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.”

Me: “Hello, this is [My Name] at [Store]. What can I help you with?”

Caller: “Do you have any diet food for puppies?”

I take two seconds to pause while trying to figure out if she is serious.

Me: “No, I don’t believe we do, and for that matter, I really doubt you will find any such food. You see—”

Caller: “You don’t need to explain it to me. My puppy is too fat, and I want her on diet food.”

Me: “Well, what breed is she, and how old?”

Caller: “She’s a Scottish terrier, and she’s only five months old, but she is so fat!”

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t think you understand. The point of food specifically for puppies is a high fat and protein content to—”

Caller: *Yelling* “I KNOW! I JUST WANT DIET FOOD FOR MY PUPPY! WHAT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

Me: *Trying to be polite* “Ma’am, making diet food for puppies is totally redundant. I know of no company that makes it, and we certainly don’t sell it, nor do we condone feeding your puppy a low-protein diet.”

Caller: “FINE! I’ll just find someone else, then!” *Click*

I swear, some people need a license before they are allowed to have a pet.

I worked twelve hours today. This is the fifth day in a row, and I am exhausted. I have just clocked out and grabbed my coat and purse from the break room. I open the door and nearly run into a woman and her cart.

Woman: “Can you fetch me [paper cat litter]?”

Me: “I’m sorry, I—”

Woman: “It won’t take a minute. Just go in the back there.”

Me: “Ma’am—”

Woman: “I’m asking quite nicely!”

She slaps her hand on the handle of the cart and gives me a glare.

Me: “No.”

A moment of silence passes.

Woman: “No? You do not say no to your customers.”

I gesture to my coat and purse.

Me: “Do I look like I’m working?!”

The woman turned her cart and walked away without another word. If she reported me to management, I never heard anything about it. If she had asked nicely, I would have told her it had been discontinued and we simply didn’t have it anymore.

I used to work at a big chain pet store. One day, some horrible customer had used the bathroom and smeared their waste ALL OVER the walls, sink, door, and floor. It was everywhere.

I reported it to the manager.

Manager: “Well, go clean it.”

Me: “No. For one, we don’t have any of the OSHA-required safety equipment to clean up human waste. And for another, I’m a dog groomer, not a janitor.”

(OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.)

My manager blew a gasket and went off on me about being a team player and so forth. I thought he was going to have a heart attack; his face was turning purple! He wasn’t used to being told “no” because he was such a bully that he intimated everyone.

I turned my back on him while he was screaming at me and walked off, which made him even angrier. What he didn’t know was that I had started recording on my phone right before I reported the mess because I knew he’d try to bully me into cleaning it.

I left the store, and [Manager] called and screamed at my voicemail that I was fired.

I sent everything to Human Resources. Then, when they refused to do anything, I reported the company to OSHA.

I heard later from a friend that still worked there that the company totally threw [Manager] under the bus to save themselves, but they still got fined because of the email they’d sent me telling me I should have done what I was told, shouldn’t have just walked out, [Manager] was right, etc.

CONTENT WARNING: Dead Animals, Animal Abuse

A customer is interested in buying some fish.

Me: “Tell me what kind of tank and fish you already have so I can best serve your needs.”

Customer: “I just wanted new fish, not questions.”

Me: “I’m just trying to—”

Customer: “Shut up! Just sell me the d*** fish!”

The customer buys $150 worth of saltwater fish and leaves. Four hours later, he comes back with $150 worth of near-dead fish and he’s super angry.

Customer: “You sold me some sick fish!”

It turned out he was buying fish for his girlfriend’s tank to “surprise” her. The problem was that she had a ten-gallon FRESHWATER tank already stocked with angelfish. He had dumped the saltwater fish from the store into the freshwater tank, so now he’d killed his girlfriend’s angelfish and nearly killed $150 of saltwater fish. He was laying into my boss, who then turned and yelled at me for not asking him what kind of tank he had.

I threw up my hands and walked away. Thankfully, the saltwater fish all ended up making full recoveries.

I am older and wiser now, and now I never let a fish leave the store without knowing what home it’s going to.