and I put it on the floor and Stephanie, he looked at me, “Why did you lock my food away?” And he just looked at it and he looked at me like, “Dude, why did you do that?” And I've been trying to coax him into getting the food out and he just looks at me, “Don't understand why you're doing this to me?”
Stephanie Goss:
“Why are you torturing me, Dad?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. Yeah. It'd be like it much of me to Outback Steakhouse and put my Alice Springs chicken in a lock box and just sat there to watch me look at this lock box. That's the experience Skipper had this morning.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, poor Skipper.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh I know.
Stephanie Goss:
He has such a rough life.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's like, you try to help somebody out and they're like, “Why did you just make my world harder, darker?”
Stephanie Goss:
I love how you're like, “I'm trying to make Skipper's life better.” But let's be real. That dog has a very, very good life.
Dr. Andy Roark:
He does have a good life. He does have a good life.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, man.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That was the worst thing that happened to him. And as long as he can remember, that was the worst [inaudible 00:04:59].
Stephanie Goss:
Someone put his food in a box and told him, “Do some work for it.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's how good his life is. All right. What's up with you? How have you been?
Stephanie Goss:
It is busy over here man. It is. I am protesting the fact that it is starting to show signs that fall is here. Fall is my favorite season and I love it, but I am not ready to let go of the sunshine in Washington. We have just had gorgeous, gorgeous weather and rain is coming, which makes me sad. But then we're predicted to have some more sunshine. So I am happy and I'm just trying to hold on to every bit of it until it gets rainy and overcast and everything. It is beautiful. It is my favorite time of year, but man, this year. It's funny, when we moved here everybody was talking about seasonal affective disorder and how overcast it is in the Pacific Northwest. And I love the rain, I hate the heat. A tropical beach is my worst vacation nightmare because I really turn scarlet red in two seconds of sunlight.
I have to wear long sleeves and long pants. I am that kid and I hate the heat and the humidity is awful. And so I was like, “Yes, let's let's go to where it rains more than anywhere else in the continental Pacific or the continental United States.” And so, I was really excited to move here. And the first few years was great. And I will say this last year was really, I really noticed how much the weather impacted my emotions and the mood and so I started trying all of the holistic things and after this last year was just really, really rough. And I decided that I'm okay with the fact that I might need some better living through chemistry this year because, winter is hard here. It is gray and it is dark and the rain is beautiful and there's nothing I love more than coming over the bridge and seeing the mountains that are snow capped in the distance, in the midst, wandering through the trees. It's gorgeous. But days after day, after day of that is tiring. And so I'm holding on to every bit of the sunlight.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, lets soak it up. Yeah, definitely. It's funny how we come across things like that. I always struggled in the summer times of just getting down and really just kind of feeling crappy and stuff in the summertime. And for a long time I'd say something to my general practice doctor, something I'd be like, “Hey, I generally feel pretty depressed in the summer.” That stuff would happen. And she was like, “That's not how-
Stephanie Goss:
That's not how that works.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… That's not how seasonal affective works. I was like, “I'm pretty sure it's seasonal and it's in the summertime.” And she's like, “No one… That's not a thing, Andy.” And so, anyway, come after a couple years what I came to find out was that for me, I think I definitely struggle sometimes with feeling good about what I'm doing and where I'm going and things like that. In the summers, I'm convinced it's because of a lack of structure. You know what I mean?
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
For me, in the summers because the kids are out of school and everybody's traveling and vacationing and stuff and conferences are shutting down and I'm not hustling like I usually do. And it's funny, as I've committed myself to adding more structure into my summers, that has fallen by the wayside and into the rear view. But I just say that as, man, it's just seasons are real for a variety of different reasons. And I think that not taking a moment to just be honest with yourself about, “Hey, this is a thing that I deal with.” That's a mistake. If you're surprised by something again and again at some point it's not a surprise. It's kind the same thing with you. If every winter you roll in to this time and you go, “Man, I really feel crappy for X amount of time.” At some point it's not a surprise. That's a choice that you make, to continue doing that.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And that was me. I was like, “I'm going to just see if this is in my head or if this is a real thing.” And so last year was my year of trying it and it was a really hard winter for me and I said, “You know what? I am I okay with better living through chemistry this year.” So we'll see how that goes. But yeah, the seasons are changing. I heard fall is maybe coming to Greenville. I heard you guys are starting to cool off, all of a sudden.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. The leaves are just starting to change right now.
Stephanie Goss:
That's awesome.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's pretty darn beautiful here and I got up this morning and it was 62 degrees when I walked Skipper and just being beautiful and cool. I got my sweatshirt on for the first time in months.
Stephanie Goss:
Nice.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's good. Let's get into this.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I'm excited. So we have a question from the mail bag. Y'all have been blowing that up and I have a nice backlog for us to work through. So, if you are listening and you're like, “Gosh, are they ever going to get to my episode,” we are working our way through.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Going as fast as we can.
Stephanie Goss:
Big list. But we got a great letter from a veterinarian today and I love this one. It is about consequences for clients, especially when clients are being very naughty. It is a vet who has been out of school for a while and is working in a companion animal practice and they're a corporate practice and they feel like they are hitting a wall with how to meet the needs of the teams when it comes to client behavior correction. And so, they are feeling like there is not a lot of structure and there's not accountability with clients. And so, they gave us some examples of things that are happening. They had a client who ran out of a med for their pet and it happens to be a controlled substance.
And so, they called in. When the doctor who had seen that pet wasn't there and the client wanted the team to call in a script and the team was like, “We can't do that. We actually need a written script and we don't have a patient… Or, we don't have a doctor here who has seen your pet. So one of the other doctors will have to verify the chart and make sure that we can prescribe it, because it requires them putting their DEA license on a handwritten script and then you're going to have to come get it and take it to the pharmacy because we legally not allowed to call it in.” And the client lost their mind on the CSRs and was yelling at them and then they went ahead and filled the script for the client anyways. And then the client never showed up to pick the script after yelling at the front desk and screaming at people on the phone.
And this doctor was like, “Look, how am I supposed to deal with this as an associate vet who isn't even this patient's doctor? Am I unrealistic for expecting that somebody should deal with this bad client behavior? Is it crazy to think that a client should be called to discuss it? Especially because they not only made the front desk cry but then they never even showed up and so they wasted our time, really the whole team's time.” And so, this is a doctor who said from a doctor who's being made to feel like these problems are trivial and they are just wondering, “What expectations should I have? What should be the next steps when we have clients who act like this? Should there be some consequences? At what point is the management team of the hospital held accountable for dealing with and communicating with clients when it comes to their bad behavior?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I think this is a great question.
Stephanie Goss:
Me too.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I think a lot of us really wrestle with this. Let's start with some head space.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay.
Dr. Andy Roark:
This is a shades of gray question and I just want to say that upfront. If you came to this podcast expecting us to pull out the flaming, raging justice and be like, “No, does pet owners do to just deal with it?” Or, “How dare you not do what the pet owner wants?” Neither of those two things is going to happen. And I think that it's important. I think that, that's the frustration is people want to know, pet owners, they need to be held accountable for making me feel bad or I just need to suck it up and the client's always right and neither of those things are remotely correct. Yeah. Let's start with some validation on the medical side because gosh, we've all been there.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We work really hard and having people jerk us around and be mean to us or say nasty things or make us do a bunch of crap and then not even show up and pick it up. Man, that's wildly frustrating. You know what I mean? I am super busy and now I'm on the phone and I'm pulling the records and I'm reviewing some other doctor's-
Stephanie Goss:
Notes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… Work and what they did and trying to decide am I going to write this script and there's the quality of life or this pet and I don't want this pet to suffer and at the same time, I do not have time to see another pet today. And going through this emotional work and this mental work and taking this time to do this and then have them not even show up to pick the thing up and they made the person at the front desk cry. That doesn't seem right and that doesn't seem fair and that I fully understand being angry about that and I also understand being angry about that and then saying something to management and they don't do anything and feeling like my needs and my thoughts are being trivialized. And so, I just want to really validate those feelings and say, I think we all have those feelings and that is not remotely unjustified, I guess, to feel that way. Do you agree?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, no I totally agree with that. It is something that whether it's this specific… This happens a lot so that I think a lot of us can recognize our own clinics in the prescription issue because this is a challenge for every clinic. But there's a bunch of different scenarios where it feels like, “Oh, I totally get this,” and it is wildly frustrating and it is definitely a case where you just want to go postal sometimes because you're frustrated, you're frustrated, your team is frustrated. And it is one of those circumstances where I think validating the frustration is really, really important. And then I think for me, having come from the front desk and come from the client service world, the next piece of head space for me in situations this is, I always ask myself to step back for a second and put myself in the client's shoes, because the reality is especially in a case like this, if it's a controlled substance, there's probably something going on with the pet or there could be something going on with the client.
And let's be real, that often, when we're dealing with controlled substance requests in particular, there are always questions that we're asking ourselves about, “Is this a situation where the pet actually needs this medication and the client is upset because maybe they're end of life and they're just trying to make them comfortable?”
I try and ask myself all of those questions and I try and ask myself the questions of, “Is there something going on in this client's life? Are they trying to leave to go out of town and they just want to leave the pet sitter with the meds that the pet needs?” There's a million different reasons, if I really ask myself to step back, that I could hallucinate why a client is acting, maybe, not their best behavior wise. And so for me, the second piece of head space, it really comes to, “Can I put myself in the client's shoes?” Because that leads us always to where we want to be when we have hard conversations, which we will get to when we get to action steps. But it is in that safe head space where we can stand next to them or I can pick up the phone without my hand shaking because I'm not so angry.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
I've been that manager where I look at the charts and I read the interactions with the team and I'm just pissed. I'm like, “Why are you screaming at my front desk team?” And I pick up the phone and call that client and recognize that my hands are shaking because I'm so angry and I just make myself put the phone down and take it because you have to be in a good head space to have those kind of conversations.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree. The other side of it for me is empathy. And so I got a story I want to tell on this just because it happened recently. You know this, Stephanie, but a month ago my wife found a little lump in her armpit. It was this tiny little BB size lump and jump ahead 10 days from that. And we had worked it up and gotten CT and biopsies and stuff and wanted to know what this thing was. And so, Stephanie had flown into town and Ron Sosa was there and we were doing strategic planning stuff for Uncharted and we were at the west end in the board room and we were working on strategic planning and my wife had just gotten results I wish we didn't know were coming. And so she had pulled over, she'd been driving so she just came on to the west where we were working and she came and she got me and she told me that the results had come back and she has invasive carcinoma, which is not good.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
In the grand scheme of good and bad, not good. Not the worst of the sucky things, it's a pretty good sucky thing. Of the sucky things it's a pretty good sucky thing.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Man, but she came and got me and told me out in the hallway and we talked for a while and after a while it was time to go on with our lives. It's kind of a funny thing about cancers, not a whole lot you can do. It's waiting and making decisions and then waiting and the uncertainty is really pretty terrible. Anyway, I came back to the room and I said, “Guys, I need to take break.” And I went for a walk and so my wife went back to work and I went for a walk and so I'm walking through downtown Greenville and I go to this coffee shop because it was there and I was sort of looking for something that made me feel better.
And so, I walk up to the desk and the guy behind the counter looks at me and he says, “Hey buddy, how's your day going?”
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Like that? My thought was, “I just learned that my wife has cancer and I'm not sure how I'm going to tell my kids. How was your day?” That was what I thought. And of course I didn't say that. I think I just flat out said, “I'm good,” which was not true. “I'm good.” And then he went ahead and he was like, “Oh yeah, we're just making coffee right now, it's going to be a couple minutes.” And I said, “Okay.” And I waited and I got my coffee. But I thought about that and all seriousness, I thought about that of how surreal that moment was, of this guy saying, “How's your day?” And me going, “10 minutes ago I got news that absolutely rocked my world. How are you?”
I thought about that a lot since that time because I wasn't mean to that guy.
Stephanie Goss:
No.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But I was… Boy. He and he had no idea, no idea. And I just asked myself how many times have I talked to someone who's just had their world rocked and I had no idea. I said, “How're you doing?” And they said, “Fine.” And that was all. And I just obliviously went on not knowing this person was dealing with something that was enormous for them. Right?
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But I think about that and it was just this massive wake up call for me it's like, “Man, you have no idea what people are dealing with.” And it's just for me that's just a reminder of empathy. And I think that you can hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. You can be frustrated that you got jerked around and you had to spend your time and this person was mean and nasty and they shouldn't have been mean and nasty. That's not okay, that's not acceptable.
And at the same time, perhaps they're really, really struggling with things that have nothing to do with us and that doesn't make it okay, but it does at least make it understandable. And a lot of people say, “But Andy, how many people are having this terrible thing?” And I go, “I don't know. How many people do you talk to in a day?” Seriously? I think that's a lot of it, is we talk to a lot of people who are fine and the ones who are not fine really stand out. And so I go, “We'll play the odds. There is a chance that we talk to people who are having bad stuff in their lives, like real bad stuff.” And those numbers might even match up. The other thing I was thinking about is this. If somebody comes to you and they say, “Oh man, I got this terrible news. My mom is really sick and I'm struggling, I'm sorry.” You would say, “Hey I understand. No problem, I get it. I understand that.”
But what if the person comes to you and says, “I have 15 different things that are all a bit stressful and they've compounded and now I'm really struggling.” I don't think that we think as much about that. You know what I mean? I don't know that we see that the same way as having one big scary thing. But I think a lot of us would say, “Boy if you have…” A lot of us have had 15 kind of small things that are all-
Stephanie Goss:
Right, and then you just blow up.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… [inaudible 00:21:13] up and we struggle. And so there's that empathy part to it on the other side, which is to go, “We don't always get to deal with people in their best days and no, they should be strong enough to not take it out on people who aren't responsible for what they're dealing with, have nothing to do with it.” But at the same time, most of us struggle.
The day after I went to the coffee shop, I went out to dinner with Ron Sosa and we went to this restaurant, one of my favorite restaurants and it's kind of had a black mark on it for years for me because before the pandemic, I was struggling with a couple things at work and stuff like that. And we went to dinner at this place and I am not mean to servers and I am not mean to people, in general, that's not who I am. But on this particular day I was hangry and I think I was tired and I had some other stuff going on and I went to dinner and my family was there and this server was there and he was running way behind.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And finally he shows up and he is like, “I'm sorry I'm late.” And I said something kind of crappy, “Well, it's about time, man.” And the table got really quiet and part of it was because it was a crappy thing to say. Other part is because I don't say those things, I am not the guy that gives the waiter a hard time. And I think my family was like, “Whoa, what is this?” And I will tell you I felt bad about that for years. For years. I was like, I remember when I said that. And I remember the table got quiet and I remember feeling crappy afterwards, “Why did I say that?” So anyway, the day after I had gone to the coffee shop, we go back to this restaurant and that waiter is waiting on our table. I recognized him immediately. I was like, “That's the guy.” And then as the meal went on at one point I got up and I caught him off by the kitchen and I said, “Hey, have you been working here a long time?”
And he said, “Oh man, four years.” And I said, “Listen, you don't remember me but a couple years ago you waited on table and I said something really shitty to you and I just wanted to tell you, man, it had nothing to do with you. I felt really bad about it ever since then I think back.” And I'm like, “I regret that I did that.” And he laughed and he said, “Oh man.” He said, “You don't have to say that.” He said, “Everybody has their moments,” and that's what he said. And I just thought about that, everybody has their moments.
So anyway, so I put that down again as saying, I cannot say that I'm someone who has never been an ass. You know what I mean? Or said something me and that's not who I am. And that's so rare that I remembered it and it bothered me to the point that I remembered the guy. It was post-pandemic when I saw him. So it's been two to three years since this thing happened. And I still remember that guy and that's how rare it was for me to act that way. But, man, it really bothered me and he just said, “Man, everybody has their moments.”
So anyway, I know it's a long way to go but I think this is important. It's just an important concept I think a lot about as I sort deal with my wife having cancer and stuff [inaudible 00:24:05]. Everybody's said for a long time everybody fights something we don't know anything about. And I go, “Nah. Yeah that's true,” and I just want to make it clear. So anyway, I don't mean to overplay that or anything, but it is just something I've been thinking a lot about recently and I go, “Yeah, I get it.” And I've been on both sides of this and is frustrating. But I think that best head space is to say you two things can be true at the same time. You can be wildly frustrated that your time is wasted or that someone's not treating you well or that they're behaving in a way that they should not behave. Objectively, they are being a jerk.
And you can also hold in your mind the idea that, “I don't know this person and I don't know what it's going on and it costs me really nothing to assume the best intent that I can possibly assume and try to give grace.” And I know that that can be hard to do, but I really think space for me, you got to try to hold those two things in your hands at the same time.
Stephanie Goss:
Now there are people who are listening to this and who are just want the flaming, raging sort of justice and are like, “There should be two camps. There should be, this is our job and we just deal with it.” And there should be the other opposite, polar opposite side, which is, “Clients are not allowed to behave badly, they're always consequences. Screw that.” And I think, hold your horses because when we get to action steps, I think we're going to talk about the fact that you can have empathy. I think about this a lot when I think about the team and this conversation I have most often in the context of team behavior because there you can have empathy and you can ask yourself to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and you can do the head space work. And it is important because you could do that and still have accountability.
And I think your point of you can have two opposite thoughts in your head at the same time, this is a case where that is a hundred percent true because you can absolutely have accountability and when you have accountability solely in the absence of ever having grace for anybody else, it doesn't usually work out so well. So the hard and fast line in the sands, it is, as a manager, I am an advocate for having some of those. And I would ask all of you as we talk about the head space and we start to talk about action steps, this is one where you have to think about, is this a hard line in the sand or is this one where there should be some shades of gray? And I think that this is true because to your point, you never know what somebody else is dealing with.
And so, there are some hard and fast lines in the sands of things that I do not tolerate under any circumstances when it comes to client behavior in my practice. And I will fire a client, no questions asked. And there are a lot of things that fall into that shade of gray. And so I think the head space piece is really important because when you're in the moment, when you are that person on the other side of the coffee shop counter, Andy, or when you are the server on the other side of the table or when you're the CSR sitting at the front desk, it is really hard if you are in that seat sometimes to have the objectivity to look at this and say, “Should I be asking more questions? Is this a shade of gray? Does this person deserve a second chance?”
And I think what that waiter said to you is so important because everybody does have their moments, we all have bad days. And so I think it is important to have those lines in the sand and if it falls into the shades of gray, I think we have to have a process for dealing with that. And we going to get into that with action steps. But I love that you said that because I think it's really, really important here to help find that the shades of gray.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well and I'm really glad you said it too because that is a key, key point we really have to make here before you go into the break is, you can have a good positive head space and also make changes to protect yourself. And you can also say, “You know what? I hear you, I'm assuming the best intent possible and I'm not going to continue to be treated this way.” Again, so I don't want anyone to think that Andy's saying, “Oh, we have to suck it up because the client might have gotten bad news today.” No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it helps me to look at this in a more positive way and to not feel so bad that I was taken advantage of and my time was wasted. If I can give some grace to the other person and just assume that we don't know what battles other people are fighting, that is true.
And, at the same time let's make some changes, let's set some things up to minimize a number of times these things happen because just saying, “Oh we're going to give grace and allow people to beat on us and make us feel bad and be nasty again and again and again,” that ain't what I am talking about. And we're going to make some changes to make sure that doesn't happen. So how do you feel about taking a break and then coming back and we're talking about what we're going to do to release this pressure.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I think that's great.
Hey friend, there is a workshop coming up that some of you are not going to want to miss. This last weekend was I [inaudible 00:29:17] you done. There's a lot of conversation about challenge in our practice and how a lot of us are struggling with things not working very well, things feel pretty inefficient. We're all struggling to help you more with less, less time, less people, less resources. And there was a lot of conversation about how do we get more efficient and effective in our workflows? And so, while a lot of you were there with us this weekend, not all of you were. And so I want to give you all an opportunity to join us coming up in November 30th at 5:30 Eastern, 2:30 Pacific, we are offering a two hour workshop with my dear friend, Sinani [inaudible 00:29:55].
Sinani Is an RVT, so she is a licensed technician, she is a general badass, she is a practice management consultant and she loves talking about workflow. And so Sinani has agreed to come back and lead a workshop that was voted one of our most popular in all of 2020 in Uncharted, and that is super [inaudible 00:30:12] optimizing workflow.
This two hour workshop is here to help you and your team to [inaudible 00:30:19] your workflow so that you can get out of the place where everything feels inefficient and ineffective. So if you are struggling with efficiency and effectiveness in your practice, head on over to unchartedvet.com/events and sign up for the workshop. We would love to see you there. And now back to the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay, let's get into some acting steps here. So we've talked about this, we're talking about giving grace and talking about balancing our needs to be treated with respect. We feel like our time is valuable with the fact that we're dealing with human beings, we have no idea what's going on in their life and we want to give grace. What can we actually do here besides suck it up? Which is not the answer that anyone's looking for.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I want to look at the questions that our frustrated doctor asked because I think they're really good ones and to walk ourselves through the action steps. And I think we'll get to all of the main things that I think you and I both would be thinking about, how do we solve this? So the first question they asked us, how should a DVM expect management to deal with this client? And for me, the action part is [inaudible 00:31:28] is a dangerous word, but where I want us to start here is that you can use transformational vocabulary here. So ‘should' is very dangerous because you ‘should' think a lot of things should happen. But that isn't always reality. Is it unrealistic to expect that management would deal with a client who is acting X, Y and Z? That's a great question. Would they deal with this because it asks them to think about it.
Not that you're implying that you think that they need to be doing something different than, what they are doing, but you're asking them a question of would we deal with this client behavior? And so from an action step perspective, it's a great question to ask from a team perspective, what would we tolerate? What would we not tolerate? And that's a great place to start figuring out some of those, how do we treat each other and how do we expect our clients to treat us? Because I think that there are some things when you start to talk about it as a team. And where I'm going with this is, a huge part of this for me is you have to have the discussion so that you can clearly explain your expectations to your team and to your clients and have some policies. Andy knows that I love policies and protocols and structure because it allows your team to deal with these kind of things and know what the expectation should be.
It resolves that four letter word piece of the should because it is outlined, the team knows how you expect, as a manager, that they would handle it. So I would start by asking some of those questions about what would we tolerate well, would we not tolerate? Can a client scream at a member of our team? Well, that's kind of on my high danger red list. If a client is literally screaming at my team, that is not something that I really tolerate. However, I also want to have empathy and so I want to be able to put myself in the client's shoes. And if I had a client who just found out that their husband or wife or partner had cancer and they walked in and they started screaming at my team, I could hallucinate a world where I might give them one more chance.
I might say to them, “It is absolutely unacceptable that you scream at my team. Full stop. That is not something that I'm going to tolerate in the future. I completely understand that you are having a really hard day because now you've told me all these things and I get it and I have empathy for you. I need you to understand that in the future, under no circumstances can I tolerate this behavior.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
That is giving them that chance, giving them that grace. And so I think for me it starts with where are those lines in the sand for us? What are the things that we're willing to tolerate, because that then helps us figure out what are those shades of gray.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I completely agree with that. All right, so I want to expand on this because you and I look at these things a little bit different way, which is always really healthy, which is why we're a good team, is that you look at it from a policy standpoint and I think you're completely right. Again, we go back to this all the time. If there's a surprise that it happens again and again, at some point is not a surprise, is your business model. But people getting angry is not a surprise for any of us. And I wonder if there's shifting social norms going on. We see people at restaurants are worse than you've ever been.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The videos of people on airplanes, for god's sakes-
Stephanie Goss:
Yes, are awful.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… what in the world is going on with people. But this seems to be a thing that is happening.
And so, you can't act like, “Oh this never happens.” And so what I would say is when people get angry, what are we doing? So I have a angry client course which is made for teams to take together and talk about getting on the same page when they're dealing with angry clients. And it's over at the Drandywork.com site. And the reason I made it as a team training, it's because there's not a right answer. It's let's all get on the same page and understand what the expectations are at clinic are and how we do these things. And so I really want to make this a discussion-based team thing that we would do during staff training and stuff. So I make that, but one of the big things that we talk about is angry clients. You never know why they're going to be angry and you know what they're going to say and you can't really prepare for that.
But the one thing you can prepare is, what are your systems for receiving angry people and dealing with them. And a lot of us just don't have that. We're like, “We're just going to wing it.” And I go, “Okay.” I think to your point, it's time for some protocols, which is just, “What happens. How do we set expectations? Who does this person get to talk to? How do we escalate concerns? What is the front desk in power to deal with? What goes to the doctor versus what goes to the manager? How does that work? And there's not a right answer. It really is who is your personnel and what is your culture and how does your practice work it and just figure that stuff out? But if you don't have that stuff, I think you just figure it out. The other part of the protocols where I would say this is really where I tend to immediately go to, because it's where my head is, is the expectations extended to the pet owners.
And so I am all about sign posting and signaling and setting expectations to pet owners. I really like patient bills or client bills of rights and responsibilities and responsibilities, meaning this is how you'll be treated and this is how you're going to treat us and this is how we work together. And if you can't abide by this, then you're not going to be able to be seen here. And I think that that's really important. I see more and more of those things going into the hospital. That stuff is up in the waiting rooms. If we expect to be treated with respect and raising your voice is not acceptable and there is clear communication about what is acceptable and what is not. We had a hospital in Uncharted of talking recently because they're a walk-in practice and they just do walk-ins, but now they're splitting and they're doing a wellness section and a emergency urgent care section and they're both walk-ins but they're two different doctors.
And so, they were already having this problem of people coming in and seeing other people who came in after them getting seen before them and getting mad. So imagine someone comes in with urgent care and someone else comes in after them for wellness. Well the wellness doctor is moving faster or has less going on and the wellness thing goes straight back. You can imagine the urgent care person getting angry and that's what was happening. And so in the hospital I had seen in the waiting room these signs that said, “This waiting room serves multiple services. People may not be seen in the order that they are brought into the waiting room,” but that sign exists for a reason. It exists because there was stress or frustration over that at some point, in some way. And so that type of sign posting at least literal sign posting, but that type of sign posting, this is what we expect, this is how we want to be treated with.
I think setting those expectations is really important and saying, “This is what we expect from you and what you can expect from us.” And I think that you can hold clients accountable to those standards when those standards are communicated.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think it's much harder to say, “Hey, you were really mad at my front desk,” and I would say, “I wasn't mad.” And they would say, “Well, you made my front desk person cry.” And I would say, “Well your front desk person is overly sensitive,” and you see exactly how this would go. And you go, “Okay, this is useless. What are the standards that we can set and we can communicate to set ourselves up for success so we can have productive conversations? So we can talk about policies, not just how you made me feel and how I interpreted what you said?” I think that that is absolute groundwork, basics for being able to handle these types of situations.
Stephanie Goss:
And I'm going to step on a soapbox here for a second-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, do it.
Stephanie Goss:
… From a manager perspective, and this is where I'm going in addition to policies and protocols, I'm going to step on the documentation soapbox for a second because this is where the reality is we want to think the best and we want to assume good intent. And as a manager, my point goes to what you just demonstrated, Andy, which is that I can't argue with a client about what happened if I wasn't there. I can rely on my team's documentation and for years as a manager, that was the only thing I had to go on. If it wasn't in the chart, it didn't happen. “So you guys, for the love of Pete, please write it down so that I can help you and I can back you up.”
We live in an age of technology. If your clinic does not have cameras and if you are not recording your phone calls, you are doing a disservice to your clients and you're doing a disservice to your team because you can't do your job as a manager and help on either side if there's not documentation. And so there are rules and regulations and it is your responsibility as a manager to know what the requirements are in your state. But in this day and age, especially if you have a clinic where you have late night hours or you run skeleton crews, you need to have cameras and you need to have recording on your phone calls because then it becomes a no brainer to be able to document along with the client and make them a part of the conversation.
“Well, I listened to the phone call and I would love to share it with you so that we can figure out how we're going to resolve this because what you said happened and what I'm hearing on this tape feels like those are two different things and I want to figure out where the disconnect is.”
Right? You can make them an active partner in that conversation in a way that you absolutely cannot do if you are not present. And let's be real, I don't know about you all, but as a manager, I cannot be everywhere all the time. But despite the fact that my kids think I have back eyes and I can see everything that is happening, whether I'm looking at them or not, I can't be in 10 places at once. And that is something that I have talked to a lot of managers and a lot of practice owners who are like, “I don't want my team to think I'm spying on them. I don't want my clients to feel like they are being watched.” The reality is you are doing it to help protect them as much as you're doing it to help protect yourselves.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I would say the world is changing, like we said before, and this is a wildly litigious society.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You better film it and you better record it. And if your staff goes, “You're spying on us.” I would say, “Look around, we are in healthcare and people do bad things and this is for our protection is to be able to say this.” And I see if you explain it to teams that way, they get it because they've been yelled at or had people say wildly inappropriate things to them in the exam rooms. I hate it. That's part of our job to some degree is it does happen and you want to protect yourself against that. You want to minimize that. We want to make that not happen. And so for me, that type of stuff. Yeah, that's not about spying on the team, that's about us just taking care of ourself and our team.
I will tell you. God, it's been years, we had an incident in the treatment room one time. A pet got away from restraint and ended up really hurting itself in the treatment room. Again, this has been years and years and years and years and not in my current job or anything. And boy, having film of the treatment room of what happened, it saved our butts because the person was like, “What did you do to my pet?” And we're like, “This is exactly what happened and we can tell you and we can show you what happened. We can show it.” It was the most freak accident thing that ever could have happened and you never would've believed it if we didn't have the film to say just happened. The other thing about this too, as far as prep work, Im going to throw this back in.
I know you and I have touched all around it, but we just want to say it really, really clearly. You should have an idea… Not idea, you should have a policy about what constitutes abuse versus bad behavior. And I think we said that. I think we've said that. But I just want to make real clear that we say it. When I talk about dealing with this, I am not talking about abuse, I am talking about bad behavior. And so I am not talking about how to empathize with people who threaten violence, make death threats, make racial slurs or homophobic, transphobic, whatever. Whatever your things are, whatever your lines are, that's not a, let's see how it goes. Let's talk to the person. It is totally fine to say no, this constitutes abuse and it is immediate termination. You should know what those things are and everybody should know what those things are.
But anyway, I just want to be real clear about that. It's like when we're talking about shades of gray, don't think that we're talking about worst case behaviors. That's not shades of gray, that's abuse and that's not acceptable.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. And the last piece on my technology soapbox was I heard… This is not something I have done in my clinic, but when I heard this I thought this was totally genius. So if you are monitoring and recording your client calls, there is something that I have seen more and more clinics start to do, which I just think is brilliant, which is have a voicemail box set up to support what your abuse policies are. So as a CSR, I've been there where I've had the client who is acting crazy and is crossing the lines where I have still had to try and maintain professionalism and say, “Sir, I need you to calm down. I can't talk to you if you're speaking to me like that.” And try, in the moment, navigate those waters.
And there are clinics that have a voice mailbox set up so that when a client crosses that line if somebody's swearing at you, if they're shouting racial slurs, whatever, where the CSRs can hit the button and send the client to the voicemail that then picks up and says that you've reached our zero tolerance line and for the safety and wellbeing of our team, our animal hospital has a zero tolerance policy for these things. This phone call will be reviewed by a member of our management team before we can continue services.
The CSR has a way to navigate out of that and then the client knows this is what the follow-up is going to be, because in that moment the adrenaline rush gets going. I've been the CSR that feels really empowered to have those conversations and still I'm shaking and I'm just trying not to cry. And I'm like, “I need you to calm down.” And I just thought that that was so brilliant and I was like, as a manager, how great would I feel?
I would have no problem taking those voicemails and being able to look at the caller ID and reviewing the call and breaching out to that client and saying, “I've reviewed the tape and this crossed star zero tolerance line. Where would you your records forwarded?” That is an easy conversation for me to have if I have the ability to review that with my team. So I'm going to step off the soapbox for a second because we have a bunch more, I think, solutions to talk about. But man, if you are not taking care of your team and your clients by having some surveillance in your practice, you are missing a giant trick.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that, that's a great, great point. I also want to bring this back around to the shades of gray conversation. I think that people's… I can give grace to people having a bad day and having a bad moment. At some point a pattern is a pattern and that's not a bad day. That's your behavior pattern.
Stephanie Goss:
Correct.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, I really think that documenting these types of interactions is really important. Yes. I have a sort of a multi-strike process where you say, “If you're unhappy, I get it. If you're unhappy three times this year about different things, I don't think that we are meeting your needs and I'm going to recommend that you seek services somewhere else.”
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I do think that there should be some patterns in policies for documenting these interactions and just to let people know what they're walking into, but also just to have a track record so that later on I can say to this person, “Hey listen, I have documentation here that you had an interaction with the front desk back in January and then in March. There was also notes here about you being very angry when you called about these things. And now here we are in October and this is a third issue that is really not being resolved very well and that you were very upset about and we are not agreeing on. I really do think that we've reached a place where you may be better served somewhere else.”
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I love that. And I am the same. And you're speaking my nerd love language, Andy, because I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with clinics where they're like, “But client communication, documentation doesn't belong in the medical record.” And I look at them and go, “Are you crazy? I don't know how you're running your business. But in this day and age, if you are not doing something to document your interactions and things that happen with your clients, I feel sorry for the board lawsuit that's waiting to happen someday because that's just the society that we live in.” And so, have a system. Have a way, a process, and it to cannot be something you make up on the fly. It cannot be something that you telephone out to the members of your team. This is a huge part of your staff training.
Every member of your team has to understand what are your policies, what are your protocols when it comes to client behavior. How does it get documented? How do you flag it? Because I'll tell you, being the manager, looking at a 30 page chart and trying to look back at 10 years of client communication notes and hope that I might pick out instances in the past where they behaved badly. Because the CSR was telling me, “Oh yeah, every time Mr. Smith is here, he yells at the front desk.” And then I'm like, “Okay.” And they're like, “Oh yeah, we've documented it in the chart,” but documented it in the chart means bearing in 10 pages of chart notes. I'm hoping that I can pick that out of the chart.” So there has to be policies and protocols that support documenting these things so that it is really easy, like you said, Andy, to figure out what is the pattern.
Because if Mr. Smith was here five years ago and had a bad day and now he's here today, that might be two strikes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
Am I going to fire him? Because five years apart, he had two bad days?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Exactly.
Stephanie Goss:
I don't know, maybe. Depends on what's happening today, but probably not. And this is where the front desk and in particular because they bear the brunt of the bad client behavior, where they struggle because they're like, “Man, it says in his chart that he had this incident five years ago and here he is yelling at the front desk again and you're not going to do anything about it.” I can't have the conversation with them to try and teach them the empathy skills that I'm using, but also the judgment skills that I'm using to weigh this conversation. And if you are not having kind of a postmortem or a rounds process for your team to teach them why you're making the calls that you're making when it comes to client behavior, you're missing a trick.
Yeah. Because I will tell you that I learned so much from my team about what upset them as much as they learned from me about why I was making the calls I was making when we sat down and reviewed when a client has been fired, what they have been fired for, and how I reach that conclusion. Right. Or if I chose not to fire them, why did I do it? Because I want them all to understand this was the exception that was made and how did I document it in the chart so that everybody knows this was the final line in the sand. This is exactly what I said to the client. They know what the consequences are going to be moving forward and I am not afraid to let it rip moving forward if they cross that line because there should be some sort of, this is again, is a dangerous word, but in my world, I don't think it's crazy.
And our doctor who wrote in asked, is it wildly unacceptable to expect that a client be called to discuss their threatening behavior? No. For me the answer is no. I think that they should be expected to be called to discuss their behavior, but that may not be the reality in your practice at this moment in time. And so that for me is like it should it be done for me? Yeah. Heck yeah. Is that the reality in your practice? I don't know. And so this is where we have to step back and the action steps have to start with where those lines in the sand, how are we documenting it? To your point, what is our multis strike system? Because if it's always one and done, somebody's always going to be unhappy. Either your team is going to be unhappy, your clients are going to be unhappy or both.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, so let me expand this a little bit further too and say the benefit of the documentation, the way that we're talking about and things like that and having a system for handling these sorts of things. Listen, it's about making your team feel heard. Now if you are management and you have that doctor that is putting these things forward and this doctor says, “Am I wrong to put this stuff forward?” The answer is absolutely not. No. Let me tell you what this doctor is probably really worried about. In my experience, this is what I see again and again. So there's three parts that suck here. The first part is dealing with an angry person and that sucks. The second part is not feeling heard. When you turn to your staff and ask for support or ask for them to look at it or you just want to vent, you just want someone on your side to say, “You didn't do anything wrong. You should not have had to deal with this. I'm sorry.”
Just feeling heard is a big thing. And then the third thing is that people generally have a fear in my experience that this is going to go on forever. Meaning, if you let this person be mean to me and I say something to you and you ignore me, that means that you're going to let people be mean to me forever. And so now I'm standing here and I'm looking down the road and people being mean to me without repercussions looks like my destiny until the day that I die. I'm 98 years old at the front desk, people are going to be mean to me. And from a management thing, you better make people not feel that way. They need to know, one, now every case is going to be different and you might not call this person, I don't know. It depends on the specifics and blah blah blah and what your capacity is and things like. You might not call them, but you better make this doctor feel heard and feel that their concerns are valid and important.
And two, you better make them know that this is not going to be their life and it's not going to be acceptable going forward. And if you don't do those two things, you're going to lose your doctor.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm not convinced that, that's undeserved.
Stephanie Goss:
And I'm so glad that you landed there because that was really the last thing for me is that our doctor said… They signed it from a doctor being made to feel that these problems are trivial. And then their post script was, if this is the case, do I need to just stop fighting these battles and accept that my time isn't valuable to my clients? Is this the nature of the beast for VetMed or is it time to leave a non-supportive clinic? And so I'm so glad that you stopped there because I can tell you I have, a as manager, it is very, very painful lesson to learn. You talked about the waiter that you felt like you were mean to, Andy, and how that stuck out to you. I vividly to this day where call a situation early in my management career where I had a team member at the front desk who had interacted with some difficult and very naughty behaving clients, said something about it.
And because I struggled at that point and I didn't have the conflict management skills that I have now, I didn't know how to deal with angry people in the way that I feel confident doing it now I didn't do anything about it. And I will tell you that I wound up losing that CSR and they are one of the best CSRs that I ever worked with. And that has lived with me from that day. And I still think about it because, for me, that was a failure for myself as a manager, was that I had somebody who was brave enough to stand up and tell me that this hurt them and here's why it hurt them. And I did nothing about it. And so I think for me, this doctor was asking the question, “Is it time to leave the practice?” And that's only a question that you can answer that does very personal question.
And it's funny because this doctor asked in the context of working for a corporate practice, we have these rules and protocols and this is how they kind of handle things. And I think this is for me a very personal thing, but I would challenge this doctor to ask yourself how do you feel about it? And if you feel like you would, if it was your practice, if you could hallucinate it being your practice, would you have different policies and protocols than the ones that are in place now? If your answer to that is yes, then I think you have two choices. You can either just quit and move on, which is totally acceptable choice. Or you can say, “Hey, I feel really strongly about this. I would like some of these things to change and here's why I feel this way. I would like us to have stronger policies or I am concerned about this and here's why?
You could step up and you could advocate for yourself and then change may happen or it may not. But I think ultimately at the end of the day, each one of us should decide how we feel about that. And if we set those boundaries for ourselves, there's nothing wrong with moving on if it's not what you need.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
Just like we want to set policies and protocols to say to our clients, this is how, these are our lines in the sand. This is what is unacceptable behavior for you towards us and what you can expect from us towards you. We should have those kind of boundaries for ourselves and our jobs.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think the last part of this for me is some level of acceptance. Meaning at some level we all have to accept a certain amount of this and I think that, that's important.
Stephanie Goss:
Absolutely. We're in a customer service job whether we like it or not.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's exactly right. That exactly it. I hate to say it and I'm going to be saying this the wrong way, but this is a customer service job and we are going to deal with people. And I just came to accept a long time ago, and I had a mentor who kind of helped me realize this. It was like, “At some point you're going to help people and not get paid.”
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Because it's the morally right thing to do when you want to help them. And there are going to be people who are going to stiff you on the bill.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
They are going to have a payment plan and just not do it. They are going to just tell you after you've done the work that, “Oh, I don't have the money for this.” And yes, and you can boil inside over that or you can set policies and protocols to minimize the number of times that that happens.
And then you can just accept that what is left is the cost of doing business, which means you need to structure your day to allow people to waste a little bit of your time because they're going to. And if you don't set yourself up to allow some of your time to be wasted during the day, if you're, “Every moment of my day has to be used in a productive way, I would say you have made a schedule that is going to fail you and burn you out.” There's a quote from Charlie Munger who's Warren Buffet's investment partner. He said something like, “A business that can't stand a little mismanagement is no business at all.” And I always like that. And I would say a veterinarian that can't stand to have a little bit of their time wasted is a burned out veterinarian. I think that, that's true.
That's not a criticism, this vet just honestly, this is just what it means to be in our profession. And so set your protocols bill appropriately for your time knowing that people are going to call you. And that if your protocol is our doctors take phone calls and answer questions, you better set your prices so that you can keep the lights on while your doctors are answering phones and not working in exam rooms. And I would say, that's just part of accepting what the business is and setting yourself up so that everything keeps going while people behave like people because they're not going to stop doing that. And so-
Stephanie Goss:
I love it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Set your expectations that way. I would say at some point we have got to, as a profession, and this is something I think we really needs to be injected into the wellness conversation. And a lot of people don't like to hear it this way, but we got to stop taking things so personally.
And again, I am a sinner preaching the sermon in that when people get mad at me as a doctor, I can take that as a reflection on my self worth. I, because I identify that way, I tell you I was a real pain for me in my thirties and in my forties. I said, It's just a job and I love it. Don't get me wrong, I love being a vet. I love working in vet medicine. It is not who I am. It is my job. And when people come in and they get angry, it's my job to deal with them. And that mental distinction for me, it has helped a lot of not tying myself up so much with the work that gets done and also recognizing that I'm not going to make people happy and some people are just going to choose to be unhappy.
That have nothing to do with me. I've gotten a lot better later in my life of saying I can't make everybody happy and some people are not going to be happy. Yeah, I'm going to deal with them, but I am not going to internalize this and I'm not going to take it personally. I am going to find pleasure in just doing the work and going on. I am going to enjoy looking at the patients. I am making the plans, watching patients get better, talking to people about their animals and what they need to do and making recommendations and puzzling out diagnoses.
And I am going to enjoy that work and that's where I'm going to find my pleasure. Not in people being happy when they leave because that's outside of my power. And so I guess that's the last part for me, is some level of acceptance of this is a customer service business and it's my job. And so I'm going to know that some people are going to waste my time. And that's just the thing. And I'm going to try not to get too upset about it because I don't think there's a way around it, dealing with other human beings.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. I love it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Cool.
Stephanie Goss:
This feels like a good place to end.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I think I'm good with that. I hope that was helpful. Yeah, that was helpful. we're definitely in shades of gray. Those are the, I think it's a good mixture of some action steps and then also some philosophy. And that's where I like to leave an episode that makes me feel really good.
Stephanie Goss:
Take care everybody. Have a fantastic week.
Dr. Andy Roark:
See you everybody.
Stephanie Goss:
Well everybody, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. Thanks so much for spending your time with us. We truly enjoy spending part of our week with you. As always, Andy and I enjoyed getting into this topic. I have a tiny little favor to ask, actually two of them. One is if you can go to wherever you source your podcasts from and hit the review button and leave us a review. We love hearing your feedback in knowing what you think of the podcast. And number two, if you haven't already, hit the subscribe button. Thanks so much for listening, guys. We'll see you soon.