It is said variety is the spice of life – although, as much as I like fiery food, I’m sometimes just as happy with a sandwich.
Unpredictability isn’t exclusive to veterinary medicine, of course, but I sometimes fantasise enviously about people who know what they will be doing from the moment they enter work until the moment they clock off. They may even know exactly when they’re going to finish for the day.
I try to imagine what it must be like having a job where your day is planned out perfectly, instead of being intermittently surprised by road traffic collisions, complaints or chocolate poisonings.
It sounds idyllic; it sounds wonderful; it sounds… well, also rather boring, too.
Not up my street
When I was at school, we had three choices for our work experience, which we listed them according to preference. I chose veterinary, medicine and law (I had been watching a lot of LA Law at the time, okay?).
When the letter came through telling me which position I had been given, it turned out to be retail – more specifically, helping out at the Coronation Street shop at Granada Studios Tour in Manchester.
Now, aside from some unexpected perks (I once stood behind Bruno Brooks in the Granada canteen), this was a very predictable job – I knew when I’d start and finish, and what music would be piped through the shop’s tinny speakers (this is largely why I can never listen to another Beach Boys song for the rest of my life).
It was predictable and desperately, desperately dull.
I remember being so utterly bored I actually counted down – to the second – exactly how long I had left before I could go home.
Even accidentally smashing an entire shelf of Vera Duckworth-shaped mugs while dusting did little to relieve the tedium.
Diversity
General practice can have its moments of tedium, too. It is hard to feel massively excited about explaining – once again – the flea life cycle, worming protocols or principles of treating atopic dermatitis.
But some variety always exists in the patients, owners, or the fact you’re trying to sell a new flea product and must remember the ways it is slightly different from others on the market.
Evening surgeries can feel like a slow slog, and the strange thing about surgeries is the quieter they are, the more frustrating it can be when another appointment gets added.
When you have one of those rare “predictable” evenings – when, amazingly, more empty slots exist than appointments, and those appointments coming in are postoperative checks or boosters – it is depressing when a “just not right” appointment appears out of the blue.
However, when you have a bursting-at-the-seams surgery – fully booked with extras before you start – the sudden arrival of a “straining to urinate” cat in the mix merely makes you think “yeah, bugger it, why not another one, what the hell!”.
Streets ahead
I find the unpredictability of the job frustrating, interesting and stressful in equal measures.
But whenever I find myself envious of those people with predictable jobs, I remember those long, long hours at the Coronation Street shop and imagine a career made up of counting down the seconds until the day was over.
It puts me in mind of Woody Allen’s classic quip: “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”
Predictability is, just like Excalibur, a double-edged sword. General practice can occasionally feel boring, but take it from me – it’s not Coronation Street shop levels of boring.
Besides, the busy evenings may be challenging, but those evenings where veterinary medicine looks a little tedious – where it lures you into thinking that maybe, just for tonight, things will go exactly as expected… well, they’re the ones you’ve really got to look out for.
Who could have predicted that?
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