I used to work at an animal hospital, I had to do phone duty sometimes (which was fine with me). The office had appointment hours from 9-11:30 AM, then we did surgery in the afternoon, then we started evening appoinment hours from 5-7:00 PM. And it was inevitable, we’d get the call every couple days:
me: “Animal Hospital.”
caller: “I’d like to make an appointment for my dog to get vaccinated.”
me: “Okay, would you like the morning or an evening time?”
caller: “Afternoon.”
AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGH!!! I always wanted to say, “DIDN’T you just HEAR what I said? Were you LISTENING?”
Then sometimes the call would go on from there:
me: “I’m sorry, we don’t have afternoon appointments.”
caller: “You don’t? Why not? Two o’clock is the only time I can bring Fluffy in.”
me: “The doctor does surgery in the afternoon, that’s why we don’t have appointments.”
caller: “Oh. Give me an evening time then, I’ll get my husband to bring the dog over.”
I think a lot of times in that case, people just assumed that we would take them when it was convenient for them, because I know that some vet hospitals have walk-in only appointments, and they already had a set time in their mind. Also I think that some people didn’t take us seriously, that it was “only” an animal doctor, we weren’t as busy as a human doctor’s office, we jsut sat around and played with the animals all day. We took x-rays, performed bloodwork, and the surgeries were the same (a spay is an oviariohysterectomy). A lot of the medications we prescribed were even the same- Amoxicillin, Prednisone, etc. Working with the animals was fun and interesting, but it was dealing with the pet owners (and the general public) that finally got to me, and I eventually quit.
“Yes, I’m sure.”