Miscommunication

One of the first jobs I had was working in a vets office. I was all excited because I love animals and thought it would be a great experience. Key word here is THOUGHT. I was mainly in charge of the animals that were boarding. My main duties were to clean their cages, give them food and water and document how much they had consumed to make sure they were eating. However, whenever I was done with all of that, I was usually completely clueless about what needed to be done. I would usually just ask other employees and help out around the office.

The vet ran and owned the office I worked in and most of the time I tried to avoid her because she had a nasty attitude and was NEVER friendly. One day in particular still sticks out vividly in my mind. The vet had taken the cat out of the carrier and left the carrier sitting on the floor while she went about finishing her business. She never mentioned that I should clean the carrier and put it back to together, but instead she just left it lying there. Several minutes later she came back in and started yelling at me for not cleaning it and removing it from the floor. I was stunned.

Instances like these happened often during the whole 3 months that I worked there. The vet never mentioned what she wanted her employees to do, she just expected them to magically know. I feel this caused barriers and miscommunication to occur frequently. When you do not specify, especially to someone new, tasks that need to be done and what they could do to help, you typically get outcomes you don’t want. These situations usually ended with her getting mad and being meaner than she normally is which was highly unfortunate. I feel that all these situations could have been easily avoided if she had delegated different tasks at the beginning of the day to certain individuals rather than letting them stand there completely clueless of what needs to be done. Communication is key in businesses. Managers need to tell employees what is expected of them and they need to create a system of delegating tasks so that everyone is on the same page of what needs to be done.