Dear Jon
Every December, people start making lists. Best of, worst of, most memorable- everyone loves to make little lists that organize the year’s events and data into a nice bite sized chunk. Last week, I stumbled upon CNN’s 50 Best Jobs of 2009. I’m not sure what complicated algorithm they used to come up with this list, but I looked out of curiosity and sure enough, there was veterinarian, smack dab in the middle at Number 25. It’s above corporate paralegal, but below CPA. Sounds about right.
My favorite part of their job description summary is the Quality of Life ratings:
Personal Satisfaction: B
Job Security: B
Future Growth: B
Benefit to Society: A
Low Stress: D
Notice the outlier there? Looks about right, and I think most vets would agree. The grades are pretty spot on, though I will say that “Personal Satisfaction” varies from day to day and leave it at that.
No self-respecting Top 50 list would be complete without opening it to the floor for comments/ discussion/ disagreement, and this article was no different. It’s always interesting to see who cares about the topic strongly enough to be moved to actually make a comment, and what they have to say. Not to be disappointed, right near the beginning of the comment section we meet someone named Jon, who has this to say about my profession:
“Benefit to society? A? Seriously? It should be given an F for wasting money on useless objects. Benefit to society, more like a thorn in our side. I don’t know how anyone could wake up and be ok with themselves knowing they are wasting all these resources on animals, or how you could take an animal to a vet and spend X amount of money on your pet when there are millions of people around the world who NEED medical treatment and DONT get it. You guys are pathetic and your pets are useless to society.”
Dear Jon:
Yes, well, erm, one can only assume- and fervently hope- that you don’t have pets. From the irrationally hateful tone to this post I take it that your parents own two fluffy Maltese who sleep on velvet bolsters in the master bedroom and eat filet mignon from crystal dishes while you, sad, shoeless Jon, have to live under the stairs and eat cobweb stew.
I could direct you to myriad medical journals chronicling the positive health benefits of pet ownership. I could comment on the role veterinarians play in protecting public health via food animal safety and medicine. I could ask you what you personally are doing to solve the problem of millions of people who need better medical care. But I won’t, because I know you probably won’t listen to dregs such as myself anyway.
I wake up in the morning and I’m OK with myself because I’ve treated a cat, the lone companion of an elderly woman whose husband passed away last year. Because I’ve met dogs who help autistic children function in society. Because had I followed my initial career trajectory, I’d be an MD and stuck treating concrete headed louts like yourself instead of those useless dogs and cats out there who make life better for the pathetic people who are obviously not charitable titans of society such as yourself, you sad, misguided little twerp.
Sincerely,
Dr. V
