February 5, 2006

• So, people, here’s the gritty, dirty, slimy truth behind the pet shop
  industry. I’m talking about the big mega chains. Sit down, pull up a
  chair, and get ready for some truthing.

  The manager of my pet store allegedly started sleeping with one of my
  coworkers, two positions below him. This information circulated around
  the store for the better part of a year. When confronted, they of
  course denied it, but she couldn’t keep from saying sexual things,
  relating sexual stories while she cleaned out cages.
  The new guy, thinking that he was privvy to some new info, or else just
  observing the way the two interacted, related to me his findings one
  night, and swore me to secrecy. Now, since this info was already public
  knowledge and topic of many snide remarks, I thought it best not to say
  anything to anyone about whatever.

  One day, the assistant manager takes his overnight crew aside and tells
  them, sternly, that the rumor mill must stop and that the next person
  to speak about the alleged relationship would be terminated.
  The next morning, I found a note on my car from the new guy, expressing
  his thoughts on what a two-faced gossiper I was and how could I betray
  his trust, etc, etc.
  I told the other assistant manager about this note, and that she had to
  “fix it” – because that’s what managers do, right? They “manage.” What
  I wanted her to fix was his misconception that I was the one who told
  them about the relationship.
  This leads to the whole thing where I had to get a restraining order
  against the guy, and he ended up in jail for threatening to kill me.

  Act II:
  The new assistant manager, Bob, has been spending an awful lot of time
  with team lead Scarlett (who was having a secret lesbian relationship
  with Laney). Bob has a girlfriend who lives with him, btw. Anyway, Bob,
  Scarlett, and Laney go to bars, hang out at his house, become friends
  of sorts. Suddenly, though, Laney tells me that Bob has started to
  seriously date Scarlett. Bob tells me he kicked his girlfriend out and
  now he’s single. Laney starts to go into a depression over Scarlett.
  Phone calls are made.
  Bob calls me at home one afternoon and tells me he’s worried about
  Laney, how she’s hurting herself, and that she’s delusional and not to
  believe anything she says about her and Scarlett’s lesbian relationship
  - which was all in her head. Laney takes me aside and tells me that Bob
  has threatened to “make her disappear so no one can find her.”
  One week of near-normalcy.
  Then Bob tells me Laney is mixing alcohol and drugs and becoming suicidal.
  Laney tells me that Bob has threatened to call her parents and have her committed (she’s 30).
  Laney goes to the manager of the store and reports this, and the
  manager of the store doesn’t do anything but tell her he’ll look into
  it.
  All this happened withing the last 3 weeks. Today, Laney’s name has
  been crossed off the schedule. Apparently, she’d been fired yesterday.

  Tonight, I took her to dinner and introduced her to two friends who own
  a private pet store. She took home an application, but she’ll get the
  job because she’s my friend.

  During dinner, though, I told her: if you’re going to do it, don’t use
  a gun; don’t use a blade. It has to be a knife. A very sharp knife so
  that it takes only 3 tries: The first two are hesitation cuts. You see
  your blood, you feel the pain, and you can still turn back. But the
  third cut: make it count.

  So the truth behind the pet shop industry, folks, is that everyone is
  so concerned with the animals – with laws and obeying the evil tide of
  PETA and animal-rights bombardment – that people, PEOPLE!, are crushed
  under the weight of public relations. I’m talking kids, I’m talking
  innocent bystanders – someone’s daughter almost killed herself because
  the mega-petstore’s management couldn’t get their fucking heads out of
  their asses; someone’s sister almost died (will die?) at the end of a
  gun fired by a troubled young man whose mistakes were dealt with
  wrongly.

  This chain store works their part-timers just under 40 hours a week to
  avoid giving them any semblance of full medical benefits.
  This chain store continues to buy animals from breeders that produce sick and inbred rodents.
  The management of this chain store has said on occasion that they don’t
  care about where the pets go, as long as the customers keep coming back
  to the store for their supplies.
  And a person can easily spend hundreds of dollars setting up a fish
  tank, only to watch fish get sick, then spend hundreds more on fish
  medication and fish food – and the management is willing to let fish go
  to bad homes to insure that the customer comes back for medications and
  supplies on an animal that is doomed to die anyway.

  I loved my job. I quit tomorrow.

  • 12:46 am
  • 9 Comments