Lazy employees.

[Nimbindi]

Hello, I have only been playing Sims 4 for about 4-6 weeks now, and I currently have the Cats & Dogs expansion as well as backyard stuff pack. I recently visited my vet clinic right when I opened it. I have three employees, and for the first two hours none of them showed up to work. Even after they arrived, they did not do anything but walk around and admire the pictures on the wall. So in total, 3 hours of no work, with customers standing in the waiting room. I kept the clinic open 8 hours, and even gave all three of them a raise from $10 to $20 an hour. When I closed the clinic I was charged for 8 hours of work times 3. Since they did no work for the first 3 hours, why did they expect pay? Even when one of them started treating patients, the other two fiddled around for another hour. The total patient count that shift was very low, like 4 or 5, I don't remember which. So in an 8 hour shift, only 5 patients were seen by 3 vets? Since I just started this clinic less than a week ago, all are trainees, but still, only 5 patients treated? Most the time I don't even show up at the clinic when it is open, because I notice they handle more patients when I am gone. But then they get "unsatisfied" because I am not there. I am the owner, I show up when I want, they are the workers, they work for me. I had one tell me "You're terrible, the co-workers are terrible" when I clicked on "check up on". I fired her on the spot. They do no work for 3 hours, but they still want praise and./or a raise in pay. I don't know any job IRL that would allow their employees to stand around doing nothing for 3 hours and still keep their jobs. Only reason I gave them all raises was I have had previous households with vet clinics and after about a week or so, the employees start getting unsatisfied. Either because of low pay, or no praise, I don't know. However, it makes no sense to praise someone who is not doing all this extra work" as they claim they are and finally getting noticed. Anyone else experience this? The household in question is a level 10 vet, but I don't always sent him in to work an 8 hour shift. I usually only send him in on the weekends to make treats to sell in the vending machine. BTW, a second question. How do you set the opening and closing times? I want to have my clinic open from 8am to 5pm Mon-Fri, but I can't find the option to do that. Do they have one or am I stuck opening and closing it manually, whci does not work too well because I usually get wrapped up in the Sims ' needs and forget to open at the same time each day.

[SheriGR · Accepted solution]

@Nimbindi Thank you for the description. That helps me understand a lot of the Vet details. I have 'Cats and Dogs' and I have two Yorkies I have dragged from household to household (they're in my gallery). The had one puppy but neither that or any other time has caused the need for the vet yet, so I haven't gone there. I'm sure I will eventually.Glad I shared about the locking the doors thing, then. I hope it helps a bit. Have fun!

[SheriGR]

@Nimbindi ...Déjà vu all over again. Same with the retail employees. They make me so mad I finally just started ignoring them when the sims were rich enough to afford worthless employees, as they do decide to help out here and there. I never depend on them, though. If they just happen to decide to do something useful here and there, that's gravy. I just make sure I go to the store and open it with two or more sims from my household so I can make sure the clients are serviced and cleaning gets done.

It's ridiculous. I would never put up with employees like that. Most just sit on the computer, use their phone, or stand around like idiots. I have to fire some or scout them out to make sure they're at least not downright bad (lazy, crazy, evil, etc.). And almost inevitably if you criticize them they get even worse... it that's possible... and it takes FOREVER for the huge negative relationship that creates to go away.

I know there are bad employees in real life, and that EA is probably trying to replicate this dynamic, but the way they are now almost makes them unusable. The coding on the retail (and apparently Vet) employees definitely needs some love.  

At least the ones in restaurants do the work (mostly) - aside from when they decide to go on a jog suddenly in the middle of the shift... sometimes multiple times. I just gave up on that one and hired one more waiter than I needed to make sure there would be two waiters there at all times. (Plus waiters and hosts don't even show up sometimes.)

Yup, ridiculous. And you're right, what the heck are you praising some of these guys for?? 

[Nimbindi]

None of mine have gone for jogs, but they did have a nasty habit of walking thru the front entrance straight thru to the back entrance and kicking over my trash can. This at the clinic you buy in Brindleton Bay. I finally got smart and replaced it with the concrete one. I added a third exam table when I got the third employee, but very rarely do all three have patients at the same time. I even told one to clean only since the front lobby turns into a cesspool rather quickly, however, the employee stuck cleaning rarely gets it all cleaned up and is always the first to be unsatisfied. I have three households currently and have added a clinic to each of the new ones, but got them from the gallery this time. It is too early to tell if the single employee will be the same, however, with my main household, I do remember when my Sim only had one worker, there was a day when he never showed up at all. And I bet I paid him $80 too.

[SheriGR]

Yaaaa...that door-locking thing is important in business ownership. I found both in restaurant ownership and retail it was better to have an employee bathroom locked to others. I also had to lock the kitchen - where the trash is - or customers would head in there if they were annoyed and kick over the trash can and loiter  in the way of the cooks. I haven't done the vet clinic thing yet, but in one of my retail stores I built a basement break room for the owners. I run it with large households with various careers, so I run a marathon 'open' time of 2-3 days and bring or send owners home or there in whatever combo works well at the time (varied by their needs/mood/work/skills), plus I have beds, a fridge and stove, bathroom with shower, and TV in the basement break room... with a gate/door that is locked to everyone but the household. Anyway, there are a combination of 'locked doors' options that help a lot at times in the retail and restaurant areas. It can make your life a lot easier when running them!  

In the restaurant you can only manage and are at the mercy of how well the employees handle what you assign them. I thought my 'celebrity chef' could cook in it, but nope. She can cook in the kitchen, but no one but household members can eat that particular food. With the Vet Clinics can your sims run any parts of it themselves?

[Nimbindi]

You can run the vet clinic yourself. I used the cheat code to get mine to 10. So he can create all the treats, and put them in the vending machine to sell. He can also exam the pets, and perform surgeries. Although the surgery is just the pet going inside the surgery machine, and then choosing one of three procedures. It is funny sometimes when the pet comes out looking like a lawn ornament, or grass sculptor though. Of course it is sent back in to "get it right" I will have to try the locked door thing. I notice the customers go into the owner's office from time to time. Will have to lock that for household. I have also added a shower, refrigerator, dishwasher, and counter space so I can take care of my sims' needs should I keep them there the full 8 hours. And there are plenty of sofas to sleep on. I always buy the electric vacuum cleaner (looks like an iRobot Roomba) that comes with the Cats & Dogs expansion, to automatically clean up, but it only has two settings, every 12 hours or 24. I can of course tell it to start cleaning anytime I am there.

[SheriGR · Accepted solution]

@Nimbindi Thank you for the description. That helps me understand a lot of the Vet details. I have 'Cats and Dogs' and I have two Yorkies I have dragged from household to household (they're in my gallery). The had one puppy but neither that or any other time has caused the need for the vet yet, so I haven't gone there. I'm sure I will eventually.Glad I shared about the locking the doors thing, then. I hope it helps a bit. Have fun!

[Nimbindi]

The vet can make age down treats so your pets don't get old and die. Don't know what level they get that though. Also the ambrosia treat can bring them back to life. Need a vet level 10 for that one.

[PugLove888]

@Nimbindi, & @SheriGR,  I was going to mention the robot vacuum to clean messes in the vet clinic, but as I continued to read I saw you already mentioned that     I play with the vet clinics more than the stores or restaurants, but I love the idea of locking certain doors in the restaurants and even the stores! :eahigh_file:  

My take on why the employees are so lazy is that this is to mimic how a real employer feels with real life employees!   I've worked retail for many years and I remember the problems that my boss had with some of the employees.    For that matter I even remember a customer complaining to me about one of my fellow workers , and that same customer was very relieved that I was knowledgeable and that it was just that one worker who was slacking off!   But even that slacker employee was much better than the one that stole from the store!   We aren't talking just a few items but boxes of inventory with the help of her boyfriend who worked at a nearby store!  It was a very coordinated effort but they were caught! :eahigh_file:  :eahigh_file::eahigh_file:So just be happy that your Sims employees don't steal from you   (I guess unless they have the klepto trait! ) 

[SheriGR]

Hmmm.... I suppose I could be thankful for them here and there when they happen to decide to work.... I'll consider on it.

Now your stories, @PugLove888 ...Hmmm, they're making me glad I am a one-woman-show in my real-life business. I just do it myself. Don't want to deal with all that mess. Now I actually have some funny customer stories in sims - in my restaurants. I had a klepto guy that wouldn't leave one and ripped the painting off the wall/stole it and all my sims had a throw-down with the guy. Couldn't get him to leave. I deleted him. All fixed. My locks were buggy on a glitchy restaurant I downloaded from the gallery and people kept going in my kitchen. After several days I thought I had it fixed and a guy's in the kitchen again. I kept calling him out, etc. Nope. So I finally deleted him. Felt a little bad the next day when it happened again and I realized that he had gotten in and he couldn't get out because the door was locked. So it was a bug in the end.  Oh, man, those restaurants...

[Nimbindi]

I was thinking of getting the Dine Out pack because I wanted to try the restaurant thing. However, after all the horror stories (and not being able to be my own chef) I think I will stick to the vet clinic. Especially since I already bought the bundle with Sims 4. LOL The backyard pack is cool too. I noticed the Sims always go for the water slide instead of the pool. Interesting. Only way to get them in the pool is tell them myself.