Two days before Thanksgiving, I noticed that something was wrong: my youngest son wasn’t his usual energetic self. He was crawling across the floor to the breakfast table and muttering incomplete sentences that I couldn’t make sense of. I touched him and he was burning up.

I took him to the doctor and they said he had a fever of 106.5F, which is very bad — and could get worse.

My husband asked around while I was with the kid at the hospital, and it turns out that the neighbor’s kid had had a fever of about 105F recently, but the neighbor let him play with my son despite being dangerously ill, because it was “just a little fever”.

Our family was supposed to visit us for Thanksgiving, but I called them to cancel since I didn’t want my nieces and nephews to get sick.

One of my brothers actually mocked me for “being a wimp” and “letting a little fever cancel Thanksgiving”.

So, here we are on Thanksgiving Day, smuggling a turkey, some cranberry sauce, and a pumpkin pie smoothie into the hospital to feed my smallest a Thanksgiving meal. Because some morons didn’t take disease prevention seriously.

I wake up quite sick one morning. I feel terrible and I’m coughing a lot. I suddenly remember that I have a dentist’s appointment first thing in the morning, so I call the dentist’s office.

Receptionist: “Hello, [Dentist].”

Me: “Hi. I have an appointment this morning but I’m quite sick, and I wouldn’t want to get anyone sick, so I need to reschedule.”

Receptionist: “That’s fine, sir. Just so you know, we charge a $50 fee for same-day cancelations and missed appointments.”

Me: *Pauses* “Okay, then I’ll just come in for my appointment.”

Receptionist: “I’m sorry, sir?”

Me: “I’ll just come for my appointment, then. I don’t mind coughing on people.”

Receptionist: “Please hold, sir.”

There’s hold music for a bit before the receptionist comes back.

Receptionist: “We will waive the fee this time. When would you be available to reschedule?”

This story reminded me of back in the day, when I worked in the oil and gas industry. I was tasked with assisting a field crew at a multinational corporate wellsite for [Company] in Texas. Normally, I worked in an air-conditioned chemistry lab. This happened in August, and it was 105F at the wellsite.

This did not go well. I was not acclimatized to working in overalls in 105F weather, and I came down with a case of heat exhaustion about halfway through the task. And here’s the fun part: at this site, there was a [Company] executive.

Crewmate: “Hey, this guy has heat exhaustion, and I’m taking him to a doctor. Our crew will finish this task tomorrow.”

The [Company] guy did not have a problem with this at all.

Executive: “Sure, no problem. Take care of your guy.”

There was no yelling, not even calling the project manager on the phone demanding discounts or anything.

I was not billed for the doctor’s visit; my company was.

I bring this up because the oil and gas industry isn’t exactly known for being the best to its workers, and yet, in my one case of being injured on the job, I was still treated miles better — by a crude oil and natural gas corporation executive — than retail treats its workers.

Seriously, what is wrong with the person managing the store in this story when you’re losing the moral high ground to an oil exec?

Related:
Whoever Decided That Probably Has A Nice Cool Office…

CONTENT WARNING: Animal Neglect (Happy Ending!)

I’ve just clocked in as a groomer at an independent pet store. I look at my schedule for the day and see that all of my appointments have been scrubbed and my manager has just written, “SEE ME, EMERGENCY,” in big letters. Colour me intrigued but also concerned.

I walk across the building to my manager’s office and find her consoling a woman around my age — mid-twenties. There’s a husky frantically trying to lick her face, but the dog yelps every time it moves. It’s climbed into its owner’s lap. I can see from across the room that the poor thing is covered in matted fur, which has tangled so badly near its legs that it can’t stand or move without pulling at the skin and causing pain. The poor dog is also filthy, and someone has clearly tried to shave or chop off some of the matting and nicked the dog several times. The vet we usually get out for sedation and such is standing there, as bewildered as I am.

Manager: “Oh, good, here’s [My Name]! Sweetheart, I told you I would find you the very best to help Nymeria, and she’s it. If anyone can help her, it’s [My Name], okay? And [Vet] is here to have a look at the cuts. They don’t look too bad to me, but we’ll get it sorted out, okay?” 

Dog Owner: *Still crying and hiccuping* “I h-h-had to move here for my new j-j-job, and I left her with my brother. My h-h-house wasn’t ready, and she’d have been miserable in a flat. I s-s-sent him the money to take her to the groomer, but he never took her, and it’s been six months! The airport p-p-people said she cried the whole flight—”

She’s cut off by the dog yelping because her leg slid off the owner’s lap, which causes the owner to start sobbing even louder. My heart breaks; this poor girl clearly loves her dog. I can hear the vet muttering under his breath something unkind about the brother.

Me: “Okay. Deep breaths, everyone! Right. Tears aren’t helping, and they’re upsetting Nymeria. We can fix this. Could you introduce me?”

I was introduced to Nymeria who, to her credit, despite her pain, only gave me about thirty seconds of the husky side-eye before she realized I had dehydrated chicken livers in my pocket. After that, I think she would have gone home with me.

The vet checked the nicks out and found nothing but some surface scratches. There was one particularly deep one near her rear end that he popped some antiseptic on, and then he gave us the go-ahead.

He asked if she usually needed sedation for grooming. By then, my manager had gotten hold of the customer’s old groomer, who was LIVID at the brother. When Nymeria didn’t come in on schedule, she assumed the owner had figured out the housing situation quicker than she expected and had already brought her to live in our town. She gave me some tips for Nymeria — not a biter but tries to escape when you clip her paws, does fine with a sprayer but tries to eat shampoo, and not bothered by a blow dryer but LOVES to sing. She’d been grooming Nymeria since she was a puppy and said she was very loved, well-trained, and all round the goodest girl. She did thankfully warn me that Nymeria was not a typical husky; I couldn’t really tell through all the dirt and matting, but she’s wooly coated, which added an extra layer of complication.

Nymeria let me carry her to the bathtub, happy as could be, inspecting my ear for any hidden treats. It took me seven hours to painstakingly wash, brush, trim, and dry her, but she was a trooper. When I finally had her legs unmatted and she stood up without pain for the first time, she spun in circles for ten minutes and ran around the room like a wind-up toy to get a few months’ worth of zoomies out all at once.

She needed a more extensive haircut than I would have typically given a double-coated dog, but I’m confident that she’ll recover. She went home feeling like a whole new dog with a very grateful owner, who booked a standing appointment every three weeks for the rest of the year on the spot.

I still hope her brother steps on a Lego, though.

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[Colleague #1] broke his leg in a skiing mishap. He showed up to work on crutches with his leg in a cast. [Colleague #2], a woman in her fifties, exclaimed:

Colleague #2:  “Oh, my God! How terrible! It’s just awful that you will need to get around on crutches for the rest of your life.”

Colleague #1: “No, just a few weeks until the bone mends. Then, the cast comes off.”

I couldn’t fathom how someone could make it through fifty years of life without knowing this. She thought bones were like porcelain or something, and once broken, they don’t grow back together again.