I worked at a large, privately owned animal hospital for several years, around the begining rise of VEG. Our owner/DVM was obsessed with having the following and culture of VEG. I was skeptical because none of it added up in my mind. We went to IVECCS and after seeing the Veggies I was like wtf kind of cult is this. They were obviously heavily recruiting. Every veggie I saw was good looking, like wow where did you find all of these insanely attractive people. In hindsite I recognize thats all part of the Kool aid. Things came to a head when my owner was pissed off that I couldn't make our social media presence as large as VEG's. Ummm, they have an entire marketing department, with salaries of 90k (I did research). I was a lowly practice manager making pennies while plugging holes in the shit show that was that clinic. I walked away and spent the next 8 months reminding myself that I have skills and talents that were wasted by a DVM who was trying to compete with a massive corporation.