love/hate

I have a totally dysfunctional relationship with my job.

I work for a veterinarian - a job for which I have no formal training and to which none of my many years of higher education apply. I took it as a part time position four years ago, just something fun to do while I waited to get knocked up.

I had such high expectations for my life.


Now, years later, I am full time, part office manager, part vet tech, part doctor wrangler, marketing coordinator, client satisfaction specialist, poop recipient and cleaner of various bodily fluids. I wear many hats at work.

I love animals, so any time I get to have contact with them, or help puzzle out a diagnosis, is sweet. There is nothing better - nothing - than going about my daily routine with a kitty in need of TLC in my lap. I like to help people too, and so there are days when my job rocks.

Lately though, I've been feeling burnt out. Part of the problem is that my work world has been insulated from my infertility woes because for a long time none of my coworkers had kids or wanted them. Then, a coworkers best friend got knocked up and the insulation started to get torn away. I hear a lot of baby talk these days. And then, a new girl was hired.

She has a kid. He's four. And yet somehow, she still manages to tell a story every day about her pregnancy. If that weren't annoying enough, she has taken to harassing me about having babies because she "just loves them."

Insulation - gone.

I know that she couldn't even imagine my history - and I don't like her enough to tell her - but I still find her assumptions fucking rude. Soon enough, I will call her out on her rudeness.

Anyway, I thought I would bless you all with my very own top 5 list.

Top 5 Most Awful Things About My Job

1. I play with poop. Namely, I take samples from clients and mix the poop with a solution that will make parasite eggs rise to the top of a little glass slip, which is then read under a microscope. Daily, I get to smell the wonderful aroma of dog/cat (and occasionally, ferret) ass, fermented in plastic bags. If that weren't bad enough, the other day a lady literally walked in, threw a bag of poop in my face, and walked out (without paying!). Seriously, people, poop in my face. Go ahead and laugh - you know you want to.

2. Speaking of ass, let me mention anal glands. They are supposed to express a very pungent liquid when an animal defecates. Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, they do not express as they should, and that is when we come in. I get to restrain the animal while my coworkers glove up and dive into the rectum to express the glands. Usually, the smell is the worst part. Every so often, though, something goes awry and that dark horrendous liquid from a particularly juicy gland ends up shooting onto a person. Hair, eyes, skin, mouth - all have been invaded by stinky anal juice. Hungry?

3. People suck. Some neglect their animals, or let them suffer because of money, or just don't train their dogs so even minor procedures become a wrestling match. Once, I got elbowed in the head - by my boss! - so hard I nearly passed out while trying to restrain an untrained dog. Some people are simply rude, like the folks who come in talking on their cell phones and expect me to stop what I'm doing to help them while they chit chat away.

4. Knowledge is a burden sometimes. I will now freak out whenever my animals seem off, because I always envision the worst case scenario.

5. I am (almost) an animal hoarder. It comes with the job. I dare you to find a veterinary employee who does not have a ridiculous number of pets (I have 6). You will fail. We all work in the field because we like animals, and part of the job inevitably becomes bringing the needy home (such as my latest addition, a 17 year old cat whose owner died and was facing euthanasia. He came home with me that day). The problem? See number 4. We obsess over their health, to a ridiculous degree. It becomes expensive, and stressful.


None of those, though, are enough to make me quit (yet). I need to find a new direction for myself, especially now that my insulation has been torn away, but I don't know which way to turn.

Hopefully, that magic fucking pill will help me figure it out.