I used to be a hotel clerk. I had a guest raise Cain at me because his dog almost got bitten by a snake while he was walking him.

Me: “Sir, where did this happen?”

Guest: “Out on the nature trail!”

Me: “That trail isn’t affiliated with us in any way.”

Guest: “So?! You have to do something!”

Me: “I am sorry about your dog, sir, but I have no idea what you think I can do about nature.”

I work for a pet groomer at a veterinarian. We have one client with a Pomeranian who is, to put it honestly, the most vicious and unmanageable little s*** I have ever worked on. She hates everyone, including her owner, and will bite and scratch and try to snarl at anyone that touches her.

Our vet informs us that there is nothing psychologically wrong with the dog as far as they can tell (she isn’t a rescue with a troubled history); she’s just an a**hole.

Over the years, I have gotten used to working on this little turd, so I am the go-to groomer for her. I don extra-thick gloves and wear thick fabric on my arms to deal with the little monster.

The owner is usually present to try to calm her down, but it doesn’t do much as I trim the fur and brush what’s left.

Customer: “You’re so good at handling [Dog]! I know she’s a handful, but I do love her in her own weird way.”

Me: “I totally get it. She’s cute when she’s not… well… doing this.”

Customer: “How are you so good at handling her?”

Me: “I used to be a waitress at a family restaurant near a church. Your dog is nothing compared to an entitled grandma who just found out we ran out of potato salad and wants to speak to the manager.”

Customer: “Oh… oh, my.”

Me: “They snarled more, too.”

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’m the author of “Every Office Needs One“, in which my boss asked me to take care of a bug because I’m not bothered by “creepy crawlers”. The office building in both of these stories is odd for a variety of reasons, but the main one here is its location. We are stuck on the corner of a highway and a very busy street with a not-very-well-maintained empty lot/field to our other side and mostly swamp land behind us. This combination means that we find a LOT of small critters inside despite having a set schedule with an extermination company. For the most part, we just find a wide variety of bugs along with plenty of geckos and lizards. We also get the occasional mouse or rat, but this is, thankfully, few and far between.

During our monthly building-wide meeting, several people bring up how they’ve been finding what they suspect to be rodent droppings and report scratching in the walls.

It’s important to note here that our particular location is comprised of about 80% women, almost all of whom come from middle-class backgrounds (our CEO included). This means that most of our office is fairly easy to gross out. It’s also important to know that I love reptiles and know a decent amount of information about their biology.

Coworker: “Are we sure the droppings aren’t from the geckos? We’ve been getting a lot of them inside because of all the rain. I think I’ve seen [My Name] catch four of them this week alone.”

Me: “It’s not from the geckos since there haven’t been white ‘dots’ in the droppings we’ve found. I don’t know enough about rodents to know for sure that’s what they’re from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is rats or something.”

CEO: “How do you know geckos have a white… dot in their droppings?”

I pause, trying to figure out how to explain this.

Me: “Are you really sure you want any sort of explanation on how a reptile passes food? Because I can give you one if you want.”

Her eyes go wide as she digests that statement — pun intended.

CEO: “…You know what, [My Name]? I think I’m just going to trust you on this one.”

Several of my other coworkers quickly agree with her, while our health and safety officer — who came from an even more wild Cajun upbringing than I did — tries his best to hide his laughter at the exchange. 

CEO: “I’m just going to call [Extermination Company] and have them come out to look around.”

It was not, in fact, the geckos. We had the beginning stages of a rat infestation.

Related:
Every Office Needs One

I work in a cardiologist’s office, and I have to put Holter monitors on patients. The patient wears the monitor for twenty-four hours and it records everything the heart does. The patient is told to keep a diary of symptoms they are feeling (racing heart, palpitations, etc.) and exercise.

This patient kept track of everything she did throughout the day. Some of my favorite excerpts:

Excerpt: “2:00 pm: pee and poo and brush cat, too!”

Excerpt: “2:30 pm: gave cat treats while on toilet.”

Excerpt: “4:00 pm: more poo.”

Way too much information, but I couldn’t stop reading!