The Vet Reviews

I worked for this company as a cleaner for a month but was then fired due to leaving early - aka when I completed my job and had nothing left to do. I did everything I was meant to do, always asked to make sure they were happy with my cleaning and was always praised. I wasn't secretive about leaving early either. I figured leaving when the job is done is common sense - especially for a minimum wage job like a cleaner position - but apparently it violated company policy, which I simply didn't know as I never had a job before. I figured I was paid for the work I do as a cleaner, not the hours I work. I could see that making sense for a customer service role but not a cleaner position? If I can get 4 hours of work done in the span of 2 and a half I figured that'd be a good thing but evidently efficiency isn't something they care about. Instead I was apparently meant to either work at an absolute snail's pace or dawdle around until the end of my shift. I wasn't even given so much as a warning and instead I was immediately let go via a phone call. Doing something like this to someone who never even worked a job before who was still on probation and during a cost of living crisis is incredibly cruel. It's particularly infuriating as they were not without flaws themselves. Honestly this place first left a sour taste in my mouth when they forgot to put away a dead dog and instead left the deceased animal in the euthanasia room for well over an hour until I pointed it out - because it smelled horrid and I couldn't really clean anything that way. They also asked me to clean the prep room (which was not in my job description) due to being short staffed. Another thing is that while it's their job to get rid of the bins in their prep room one of the vets "sneakily" left a massive bin bag full of rubbish from said prep room at the exit, clearly thinking "ah it's fine, the cleaner will get rid of it for me". I wouldn't have had an issue with it but the least you can do is ask nicely? And I thought it was quite rude how one of the vets complained to me about the customers they were talking with because they talked "too much", which wasn't very professional. In the end my biggest issue is them claiming it was a breach of trust, implying I left early to be malicious. I simply didn't know, it was an honest mistake. Obviously I would have stayed had I known, even if it meant wasting time there doing nothing.

Since the takeover, the management is very money-orientated. Constantly increasing prices on all products, poor communication when doing so and most of the time finding out about a huge price change after telling the owner the price that was there yesterday. The management doesn't care about any of the team members whether it's vets/nurses/vca/receptionists and makes them work until they burn out due to lack of staff. Since the takeover the number of client complaints has risen and not surprised as the entire team is run down and there's no consistency, however, it's the team in the practice that has to deal with angry clients, not the management. Quite often there's no management in the practice which causes a lot of frustration within the teams. Instead of listening to the team members, the new managers decided to lose the whole team and replace everyone with locums and slowly try to build a new team just to probably lose it next year, if not sooner, due to the same issues. The new owners are greedy for money but won't give a decent pay rise to any of their employees and are happy to pay twice the price for locums (not always good ones) that cause disruption to the remaining team members. The managers want to run all branches, in the same way, thinking this is possible where we have all been telling them and providing proof that it isn't. We have been provided with unrealistic finish times and again as the practice is greedy for money they won't allow us to send patients to out-of-hours vets sooner no matter how long the task/surgery would take, cause they would lose money. This essentially shows no respect for our own time and we have to stay for as long as necessary after close time. The coffee machine in the reception used to be a benefit for both clients and the staff, well now even that has been taken away from the staff as we are no longer allowed to use it as the practice doesn't want to cover the cost of the consumables. Promised the staff room will be fully stocked but they haven't provided a budget for it and nothing has been arranged as well as it will take much more time for anyone to go and grab a drink. The managers are trying to make everyone equal in between practices including the pay brackets no matter whether you're based in Nottingham/London/Bristol or any other branch which of course the cost of living hugely varies. To top it up the vet consults went from 20 minutes to 15 and are just not long enough and all vets are falling behind causing a lot of stress, as well as it caused vets to leave. Also don't count on any equipment to actually arrive even when you desperately need it.