Anger Everywhere

It was a rather intense morning at work today.

The first I heard about there being a problem, was the cashier asking the Head Manager to meet the Grooming Manager at our Vet in the store. And that it was "sounded urgent" according to the cashier.

Which if the grooming manager and the manager are needed at the vet...
That usually means that there's been an incident regarding one of the pets that were being groomed.

Most of the time it's just hitting the quick in the nail, which bleeds a lot, but isn't painful.
But the fact that the grooming manager needed the head manager.....indicated that it would be something worse.

Though I still wasn't thinking anything too bad....like maybe a dog ended up breaking a leg or something somehow? 

It was worse than that.

:( :( :(
We had a dog pass away.

Which is never fun.
I've read the stories.
Where the customers drop off the doggie to get groomed....and end up getting the call later on that it ended up passing away.
It's not a fun situation for anyone involved for sure. 

But I never thought it would happen in our store.
It did though.
Unfortunately.

I don't have all the details....but apparently a senior dog had been in the middle of being dried after getting a bath...and seized...the bather in charge did everything they could to get the dog to respond...but couldn't and so rushed it over to the vet....where they did CPR for at least 15 minutes if not longer....to no avail.
The dog had passed. :( 

Which left the manager the less than fun job of contacting the pet parent....

And like....the manager gave the cashier the heads up over the radio that if they saw a sobbing woman come into the store...to contact the manager immediately so they could come up. 

That's not who showed up at our door.

The Head Manager and one of the stockers had been out helping a different customer load up a large fishtank into their truck,
When this green mini van screeches into the parking lot, parking haphazardly over three of the parking spaces in front of the store, and this guy, wearing basically only shorts. (was shirtless) bursts out of the driver's side door, car still running, and goes right up to the head manager who had been in the process of returning inside the store.

The guy basically went ballistic.
Screaming off the top of his head. "Where's my Effin Dog! You guys Killed my Effin Dog! EFF you guys! EFF You ALL!" 
-He was actually saying the Fbomb. Screaming it at the top of his lungs.

Which is...scary.
And not good since there were other customers, with young kids in the store, at the time.
And to have this guy come in raging and yelling and screaming....oooh
You could just feel the uncertainty and tension shoot up in the store. 
Like it's hard to reassure customers when you yourself don't know what's going to happen.

As soon as he came raging into the store I ducked down an aisle out of sight.
Because man, I did not want this guy to see me. At all. Didn't want to have him target his anger at me at all.
Because the dude practically screamed at everyone in the store.
Stormed into the grooming department to yell at the groomers there.
Might have yelled at the cashier.
Definitely yelled nonstop to the manager.
Before he stormed over into the Vet's part of the building still swearing and yelling and trying to rush into the back of the vet clinic where customers aren't allowed.
Before eventually reappearing holding a towel bundle in his arms -I can only guess it was the doggie. :( :( 

Like...it was scary.
So scary.
Because he apparently even took a swing or too at the head manager.
Still was swearing and dropping FBombs all over the place. Yelling and trying to make sure the whole store heard him that we'd 'killed his dog.' 

It was bad enough that the postal dude driving nearby stopped in to make sure we were alright. Which bravo for him.
It was bad enough that we ended up calling 911 and had a couple of police officers come into the store to help manage the situation as the manager tried to appease everything as best as he could. 

Which left the rest of us in the store...
Kinda tense.
Because the dude was upset enough (understandably) that we weren't quite sure what he was going to do next.
Like he had the energy where we were all pretty much afraid he'd return with a gun and shoot up the place. That's how intense he was. That's how angry and upset he was.
And like...what could we do but try and act normal as the officers and the vet and the managers calmed the dude down in one of the patient rooms the vet had.

It was tense.
So tense.
And the poor bather was like in tears.
I gave her a long hug because that's not the sort of way you want to start off your day at all.
And the manager, kindly enough, sent her home to get away from the drama and to hopefully calm down.
But still I feel for her.
Like...you never want a pet to pass in your care.
And that...that's not fun. :( 
Especially when you get such a violent reaction. Like that has to be traumatizing.
It was semi-traumatizing for me and I made sure to stay out of the line of fire and away from the situation. 
But like...I couldn't help but look over my shoulder for the rest of my shift.
Wondering what was going to happen next.
My coworkers were doing the same really.

Thankfully, the guy left much more quietly than he came in. The officers escorted him out and he drove away (without ramming his car into the building) without further incident.

And a little bit later the wife came in as well, I think with the rest of her family, as I saw them being consoled at the vets.

But overall...it was a stressful and traumatizing day for everyone.
Like everyone at the vet's place was so shook up about it.
-I think mostly from how angry the man was and how close to violence he was....
That they were planning to shut down early today.
Try and get out of there as quickly as possible. 

Because the dude was that intense.
Honestly I don't blame them.
I wanted to leave early myself.

And like...it just kinda hung over the store all day. I could practically still hear the dude yelling his Fbombs throughout the day. It was tense....
The District Manager came by as well later on..
So that they could personally call the family and arrange to send them flowers and a card.
But they also brought cookies for the store, kinda to help out my coworkers and I a bit.
As again...we were all pretty shaken up.

*exhales*

I hope we don't have to ever experience that sort of situation again.
Because geez.
It was scary.
So scary. 

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi