your dog fucking stinks

01-10-00

Sucky day. Yucky. Remember how I used to work in retail? I'll bet half of my dozen or so regular readers are here because of my customer service moaning and whining. Well, who would have thought that my new job contains not ONLY dog shit, but also bitching customers? I've got my cake and I'm eating it, too.

The day started out well enough, I was working fast and a lady brought in her dog and four puppies who were born yesterday. I've never seen dogs so little before, they were darling. Then it got really busy, and all hell broke loose.

A woman picked up her dog from boarding. It was a dog that I've cared for before, a sweet little Yorkie named Misty. After the woman went home, she called back to complain that her dog smelled like piss. Aida hung me out to dry.

I don't know if she was being mean, if she was telling me (in a mean way) that I'm not doing my job right, or if she was just busy and needed a hand. I think it was the latter. In any case, I was extremely ticked off. She gave me the phone.

So I'm sitting here on the phone, in front of my two bosses and their assistant, plus at least half a dozen customers, taking it in the ass from a psychotic woman with a stinky Yorkshire terrier. The dog stank. The dog's blanket stank. It stank up the whole car. The woman had to change her clothes and take a shower when she got home.

And she blames herself, because she should never have brought the dog back after we FUCKED it up the first time. ( She didn't say that, not those exact words.) She accused me of leaving Misty in her cage for the whole weekend, sitting in a puddle of her own waste. The LAST time, we had to bathe the dog before we sent it home. And you know why we did that? Not to be nice. Not because she's a regular client. (those are the real reasons.) We did it because we can't let the customers know how poorly we treat the dogs in our facility. How we let them shit on themselves and sit in it.

I didn't say a word. I didn't tell her how her dog gets so excited when I walk in the door in the mornings that she pees in her cage before I can grab her and run to the back door. I didn't tell her that Misty takes her toy—a slimy tennis ball--("It was DRIPPING!! Dripping down my ARM!!") and drops it into her water dish every day. I didn't tell her to have her fucking dog groomed once in a while so the dog doesn't smell like shit all the time. I just sat there, unable to believe that Aida had dropped me on my ass like that.

There were long pauses in the woman's rant, where I suppose she wanted me to say something. She never really asked me a question, so I didn't speak. We'd sit in silence for 15 or 20 seconds at a time. Once I began to explain how some dogs get nervous in boarding and their behavior may differ from that at home, but I heard her mimicking me to someone on the other end, so I stopped. Finally, I said something that sounded like, "If I thought I could change your mind, I might try," and later, "Well, I've enjoyed working with your dog, but it's your choice whether to take her to another facility." I think we hung up on each other simultaneously.

Bitch. I furiously folded two loads of laundry, imagining how I might have shoved my foot up her ass, had I seen her coming. I was really mad at Aida. Later, the three of them (Aida, the doctor, and Sherrie) asked me what had gone down. I told them the lady didn't like her stinky dog, and Sherrie immediately started in on how I should bathe the dogs if they stink, whether or not they stank when they arrived. I wasn't having it. Sherrie seems to see every exchange we have as a time to point out something I should be doing differently. She does it all friendly-like, smiling, but admonishing just the same. Normally I can grit my teeth and agree, okay, heh-heh, whatever, but this time I just mumbled and went back to do more laundry.

So I came home in a pissy mood. John came home early, so I waited to eat with him, but he'd eaten already, and we put in a movie that had to be returned, so we didn't eat until six or so. I got cranky. Then, over dinner, John mentioned that he'd spoken to a guy at work whose wife used to work for the Figaros, doing my exact job. He had a catalog of the reasons she'd quit, including Easter weekend when Aida and Sherrie left a dead dog with a note asking the tech to clean it up. The tech was a month pregnant at the time. She quit a week later.

I'm glad I have tomorrow off. I can't face the vet right now.