I work in a pet store, and my coworker is helping a customer.
Customer: “Are these lizards reptiles?”
Coworker: “Maybe the chameleons could be if they’re very clever?”
They ended up buying a hamster
Related:
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 6
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 5
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 4
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 3
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 2
I work in a chain pet store, but I am NOT a vet or any other medical professional. A woman comes in with her dog.
Customer: “I pulled a tick off my dog and now there’s a circle around it. How do I treat it?”
Me: “What did your vet say?”
Customer: “I’m not wasting my money on a vet. Just tell me how to fix it.”
Me: “I’m not a medical professional, ma’am. You should go to your vet or an emergency veterinary office if your vet is unavailable.”
Customer: “You must have something here!”
Me: “I cannot advise anything on this matter. I’m sorry. Once you speak to your vet, then we—”
Customer: “You’re useless! What are you paid for?!”
Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
Customer: “Fine! I guess my dog will just die!“
The woman storms out, swearing to never return. My manager emerges from the office at the front of the store.
Manager: “[My Name]… what happened?”
Me: “Her dog got bit by a tick and has a bullseye, but she won’t go to a vet.”
Manager: “What did you tell her?”
Me: “Go to a vet.”
Manager: “Good job.”
The woman has been back several times but only to complain about how useless we all are and how we were willing to let her dog die. She was eventually escorted off the property by the police.
I work at a pet store that also has a grooming salon. The salon has large windows so you can see everything that the groomers are doing. One groomer has a particularly fidgety dog, so she has to hold his face tightly to keep him from moving while she trims the fur above his eyes. That is a very dangerous area to trim, so it is so important that the dog is NOT squirming everywhere.
I am checking out one customer and she scoffs.
Customer: “Do you have a number for corporate? That groomer is way too rough, and she is going to hurt that dog! I want to report her! I work with children, and I would never handle a child that way!”
As she is yelling about the groomer and how she should be fired, the owner of the dog being groomed taps her on the shoulder and yells in her face.
Pet Owner: “That is my dog in there, and I love [Groomer]! I only go to her for grooming! Maybe you should know what you’re f****** talking about before you complain. Where do you work? I want to call and complain about you being a b****!”
It was awesome. I didn’t even know what to say; I was just standing there with my mouth gaping.
I used to be a dog trainer at a chain pet store. We did do some troubleshooting for behaviors, but most of my job was teaching people and their dogs the basic commands and how to behave around other people and dogs. I was not trained to deal with aggressive, reactive, or otherwise ill-tempered dogs.
My manager was all about customer satisfaction, even if it meant an unhappy employee. Because of this, we had some of the highest employee turnover in our region.
I was off work during the week when she called.
Manager: “Hi, [My Name]. I just got you a four-hour private booking with a Doberman.”
Me: “Oh. Okay. Cool, thank you.”
Manager: “When can you be here?”
Me: “You have my schedule. If they want hour sessions, I should have an hour on Saturday, or we could do half-hours or—”
Manager: “No, the customer wants to get to work today. You can do all four hours right away and get him in the right space.”
Me: “I’m not working today, and it’s not really good to work a dog that long, especially right off the bat.”
Manager: *In a chastising tone* “You are supposed to help these people build bonds with their dogs. That means being available to them.”
Me: “I’m not on-call. You can’t just tell me I need to get in there.”
Manager: “This poor dog has a history of lunging and trying to bite new people, and you want to make his family wait?”
Me: “You do realize I would be considered a ‘new person’ to him?”
Manager: “But you’re so good with dogs!”
Me: “That’s because I know when to not f*** with them. Send them to a behavior specialist. I’m not risking my skin for a couple of bucks.”
Manager: “You won’t meet your sales quota for the week.”
Me: “I’ll survive. I’ll see you later.”
I hung up and ignored all calls from the store until my next shift. Ironically, I was fired just a week later for an alleged altercation with a customer, though there was no proof of such an interaction except what the store manager said happened. I sincerely hope the person they have training now has a backbone.
I work at a pet store with “memberships”. It’s free to enroll, but if you don’t fill out the entire thing, you don’t get the membership pricing. This was not always the case, but at some point, things changed. A woman approaches my register and rattles off her phone number. I pull up her account.
Me: “Okay, it looks like we don’t have an email for you.”
Customer: “No, and you won’t, either.”
Me: “Just so you know, corporate has changed the way things work. Without a complete profile, you won’t get any of the savings.”
Customer: “Well, that’s bulls***.”
I make a sympathetic face but say nothing.
Customer: “Just put in my name at Hotmail or something.”
This is a common tactic: people giving some combination of their first and last name at a domain to get around giving us their real email.
Me: “Okay. So, I have [Customer’s Full Name] at Hotmail—”
Customer: “Oh, my God, what did I just tell you?”
Me: “Um… to put your name at Hotmail?”
Customer: “Cancel the order. Get your manager. I’m done.”
The manager comes over and talks her down before checking her out on a different register. After the woman leaves, the manager comes to me.
Manager: “You’re gonna love this. She’s mad that you used her real email.”
Me: “But… she told me to use that? I don’t get it.”
Manager: “Yeah, because that’s her real email.”
Me: “So, after she refused to give me her email, she gave me her email and got mad about it?”
Manager: “Yup. Said you were stealing her identity.”
Me: “I wouldn’t want to be her for a minute.”
