In The Doghouse

I moved to a larger city after graduating from a small college town. This was when the job market was at the lowest. My degree didn’t guarantee me a career and I basically took any job that called me back and paid a sustainable wage.

My love of animals led me to apply at a local ‘high end’ kennel/grooming center. I applied for the front desk position while my boyfriend at the time applied for the maintenance position in the back. The owner D was a very nice and could forget more about the business than I would ever learn, she had a mobile grooming van for some of our VIP customers so she was in and out most of the day. K was D’s partner in life. K was a different story, she was our daily “Administrator” although she had zero management skills and had an extremely aggressive Type A personality. She was a lawyer who was running for family court judge. If she wasn’t busy promoting herself constantly on her firmly attached bluetooth, she was nitpicking my customer service. I had extensive customer service/secretarial experience and thought myself a good worker.

My boyfriend kept busy in the back with the animals and I answered phones, checked in clients and handled the schedule. I soon realized why they never took down the help wanted sign on the billboard (which was conveniently turned into a giant VOTE FOR K sign). There was a revolving door of employees, young and old. Whenever a customer would walk in they had a look of  ”not another one.” After my first day, the other two girls quickly left without notice and it was just me and my boyfriend working from 9a.m. to whenever we were let go. If I didn’t walk out the door, we would be there till 2 a.m. like D was. I was running from the back kennels to the front whenever someone called or came in. Cleaning excrement wasn’t part of my job description but I didn’t mind it, I have pets of my own and genuinely liked caring for these animals.

I was still in the new job honeymoon phase of saving money for an apartment and learning the ins and outs of the animal care business so I didn’t mind that K would monitor us on the 20+ streaming live feed cameras. K and D went on a trip after approximately 8-10 days of my admittedly incomplete training. Instead of their scheduled two days they took four, my boyfriend and I had to cancel the apartment showings that were suppose to be on our day off as we ran the center ourselves, around 20 dogs and 6 cats that needed feedings, medicines, cages cleaned, baths, and exercise in between grooming check ins. While they were gone, I was bit by a male chow when it’s female chow companion went into heat and sent the kennel into a frenzy.

The day after they came back, I flipped the front door sign to “we are assisting our animals, please ring the bell for service” so that the resident groomer could cover for us since she didn’t have any appointments. When we got back from our half hour break in which we signed a lease, K was furious. She screamed that she reviewed the tapes and saw us slacking on the job, that I had sat for 7 minutes without clocking out, not properly doing paperwork, and letting a human client sit in the lounge without my interaction (she wouldn’t believe me that he was chatting on his phone at the time).

She fired me for leaving the place unattended (it wasn’t) and for admitting a dog in heat, which it wasn’t at the time of check in and the owners did not answer my calls or messages till after their scheduled check out. My boyfriend was also fired for lesser offenses at the same time, while crying and walking to clean out my locker to retrieve my personal items I was accosted by K who proceeded to slam my finger in the locker and cursed at us to leave. I left wondering how I would honor the new lease I signed. I contacted a lawyer when I got home and turns out she didn’t have many friends in the legal system, I think I successfully derailed her running for judge with a pending lawsuit but dropped it when I got another job.

I still love animals, hate that business and I’ve peppered every review site with my story. I occasionally drive by and it looks like there haven’t been very many new or returning customers recently. Their help wanted sign is still displayed ominously.