Incompetence and Incontinence

Over the past several days Ben has been ranting and raving about a major telephone company that has now managed to screw up an installation at Ben's customer's location not once, not twice, but three times. He's highly annoyed and has described the whole group as inept except in the area of conference calls and managerial groveling. At any rate, he's suggesting that they change their motto to "we never stop working for you -we can't because we can never finish anything." He's suggesting the customer jettison this major phone company because "you can't fix stupid."

The point to the story above is that Ben doesn't have much tolerance for incompetence but until I pointed it out, he hadn't really thought about it. And today, verification in the form of an email I received at work:

Called the vet, said we had a dog who has been seen by the vet regarding an issue with peeing in the house.

Told them someone suggested we get a bladder and kidney x-ray done to see if that yields any information. Said I would like to know how much that would cost. She said they would have to get an estimate.

(silence on the line)

Ok, how do I do that?

(more silence on the line)

What do you mean?

You just said I would have to get an estimate. What does that involve?

Oh, we would have to have someone call you back.

Ok, here are my numbers.

Now what did you want again?

X-rays to see if there is anything on his bladder or kidneys that might explain the peeing problem!!!

So, just his bladder and kidneys?

(sigh) . . . why don't you ask the vet that??? I'm thinking/hoping that he or she knows more about this than I do.

It's the plumber, I've come to fix the sink.



Yes, that means we're still struggling with Kirby's problems. He's been to the vet twice for this and they've done blood work (he has the bloodwork of a young dog) and urine cultures (nothing there) and can't seem to find anything wrong with him physically but he seems to be having trouble peeing when he's outside. He goes, then walks a little bit, goes again, walks a bit, goes again and this is without sniffing. And he has a slightly humped back as he's peeing too so I suspect there might be something wrong. But he's also peeing in his crate at night and that's just disgusting.

I never wanted a dog and I certainly never wanted a dog that pees in the house and in his crate. It feels like an unsolveable problem unless we're totally heartless and implement the final solution. But he's a pretty lively dog and generally happy so that doesn't seem like a good solution either. And we'd happily give him to someone better able to deal with it but gee, no one seems to want to step up to the plate for some odd reason. Any volunteers?