Today was one of those days where you expect everything to go badly - not too badly, not like 'Timmy fell in a well' badly, but more like 'the store is out of stock of my favorite snack and everything is just not quite what it should be' badly. Basically nothing violent or too out of place, just slightly more stressful than usual, not quite unlike a weekend at your mother in law's.
I walked into work expecting to have around seven dogs to bathe and work with today. That isn't a LOT of dogs, per se - but three were large dogs (labs and a golden) and they take much longer to work on than, say, a Jack Russel or a Chihuahua would. So really, I was expecting to remain busy and not have too much else to do besides a few walk-in nail trims or ear cleanings.
Punched in at 9am. Walked into the salon and my first dog was there -- an adorable little sweetie. She was wonderful for everything and her entire process went smoothly without any snags. I had another dog call in to be ADDED in, at 9:30. So that's eight dogs instead of the assumed seven. The second dog gets there around 9:30, I work with him and HE'S fantastic as well. Then my third dog gets there around 10! She's a regular of mine already and I love her to bits - she's a perfect little older Dachshund who is always absolutely perfect for the entire process of bathing, nail trims, ear cleaning, etc...I've never had any issues with her and I ALWAYS look forward to working with her.
No more dogs of mine were scheduled to be there until 11. I finished three dogs before 10:45. Good day so far! It put me ahead of schedule so I was hoping that my next two dogs (both in at like 11) would be in a bit early so that I could get a jump-start on them considering one had long hair and I wanted to make sure that it could dry before they were both sent home.
Over the course of the day, I even had a cancellation or two, and a no-show - so I had a few less dogs over the course of my shift. That turned out to be a VERY good thing, because almost immediately after I checked in my two 11-o-clock appointments, the salon got super busy. Not quite unlike a bee hive that went up in flames. It very much went from 'weekend at mother-in-laws' to 'somebody poisoned the waterhole'.
The phones were ringing off the hook, people were walking into the salon wanting to make appointments, people were picking up their dogs, people were dropping off their dogs, people were walking in to ask random questions, managers were popping in and out to take AWAY other groomers to ask questions, the list goes on. I wound up playing secretary for a little while, answering phones, making appointments, and answering questions -- after that was done with there were STILL people in the waiting area. An older gentleman with his dog, a younger woman with her child, and an older lady who looked really confused and pissed off who didn't have a dog with her. There was also a manager poking her head into the salon via the doorway to the store.
Anyway, I ask the people in the order that they got there if they'd been helped (since I'd been so swamped with phone calls I'd been unable to focus on who all was talked to - I just knew people showed up). The man was being helped, the woman needed her invoice (which I handed to her), and when I turned to the older woman to ask if she had been helped yet, she started losing her goddamn mind on me. To the point where you would've thought I insulted her taste in dress (which was bad to be honest), told her her breath smelled like ass, and then spit on her.
She started screaming in my face that she was "SO ANGRY!" and "SO UPSET!" and "VERY DISPLEASED!" because "I DROPPED MY DOGS OFF AT 8 O'CLOCK THIS MORNING AND IT'S BEEN FOUR HOURS WHY IS THE ONE STILL GETTING HER HAIR CUT *HARPY SCREECH* THERE WERE NO DOGS HERE THIS MORNING THERE WERE NO OTHER DOGS WHY ARE MY DOGS NOT DONE *SCREAMING*". Keep in mind at this point it's like 11:30, and she dropped her dogs off at 8. At my location we ask for around FOUR HOURS to get a haircut done, and so if you're having two dogs done by the same person and both of your dogs are little shits who aren't trained and fight us every step of the way, then it CAN and WILL take those four hours.
I looked at her and just said "I don't know ma'am. I'm not the one working with your dogs. However, I can get your groomer for you if you would like to speak with her directly." I got fucking stared at. It almost was like a "I can't believe you're not stooping to my level and screaming back I wanT TO ARGUE WITH YOU!!!!" look. Before she could even say anything, her my co-worker (who was the lady's groomer for today) walked up and started explaining that we were super busy today (very true - just because you don't SEE any other dogs IN there doesn't mean there aren't dogs...our kennels are in a separate room that you can't see into from the outside!), that the dogs were being resistant to being groomed (also true, they kept being too wiggly to cut the hair around their faces very quickly or easily at all), and that the one dog kept peeing and pooping whenever she went to dry her.
The woman quickly started blabbering on about how "It's animal cruelty to take four hours to groom a dog!" which got her stared at by like four other coworkers AND myself because we don't have dogs stand on a table for four hours - we have spacious kennels where they can lay down and have water and relax in between sessions. We aren't going to force a dog to stand that long anyway, even if they could! Either way, a haircut by itself, depending on what cut you're getting, takes around half an hour to MAYBE an hour and a half, IF that? I honestly don't think I've seen a haircut by itself take anything longer than an hour while I've been there except on super large dogs. Super tiny things don't take that long at all unless they're being little shits.
Harpy went on about it, screeching and screeching and screeching her fool head off like that would actually change something. She didn't seem to realize that the longer she stood and fought with her groomer (thirty minutes before her dogs were SCHEDULED TO BE READY), the longer it would take the groomer to finish up the face of the second dog (which is ALL that was left to be done, and would've taken like another 10 minutes had the woman not interrupted and bickered with the staff).
Eventually, she left. I don't know when. I'd been getting enough of a headache listening to her that I took my leave to the back and worked on my dogs that had been there almost an hour at that point (only after answering a few more calls of course, oh my lord). At some point I found myself back up front and it was eerily quiet. Wandered back to the back, kept working on my dogs, and was just thinking to myself -- how in the hell can someone be so fuckin' rude. But then I remember that's how some people just ARE to staff.
Don't get me wrong - I can understand how and why she would be upset, but her anger was completely blown out of proportion and misplaced. She was told four hours when she dropped off her dogs (this is ALWAYS what we tell people for haircuts, no exceptions - if your dog is done earlier we'll call you earlier). At 8am. It was 11:30 when she came in. She shouted and fought with coworkers and the managers until NOON. That's half an hour that someone could be working on your dog that you just fucked up because your impatient, forgetful ass had to start a fight with someone over the fact your dog was getting finishing touches.
This is honestly the reason I'm so GLAD that I don't really work in a customer service aspect anymore. I interact with a handful of customers a day and every single person I have dealt with myself has been EXTREMELY kind and courteous and understanding over everything, whether those things be our computer system running slowly for the day, us not being able to confirm information we need to confirm (in which case we need to reschedule), us not being able to take a dog in because it just got shots, etc - people are generally understanding about it. Some are upset but they're always just like 'oh well that sucks' kind of upset rather than 'this is a personal attack on me!'.
I dunno yo. If you're one of those rad people who try their best to train their dog, are always nice and understanding with the staff, and are generally pleasant to deal with, you rock. You make both of our lives so much easier whenever you're nice.
If you're one of those people who freaks out on people who are doing their damn best to work on your squirmy, shitting (although cute) animal despite the fact we could easily deny service, then...well, fuck you? Take your dog somewhere else? Though most other places have the same amount of waiting time. So have fun!
Yeah I'unno I'm just tired of people treating me and my coworkers like trash when they're the ones acting like garbage. *flips hands into air*
