Nightmare Customers

There are multiple reasons why I chose not to become a groomer at work.

Mostly it's because of how much noise is involved in grooming. Like dogs barking, phones ringing, water running, dryers blowing, the buzz of razors and the conversations of people...all in a small space that we in the main part of the store often refer to as the 'fish bowl'

Never sounded really appealing to me. 
Especially with the higher chances of being bitten there. Or peed/pooped on, or getting soaked by the dog...

It's not the type of environment that I would last long in.

Especially for the last factor.

The Customers.

Grooming Customers have to be some of the meanest, rudest and all around not nice people that come into the store.

There are the cheapskates who claim that the haircut was done badly in order to get their groom for free (and consequently get blacklisted from being able to groom) but like. Customers complain all the time. About prices. About service. About how they believe their dog was treated. About how they feel the workers treated them.

Grooming Customers are often just...vicious.

And I really don't understand why. 

Like....I don't. 

So you can imagine...with us closing down our Grooming Salons for Two Weeks and possibly longer....

That we're getting a slew of calls and complaints from the grooming customers.

Some of them are upset because they weren't 'notified' that their appointment was cancelled and came into the store anyways to discover that the salon was closed. 

-Which everyone who had appointments was contacted when the salon was shut down. The Groomers called every single person.

However. They encountered wrong numbers. Or Voicemails that were full or not even set up so that they couldn't leave a message. But the did do their best to contact everyone. 

That was a week ago now.
And we're still getting people upset about it.

Though I managed to avoid most of it by not having the phone with me to answer.

But I got a phone call today from a grooming customer.
Who called -and consequently heard on the spiel the phone gives on services and such- to see if they were still scheduled to bring their dog in tomorrow.

Which nope.
All appointments are cancelled for the time being.

And the customer was like "I wasn't notified!"
But quickly realized that maybe the number given wasn't accurate. Which wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't.

But they wanted to know when they could get their dog in to be groomed and were getting upset thinking that all the other grooming appointments had been rescheduled and they would have to wait to get their dog in again.

Which nope.
No appointments have been rescheduled yet because we don't know when we'll be open again.
It's kinda hard to plan when we don't have a timeline on when the groomers will be able to start grooming again.

As originally the salon was closing for two weeks.
But with the virus and such....it could be much longer. 

Though I did overhear the Grooming Manager talking about starting grooming up again like maybe next week? But with smaller numbers of people. Where the groomers will only be working like three days a week. 
And I'm guessing that there will only be like three or four workers in the salon so that they can keep the social distancing standards.

As I think we could get like 8-10 people working in the salon at a time. Like 2 bathers in the back bathing the dogs. And I think six grooming tables. And maybe a couple of people to receive in the dogs and to take phone calls.

But they're going to cut that back down. Possibly like one bather and maybe two or three groomers? Spread everyone out? 

In any case.
That's just what I overheard that they're going to do smaller numbers for now. 
But again. Nothing has been officially confirmed so it wasn't like I could tell the customer that.

I could only let them know that no appointments had been rescheduled and that we hadn't yet received word from corporate on when we could open up the salons again.

The customer was like "Is this for all grooming in your company."

Yes. 
I'm pretty certain that all the grooming salons are closed for right now. 

I don't think the customer was happy to hear that.
That they won't be able to get their dog in right away.

They were like "So what? Do I have to call every day to see when I can get my dog in?"

No.
Because grooming isn't open currently. There's no one there to take your call. No one to set an appointment because apparently the customer couldn't get it through their head that we don't know when we can groom dogs again. 
There is no timeline. There is no set "We'll be back to groom your dogs this day" yet. 

I told them to call later next week. 
As maybe something will change then.

I don't think they were happy about that.

But like.....it was annoying how many times I had to say "No we can't" before the customer realized that they weren't going to get their way today.

*exhales*

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

-Sarnic Dirchi