One of the common things people whinge about on Twitter is customer service – or rather the lack of it. But where there is smoke, there is fire.

Yesterday I took my cat to the vet for a periodic jab and was left speechless. Picture the scene: a reception counter with one receptionist on the phone; a second receptionist chatting casually to someone in the next room about re-arranging some files. Another phone starts to ring and, whilst I place my cat’s basket on the floor, the young lady chatting away looks my way yet decides to ignore both myself and the ringing phone.

The first receptionist – still engaged on a call – looks at me rather uncomfortably and I sense a mix of frustration and embarrassment at her colleague’s lack of action.

After a few minutes, the young receptionist finally decides to interrupt her chat and returns to the counter. The phone is still ringing but she continues to ignore it and says to me: ‘Yes, can I help you?’ to which I reply, admittedly with a condescending tone: ‘You may want to answer that phone’. But just then the phone stops ringing – who can blame the person at the other end for giving up, he or she must have lost the will to live…

From the incompetence shown by this girl, I assume she is the same person I spoke to a couple of days ago, when I rang to make the appointment and instead of a routine flee jab for my cat, she jotted down ‘annual vaccination’ on my cat’s record. So had I not checked with the vet before he put the needle in, my poor cat would have had an injection he doesn’t actually need until September – not sure what the health connotations would have been…

The near victim of a negligence

This vet practice must be run by very nice, understanding people – after all, this is the countryside – but this girl wouldn’t last two seconds at Caradiaz. With the amount of young people out there desperate to get a job, it really shouldn’t be too difficult to find someone that actually wants to work.

When I returned to the counter to pay my bill, the reception desk was unmanned, although the first receptionist came back swiftly with what was probably a very well-deserved cuff of tea – I would actually need something a lot stronger myself if I had to put up with such a useless sidekick at work.

Whilst my bill was being sorted, the phones started ringing again, at which point the young receptionist made a convenient disappearing act, despite the attempts of the first receptionist to get her to answer: "Rihanna, do you think you could answer that, please?"

But by then, Rihanna had long disappeared into a dark corridor – hopefully to never return but… I should be so lucky.