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Weird Experience Neutering Our Kitten at Bradshaw Animal Hospital
Bradshaw Animal Hospital was not my first choice of a place to get our ragdoll kitty neutered, but I recalled the SSPCA worked closely with Bradshaw Animal Hospital during my short stint in 2003 at the SSPCA. Ha, I bet most of my regular readers do not know that I once worked briefly as the Marketing Manager at the Sacramento SPCA. At the same time that I reactivated my California real estate license. I considered it volunteer work, although to be honest, the SSPCA did pay me.
I had just moved to Sacramento, wondering what I would like to do. Nonprofit + animals = feel good purpose. But I was wrong. The culture at the SSPCA was not a good match for my personality and, besides, real estate is my first love. So, I resigned after a few months. The woman I reported to kept trying to supervise. You know, telling me what to do. Criminy. Her efforts didn’t go over so well. Too many personal agendas there.
Further, animals are my passion, and realizing so many are killed at the SSPCA was heartbreaking. You have to be a certain kind of person to work in that environment. Thank goodness there are people who can excel under those circumstances because god knows we need the SSPCA.
But my point is that Bradshaw Animal Hospital enjoyed a good reputation with the folks at the SSPCA. When my own vet at River City Cat Clinic could not give me an appointment sooner than 30 days out to neuter our new kitten, I turned to Bradshaw Animal Hospital. The entire experience was fairly weird. Maybe I have higher expectations of customer service, since I strive so hard myself to deliver for my real estate clients, I dunno.
First, when I made the appointment for last Tuesday, the appointment person told me not to feed our kitty any food after 8 AM that morning. I thought, hmmm, it’s been probably 30 years since I’ve neutered a kitten. All of our kittens over the years have come to us altered. Maybe times have changed. I thought it was 8 to 10 hours on an empty stomach but that’s not what she said. She also told me I could drop him off at 10:30 AM and pick him up at 3 PM.
The night before, Bradshaw Animal Hospital called to confirm my appointment. They reminded me not to feed him after 10 PM that night. What? Which was it? 8 AM the morning of or 10 PM the night before? Turned out it was definitely the night before, so the person who gave me all of that initial information was completely wrong. That’s dangerous.
When I dropped off our new kitten, Ziggy, on Tuesday morning, I met with the doctor. The doctor then informed me I could not pick up at 3 PM because the surgery would happen then. She said they always keep him overnight. Wow, that was another screw up. OK, he could stay. The doctor also promised to call me right after the surgery to tell me he was all right. It might be as late as 7 PM, she warned. She didn’t call until 9:30 PM. Past my bedtime. But that’s explainable because Bradshaw Animal Hospital is a 24-hour emergency clinic. Emergencies crop up all the time. Couldn’t they ask a clerk to call, though?
After stopping at Hampton Station in south Sacramento to attach a lockbox and get listing paperwork signed yesterday, I noticed I had a spare hour. That should be enough time, I figured, to pick up Ziggy from Bradshaw and get home to Land Park to meet my team members for our lunch date. I raced to Bradshaw Animal Hospital. I even called the front desk from my car to ask that they prepare Ziggy for departure and to warn in advance that I was in a time crunch and would arrive in 5 minutes.
That turned out to be a pointless gesture and request. The front desk clerk just said great, hung up and ignored the fact I ever called. When I arrived, people swarmed the front desk. After waiting 10 minutes for a person to take my payment for services rendered, I let her know again that I was in a time crunch and only had a couple more minutes to wait. Could they please put a rush on bringing my kitty? That request fell on deaf ears.
Yup, I watched the time slip away, tick, tick, tick and figured by now my team members were standing in my driveway. Oy. I considered leaving and coming back after lunch but devoting another 90 minutes to this venture seemed like a stupid idea. Finally, after another 10 minutes passed, a person appeared with Ziggy in the carrier. I grabbed the carrier, thanked her and as I headed for the door, I heard her sputtering, I need to go over with you . . . Can’t, you guys, no time. How many times must I say it? It took me 30 minutes just to get our kitten.
Nobody listened. Nobody cared. Humans make no difference. The communication was terrible. But they probably did a good job neutering our kitten. When you perform the same procedure over and over, you become a pro. Perhaps I simply expect too much from customer service in an environment that doesn’t value the same thing.
When your pet is sick or injured, you put up with bad customer service, maybe even don’t mind. Your pet comes first. You come second.
But I could have gone anywhere in Sacramento to pay for neutering and a microchip.
The Ups and Downs of Selling Elk Grove Homes
Although I sell real estate from Lincoln to Galt, I certainly do end up selling Elk Grove homes as a large percentage of my Sacramento real estate business. Probably because that’s where so many homes for sale are located. And fortunately, for this Realtor, I have an office in Elk Grove that I can use, in addition to the office where I hang out in Midtown. This means my sellers of homes in Elk Grove actually get two large Lyon Real Estate offices working for them. Because I put a large panel sign with the number of our Elk Grove office on the property. For example, if a buyer is driving by the home and wants to see it immediately, that buyer can call the large number on the sign panel, and an Elk Grove agent can be there in a heartbeat to show them the home. That’s a nice benefit, don’t you agree?
One of those agents wasn’t too happy yesterday. He called me as I was in the process of taking my cat Tessa to the VCA, the Sacramento Veterinary Referral Center located just south of Elk Grove off Bradshaw. Tessa has a hard lump in her stomach that has become progressively larger. She had an ultrasound a few days ago, and the River City Cat Clinic thinks she could have a small hernia where she was spayed 4 years ago. They suggested a second opinion. VCA charges $170 for a consultation, but our pets are worth it. The surgery alone is between $1,500 and $2,000, the price of a new refrigerator. First class air to Hawaii. Couple month’s rent for some. Enough to power electricity to a large neighborhood in Puerto Rico.
Tessa, cinnamon spotted Ocicat.
After her exam, the vet suggested surgery, and we made an appointment for this morning. I stood at the checkout counter yesterday as the check-out clerks demanded a 50% deposit. Many businesses trust no one these days. They insisted on viewing my driver’s license. I wrote a check for the deposit, which was my last check. The clerk incorrectly computed the total and was off by $100. She asked me for another $100. Oh, just add to the balance I’ll pay on Thursday, I suggested. I don’t have any more checks. Nope, they wanted that hundred bucks right then and there. Really? A hundred bucks? Did I look like a deadbeat in my Hawaiian pearls? I didn’t think so. I had just given them almost $1,000. Why didn’t they take my fingerprints and X-ray me while they were at it?
That whole experience as a paying customer at VCA was not a nice customer service experience. Very unpleasant.
I handed them my credit card. I wanted to add specifically where they could shove it, but the clerks are just doing their stinkin’ job. Silver lining? I’m glad I’m selling Elk Grove homes and not working for VCA. Dealing with shit people.
Which takes me back to the agent from my Elk Grove office who called to complain in an agitated manner. It appears he had gone to preview another of my Elk Grove homes the previous week, and the key in the lockbox did not work. I don’t know why the key didn’t work. It worked when the door was locked and the key was placed in the lockbox. I called a locksmith immediately and paid for a new key. But the guy was still steaming over that because he brought it up.
Because I’m a top producer selling Elk Grove homes, I had another home on tour.
When this agent got there, as luck would have it, the seller, an elderly woman, was confused and would not let him inside. She confessed when I called that she had not read some of my emails, but she agreed they could come back. Like I told that agent in a voice mail (since he ignored my call), if he had just called me from her doorstep, I could have fixed the whole situation. Instead, he preferred to throw a hissy fit and storm off. That’s his call but it seems defeatist behavior to me.
Selling Elk Grove homes is not for the faint of heart. As I left the VCA office off Bradshaw, I realized my closing scheduled for recording that afternoon was just up the street. This was a home in Wildhawk that the seller had tried to sell several times in the past with some other Elk Grove Realtor, not me. I expect I amazed him because I sold the home at list price. It didn’t sell as quickly as homes in the Elk Grove ZIP codes because this home in Wildhawk, although in the Elk Grove School District, is in 95829. Not as many home searches in that ZIP as there are for Elk Grove. Still, it sold in 20 days, still under the average in Sacramento of 22 days, and closed without any repairs or renegotiations. My seller is happy. That’s all I care about.
I drove over to the house in Wildhawk and removed the lockbox. I could hire a person to remove lockboxes for me, but there is something about the finality of the transaction, the completion, reaching the conclusion, that I find comforting. I also called my Elk Grove office to verify that the rest of the documents, remotes, mailbox keys were waiting in Will Call for the buyer’s agent. I could hear Tessa mewing in her carrier in the back seat of my car.
This morning, she is probably cursing my very existence. She doesn’t like being alone in a strange place, and there is a fearful atmosphere at most vet clinics. Not every animal, or human for that manner, comes out of anesthesia. There is always a risk. Yet I hear the surgeons are competent, even if the doctor looked to be 12. When I first saw him, I jokingly wanted to ask if he was old enough to drive, but that wouldn’t help matters. I know when to keep my mouth shut. And, when not to.
