What did I do to deserve this?

Diane is a very extroverted older lady who used to work as our receptionist. The clients adored her. We loved her too except that she drove us bananas on a daily basis. She apparently did not ever learn her abc's, charts seemed to be filed at random and could never be found easily (obviously since they were not where they should have been.) Messages were taken and promptly forgotten hence people did not get called back, medicines did not get filled, etc. People who had left multiple animals to board often only got charged for one or, alternately, got charged multiple times for a single animal because she paid no attention to the fact that charges were already entered. Charges were often entered in duplicate, on the wrong pet, or not at all... She was very opinionated and butted in all the time on medical decisions about which she did not have enough knowledge to intervene but was very persuasive to the clients thus really undermining our recommendations. She often took in patients and promised faithfully that we would do some extra service but never told anyone else hence it was not done or stated that she would do it "at lunch" then disappeared for 2 hours at lunch and it never got done. Other than that, she was great. In all seriousness, her personality was her outstanding trait because she was so easy for the clients to interact with and connected well with them. Needless to say, there was a collective sigh of relief (under our breath, of course) when she retired.

Now we have three "kids," as I refer to them, because they are so immature. All three have worked the receptionist position a little although one is now completely banned from the front. Although our entire bank of charts were purged and re-filed in correct alphabetical order, charts are still found randomly filed. Either the phonetics system is really failing in teaching abc's and spelling or Diane is secretly coming in at night just to mess with our minds.

(As an aside, I must relate the recent event when my tongue got away with a horribly sarcastic comment that I probably should not have made. The girl that works up front the most cannot spell worse than Can'tSpell. There have been various "interesting" ways that words are spelled by her and, often enough, it is difficult to decipher what she is trying to say. She is taking undergraduate courses at a local community college and was complaining one day about how difficult it was specifically stating she was soooo glad that she had not taken a particular course because, gasp, the teacher gave essay questions rather than multiple choice!! I'm glad she has decided against vet school... I commented that I would always prefer essay in part because I was better at explaining what I know and that I second guess multiple choice / true - false to the point that I usually miss them plus that wonderful thing known as partial credit if you know most but don't remember portions exactly. "But," she wailed, "they count off for spelling!!!" "Yeah, that would be a problem for YOU..." was my reply. I know, not nice. Now back to the story.)

Messages still do not get relayed or, if they do, somehow I get stuck being the one to pull the chart because, no, we do not remember the details of every single patient we see every day for the past several years even though they have all been told REPEATEDLY to pull the chart when taking the message. Clients are told that things will be done but we may or may not even be told that the pet is in the hospital. Charges are put under the wrong pet, multiple times, or not at all. Charges from the wrong date are entered again as new charges. Medications fail to go home with the pet. Instructions fail to go home with the pet. Neither doctor nor our tech is told when a patient goes home with whose owner we need to speak. All are very opinionated and will tell clients what they think, try to give advice but none have real medical training; the only good thing is that the clients are not as charmed by them as they were Diane. Hmmmm...... Does this sound familiar? Now, somehow, we have the same problem but it's in TRIPLICATE!!!!!!!!!