I work worked at a doggy daycare in an upscale town in Washington State.
This business, due to extremely poor management and business practices by the owner, has been treading water since I started back in January. There are two locations and they've had to shut one down temporarily in the past, and now another down to the moronic human resource lady hiring warm bodies with pulses who also happen to be minors.
Turns out, no one realized that 40%!! of the staff was going back to school in the fall. On top of that, the incredibly high turnover rate means the owner has to shut down a location again AND two shift leads quit in the past week (not including me. I bring it up to 3 in less than 4 days).
Myself and another person got called into the office today. He had been there for over a year, I've been there for 8 months, making us two of the longest employees there, both of us shift leads. The owner said she was laying us off because she was closing our location, which is big dogs.
The owner doesn't see dogs, she sees dollar signs, and it shows in her business practices. Zero training on dog behaviors leading to extremely unsafe rooms, zero enrichment, abusive employees allowed to stay on staff, dogs meals and meds getting routinely missed, aggressive dogs allowed to pass “assessment”, dogs with massive behavioral issues allowed, and new employees are told to “watch Cesar Milan for tips” – a dog trainer that's been charged with animal abuse whose own dog has mauled dogs to death.
We sat there and argued our case, I fucking hated the job and atmosphere, but the unfairness. I told her that her business practices were egregious, she had trainees training trainees, and she was keeping people who slept in the corner, but laying us off. The co-worker with me had only called in 4 times in over year, when other people call in every week. I was told my schedule is “limited” because I need Wednesdays off, when there are people working part-time who can only work with little dogs.
She said our last day was September 10, so I told her she was fucking crackers. I grabbed my keys, called her an idiot, and walked out.
There are only two things I regret. The first is that I probably don't qualify for unemployment now, because I was scheduled for this week and after that exit, I'm not going back. Oh well.
And the second is that I wish I would have thought of something better than crackers. I'm fucking American, why did I use British slang? Moron, crazy, bonkers, looney…Why crackers?