In February of 2000, I had the unhappy job of doing our year-end books of account for 1999, our first full year in operation. On paper we had made a profit. I realize that some people would say that for a new business after only one year and a bit in operation this was really exceptional. Our occupancy rate was 85%. Eat that ABKA and your “Maybe if you’re really good, you’ll average 60%”.
Of course there was the uncomfortable fact that our debt load was so high that our cash flow was still not meeting our outgo. So maybe the ABKA had a point?
Having done the year end books, it was time to tackle the taxes. Once again, we got the bad news that we owed money. We had to cash $36,000 in RRSPs to take care of that. Our savings were pretty much exhausted. We would soon be living on our credit cards.
After a few days of depression over money, we gave up worrying about finances. It would work or it wouldn’t.
On the plus side of the ledger, a young woman had applied to work full time for us. She was highly motivated, so she said. She loved dogs and couldn’t wait to work with them. We decided to hell with the expense; we would hire her and at least maybe get some rest now and then.
At first there was a honeymoon period. She loved us. We loved her.
“Thank the gods for Tiffany,” we would say to each other when the wind was giving our fingers frostbite under two layers of gloves. At least we only had to do four walks each, not five or six.
The kennel was crazy busy and took up all our available time. For example, in the course of just one day, we finished work in the morning, entertained visitors, then drove to downtown Ottawa to pick up a golden retriever. We got back around 2:30 and started right to work walking and feeding dogs. Three new dogs arrived between 4:00 and 5:30 p.m..
A dog who had had bowel problems went home. We made it a rule to always let our clients know about any problems that arose when a dog or cat was with us. Understandably, the owners wanted a full colour re-play of every fart and plop. That took time.
Another dog went home whose owner, a very nice person, liked to stand around and chat, and we did too because those interludes with our lovely clients were a high point in our days. Still, it meant we got out of the kennel at 5:40, grabbed a bun for supper, then went back to work. It started snowing and we got ten inches overnight. The next morning, we did fourteen walks through the heavy snow. Then I baked dog biscuits. A person who was adopting one of our stray kittens came for him.
Oh yeah, and all this with no help. Our luck with employees was holding. Big shocker, Tiffany called in sick that day.
The crazy owners continued to pop up relentlessly.
One lady owned a nice yellow lab. When Clyde came in, the owner told us that Clyde had stepped on a nail on her property and had hurt his pad. Could we please watch it for signs of infection or other troubles? Sure, no problem. Clyde was only to going to be with us for three days. The second night (the night before he was to go home), John noticed that there was a small spot of blood on the floor of Clyde’s room. We assumed it was the injured pad, so we examined it, but couldn’t see anything wrong. Clyde wasn’t limping or otherwise showing any signs of distress. The owner sent a friend to pick Clyde up the next evening. Clyde charged around the common room, jumping and running normally.
The next day we got a very shirty email. Clyde had torn a toenail which was now terribly infected. (How badly could a nail become infected in twenty four hours?) What explanation did we have to offer?
I replied with an apology for not spotting the torn nail. All I could offer by way of the explanation she had demanded was that we had fixated on the cut pad and missed the torn nail. I acknowledged that it was our fault for not looking further and apologized again, profusely and sincerely.
She was not placated. She came back hotter than ever.
We couldn’t be giving the level of personal care we claimed to do, if this sort of thing could happen. I replied that we didn’t give every dog a head to toe exam every night, nor did we purport to do so. If they showed some symptom we would investigate, as we did with Clyde, although for sure not far enough in his case. Again, sorry, mea culpa. But when Clyde left, he didn’t show any signs of pain, disability or other trauma that would have led us to do a further examination. I suggested she ask her friend who picked Clyde up about this.
I did feel compelled to respond directly to the allegation that we don’t take care of the dogs. I pointed out that accidents do happen, even when the owners are in charge. After all, Clyde stepped on a nail on her watch, and he was the only dog she had to be take of, whereas we were looking after twenty or more. Again I apologised, but pointed out that as her own experience demonstrated, these things do happen, no matter how careful you are.
In her next salvo the owner said that our “concern for Clyde” and “defensiveness” just confirmed her suspicions. Her quotation marks were obviously meant to convey withering sarcasm. We’ll sadly never know what her “suspicions” were. Perhaps that we deliberately break off dogs’ toenails when we were bored and had nothing else to do?
I lost my temper at that point. This dog had only been with us for three days and it was the day before he went home that John spotted the little drops of blood in his room. I’m not making light of our failure to identify the broken toenail. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that this was what had attracted all this hysteria, venomous comments and accusations – a broken toenail. We did feel badly about Clyde, the big goofball. But since my sincere explanations and apologies had only resulted in more abuse, I replied that I do tend to get “defensive” when an explanation which she had in fact demanded, results in me being called a negligent liar. I told her I hoped she would find a new kennel which would achieve her standard of perfection.
Soon after this, people who owned a boxer came for a visit. They were interested in a ten day booking over a busy period in March. As per standard operating procedure by then, they had received an email confirming the visit, stressing our policy on drop off and pick up hours. During the interview, I spent quite a long time explaining our strict enforcement of hours. I also told them that we did not admit new dogs for a first boarding during our evening hours, because it was too stressful for the dog to be dropped off late in the day, with no time to settle in and become accustomed to the new surroundings. Moreover, they would have to arrive at least half an hour before we normally closed, be it morning or afternoon.
They made a ten day booking which went over March Break. Then, sometime later, they reduced the booking to four days over the first weekend of March Break. About a week before the booking date, they sent an email telling us (not asking us) that they were changing their booking back to the original ten days, and by the way, they would be bringing in their dog in the evening.
I sent a perfectly business-like email telling them that the space for the longer period was unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) no longer available. I also reminded them that they could not bring their dog to be dropped off at 7:00 p.m., for the reasons which I had explained during the visit.
They replied with a one line email cancelling the reservation. Which was fine. But.
John responded as follows:
“So noted. If we are able to fill the spot from our wait list, there will be no charge for the late notice cancellation for a booking at one of the busiest times of the year. Otherwise, I shall send you an invoice in due course.”
The client came back.
“I consider 9 calendar days notice sufficient given that you already have a waiting list.
I have to tell you that I am not impressed with the stern manner in which you run your business. I suggest incorporating some basic customer service skills to better meet the needs of your clients (or prospective clients). In fact, we did not feel comfortable leaving our dog at your kennel given your strict ‘enforcement’ of your ‘rules’ pertaining drop off and pick up [sic]….We weren’t actually going to relay this info to you but given your rude email(s) I figure you should be aware of our thoughts.
I expect that this will be the last I hear from you.”
Okay, up to this point, we had both been annoyed at these arrogant idiots, but we had maintained a rigid professionalism. Now he pissed me off. Anger seemed to be very close to the surface with me anymore.
I responded as follows:
“Fred: It’s incredibly kind of you to instruct us on what constitutes sufficient notice. It must be quite a stretch, considering you know absolutely nothing about our business. The thing about wait lists is, that most experienced dog owners know the decent kennels get filled up weeks in advance during busy periods. So when it gets to be a week before the very busiest time of the winter and they haven’t heard from us, they have almost certainly made other arrangements. See, in the grown up world, people plan well in advance.
On the subject of enforcing rules about time, I recall that your partner is a psychologist. If she sees private patients, I’ll bet that she makes it almost an article of faith for clients to be on time for appointments because if they’re not, it’s disrespectful and inconsiderate of her and of the process, and in particular to other patients who have to wait. In fact, if people miss appointments, I bet she makes them pay anyway, whether she has turned down other business to accommodate them or not.
See any parallels?
Oh, but I’m forgetting, you aren’t “comfortable” with the “enforcement” of rules (which makes me wonder what you think is the point of having rules at all, if they are not to be enforced?). I explained, at tedious length, that this rule is strictly enforced to keep stress down among the dogs. No doubt you think it ludicrous of us to treat our dog boarders with as much compassion and concern as your partner undoubtedly does her clients. After all, your boxer is only a dog, right?
You consider John’s rigidly polite email ‘rude’? It was made clear in big red letters, in my very first email before you visited, that we strictly enforce drop off and pick up times. You wasted my time with a visit anyway, even though you now tell us that this policy on enforcement of arrival and departure times apparently made you uncomfortable from the outset.
“You weren’t going to say anything”? I mean, really, what are you people, six years old? Getting here before closing time is an alien and discomforting concept for you? What do you do if you need to catch a plane? Tell Air Canada you are uncomfortable with their ‘stern’ and strict adherence to a schedule?
Don’t worry, you won’t hear from us again. Whether we rent the space you reserved to someone else with last minute plans or not, it’s quite clear you don’t intend to honour your obligation.
I’m sure your partner will agree that her patients who don’t pay for missed appointments were not very committed in the first place. Because it’s not about the 64 bucks anyway, Fred. It never was about the 64 bucks. It’s just a way of seeing how committed you were to preserving the relationship. Or to put in layman’s terms – a way of weeding out the wankers.
And now you can truthfully say you’ve had a rude email from us.”
Tiffany continued her descent into complete uselessness. One afternoon she did two walks, and then just stopped. She took off her coat at 3:00 p.m. and started feeding dogs. It was several hours before feeding time. There were twelve walks to do. I had told John he didn’t need to come over, because, you know, we had help. When I asked her what was wrong, she said her feet were wet. Shocking. She had come to work in running shoes.
No kidding. Twenty years old and it didn’t occur to her to put on boots in March? The day before, when a client brought in a new dog, we had found her literally hiding in the cat room so she wouldn’t have to walk it.
She did occasionally still have her uses. A client brought us a little brown dog called Buddy who, his owner asserted, just loved everyone. In fact, he turned out to be a snappy LRB (little rat bastard) who bit each of us (John quite badly). For some reason, Buddy exempted Tiffany from his reign of terror. He graciously permitted her to walk him. So he was in Tiffany’s sole care. When his owner picked him up, she gave us a big bonus, which to me signified she knew perfectly well he was a little shit.
Although we had missed any signs of aggression with Buddy, we had grown wiser over our year or so in business and now insisted on meeting dogs in advance if we picked up any hints that the dog might be aggressive. As, for example, when I received this response to a query as to whether the little guy was friendly with people:
“Welllll, he hasn’t ACTUALLY bitten anyone YET….”
In March the weather started warming up, which meant melt and mud. By March 6th, it was plus ten and raining. The back play yards were three inches deep in sticky clay. We had to close the yards, leaving us with twenty dogs to entertain, who couldn’t go outside to play.
The dog walking paths were a mess. For a period of time, we could only walk on the laneway. The dogs came back from their walks covered in mud, which they promptly transferred to the floors and walls in the kennel.
On April 6th it snowed and we were told to expect up to 15 more cms the next day. It turned out to be a blizzard, but it didn’t arrive until after the day had started out with pouring rain. The rain turned to wet flurries, and then snow. By 3:00 pm, the snow was not only falling in earnest, Mother Nature, that bitch, had added high winds, which led to blowing snow and terrible road conditions. The snow fell on saturated ground. We would sink through about six inches of snow and then find the mud underneath it all.
After suffering through weeks of unusable play yards, we decided to do something about them as soon as the frost was out of the ground. We hired a local guy to tile drain them. We’ll call him Builder Bob. He quoted us a fee of $1800 and for some reason we paid him $1200 up front, which was a boneheaded thing to do. He delivered a load of gravel, some bundles of PVC pipes and then disappeared. By May 5th the yards were dry enough that we were using them again, but there was no sign of Bob appearing to do the work.
By the end of May when there was still no sign of Bob, I had the temerity to call and question why we had paid three quarters of the fee almost two months before, but no work was being done. I got Mrs. Builder on the phone.
At first she was conciliatory. Then she called back for reasons I still don’t understand. It sure wasn’t to tell us Bob was coming over to do the job. She seemed to have decided that my call had impugned her honour or something, and launched into a torrent of abuse. She followed this up with a damned stupid letter, alleging among other things that the pile of gravel Bob had delivered was worth the $1200 we had already paid, and furthermore that the ground was still too wet to get a tractor back there.
Since they had not been on the property since getting their cheque, I don’t know how she could make this unequivocal pronouncement.
Unless perhaps she flew over on her broomstick.
The contractor who had built the kennel dropped by in the middle of this altercation and we told our sad story to him. He looked at the $1200 pile of gravel and said it was worth no more than $75 dollars at a generous estimate.
It confirmed what we already knew, that we were being gouged.
After more time went by in endless wrangling, we told Bob to forget the whole thing. We simply didn’t have the time or energy to pursue him either to do the work, or to recover our $1200 in Small Claims Court. Summer was coming. His progress to date had not exactly impressed us with his go-getter, can-do attitude. We couldn’t afford to have the play yards out of commission for who knows how long it would have taken him to do the job, even assuming he ever got around to actually starting.
_____
We couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing that Tiffany decided to leave us to go seek her fortune in Toronto after working for us for a whole four months. Apparently, the reality of looking after large groups of dogs fell way short of her fantasies. On the whole, given her unreliability, we were glad to see her go.
We comforted ourselves with the thought that we would each at least get some time off during Tiffany’s last week, but once again our faint hope arose only to be dashed.
In keeping with her usual high standards of dedication, Tiffany announced she was not coming in Tuesday and Wednesday. This left Thursday and Friday as the only days she had not already booked herself to be away on what was supposed to be her last week of work. On Thursday afternoon she didn’t show up. There was no call, no excuse or explanation. On Friday she did call. She couldn’t come to work on this, her last day, because she had a sore shoulder. Sure she did.
In late September that year, faint but pursuing, we hired a new full time employee. In keeping with the ‘Gone With The Wind’ theme, we’ll call this young man Miss Melly. We hoped that Miss Melly’s advent would once again allow each of us to take some shifts off. On my first morning off I had the awesome experience of going to see my aunt in the hospital. She was dying of lung cancer. Meanwhile, my brother told us that he had lymphatic, non-Hodgkins cancer. He is a doctor and gave himself a 50% chance of living 10 years. I’m happy to say that he’s still alive, 20 years later.
Drama queen.
Like all the rest of our employees, Miss Melly started out reasonably well. In January 2001, four months after he had started with us, we made the mistake of giving Melly a small raise as well as two weeks’ sick leave and an additional week of vacation over and above what the law required us to pay.
This resulted in more and more calls from Miss Melly describing various vague symptoms that required him to recline on his fainting couch rather than show up for work.
As he told me one day, he “never felt entirely right.”
On one occasion when he called in sick, I asked when he would be back. This seemed to flummox him. He asked me if I wanted to speak to his dad.
When he did arrive for work, he would often indicate that he was going to restrict his dog walking to the little dogs, as he didn’t feel up to the strenuous effort required to handle the bigger ones. We’d have to manage those ourselves. Melly was about 20 at the time. I was 49 and John was 54.
The question, “Are we busy next week?” was always the prelude to him telling us that he would be taking one or more days off.
Finally, near the end of February, when he posed the “Are we busy next week?” question, I told him that he could stop right there. It didn’t matter if we were busy or not. If we weren’t busy, it was an opportunity for John or me to have some down time. As the employee he could bloody well show up. In any event, a mere six weeks or so after getting his new benefits, he had already been absent far more than was covered by his vacation and sick leave. He was dreaming if he thought that we would agree to him taking any more time off.
And to answer the question? Yes, we were extremely busy. It was February, which in Canada meant all the inhabitants of the frozen North who could, were booking flights south. February was as busy as the summer.
Miss Melly announced in his die away fashion that his dad was going to Vancouver the next week, and he was going too in order to check out courses in bartending. He “had to go”. This was his new dream career.
It was news to me that you had to go to Vancouver to learn bartending. In any event, it didn’t seem to occur to his massive intellect that telling your employer you wanted them to give you time off to which you were not entitled so you could pursue other employment, was not exactly likely to endear you to them. I told him that if he didn’t show up for work, he needn’t bother coming back.
He went to Vancouver. Of course he did. John and I were back to walking 28 dogs by ourselves.
The week after that, we got a call from Miss Melly saying he was ready to come back. I repeated that we were done with him. He then wanted to know when he could come in for his last paycheque. I pointed out that he was over the limit in sick days and vacation leave and we would have to do the calculations as to how much, if anything, we actually owed him. I told him we would mail the cheque to him when it was ready, along with the tax and employment insurance documents required by the government when employment terminated.
That afternoon, Miss Melly showed up with his father. Big Manly Dad demanded Melly’s paycheque. I repeated what I had already told Melly. John, who was responsible for such things, would do the calculations and mail the cheque and paperwork when they were ready. This was unacceptable to Big Manly Dad. There should be no deductions for the time Melly took off beyond what he was entitled to. It was heartless of us to deduct pay for the days he decided not to show up. I should be encouraging Melly in his new career aspirations. What kind of a monster was I? Didn’t I remember what it was like to be young?
I told Big Manly Dad that Melly was free to pursue any career he wished, from bartender to rocket scientist (although I privately felt the latter was an unlikely scenario).
“I fail to grasp why John and I should be expected to pay an employee for not showing up to work, especially when the reason for his absence was that he was actively seeking employment in another field. You seriously think it’s our responsibility to pay Melly while he looks for another job?”
“I do indeed remember what it was like to be young,” I went on.
“When I was Melly’s age, I was a mother who was working my way through university while pregnant with my second child. Somehow I didn’t get the memo that I could not show up at my job, yet still expect my employer to pay me.”
John appeared at some point and seconded everything I was saying. When the arguments were repeating for the third time, we told Dombey and Son to leave.
“We’re not leaving without a cheque,” Big Manly Dad asserted. “You have a legal obligation to pay him.”
Having made the mistake of lecturing me on “what it was like to be young”, he was now going to teach us our legal obligations?
“He’s not entitled to a paycheque until his regular payday, or seven days after his employment ends. We also need to prepare a Record of Employment and other documents. As I’ve said repeatedly, we will mail those things according to our legal obligations, once they are prepared.
“We’ve been a little busy what with the having no help and all,” I added snidely.
John told them we were expecting clients very soon, and we were not going to tolerate this altercation going on in our place of business.
“Leave. Or we’ll call the police to eject you. Your choice,” said John.
“This is a public business,” was Big Manly Dad’s brilliant response. “We have a legal right to be here, and to stay as long as we want. You can’t make us leave!”
“Gee, I forget. Where did you get your law degree again?” I asked with a look of deep perplexity. “Because judging by the knowledge you’ve displayed about the law so far, you should sue them for fraud.”
We explained the laws of trespass to them, and invited them once again to go before we made good on our promise to get the police involved.
Dad, playing Big Manly Man for his son, still refused categorically. So I made the call to the police and explained that we had a disgruntled former employee and his father in our place of business, who were refusing to leave unless we paid the son what they were demanding.
The police assured me that they don’t take it lightly when a pissed off former employee comes uninvited into their former work place. This wasn’t the U.S. It was unlikely our visitors were armed. Still. They said an officer would be there shortly.
I informed our unwanted visitors that the police were on the way, so they might want to reconsider their choices.
“Well,” blustered Big Manly Dad, “since you’ve called the police, we can’t leave now. That would be illegal.”
“You seem to be confusing our kennel with the scene of an accident or a crime.”
“Once again,” I sighed, pointing to me and to John, “law degrees.”
Pointing to Big Manly Dad, “No law degree. Get the hell off of our property.”
“Well, we can’t leave,” Dad repeated with slightly less assurance, “ but we’ll drive to the end of the laneway and wait for the police there.”
“If you think that blocking our driveway so our clients can’t get in would be a cute idea, I advise you to think again,” John growled.
Big Manly quickly decided that perhaps they’d wait for the police on the side of the road.
A few minutes later an officer arrived.
He told us that he’d had a conversation with Dad and explained the law to him. Big Daddy had been told that his actions had been very ill considered, and that neither he nor his son should under any circumstances return to our property. He told us we had done the right thing in getting the police involved. Better safe than sorry in these situations.
Later, John calculated Melly’s cheque, deducting pay for the days he had not worked after his sick leave and vacation time had been used up. We sent it off in the mail, with the requisite forms for Employment Insurance. That form requires the employer to state the reason why the employment ended.
I checked the box for “Abandonment of Position”. As explanation, I set out that Melly had insisted on taking off those days in February, even though he had no vacation time owing. Furthermore, we would not have approved vacation for that period even if he had had sufficient days, because our business was so busy at that time. (The law gives the employer the right to approve or deny the timing of vacation requests, even if the employee has vacation days owing to him.) Finally, I had explicitly warned Melly that if he did not show up for work, he needn’t come back.
The result of my specifying abandonment as the reason for the termination of his employment was that Melly would be denied unemployment benefits for a certain period of time.
In due course, we were notified by the relevant government agency that Melly was appealing both the specified reason for termination, and the amount of his last paycheque.
If Melly had simply walked away, we might have considered doing the same. But after the altercation in our reception area, I decided that I was going to fight this on behalf of not just ourselves, but the good taxpayers of the Province of Ontario. I was offended by the conduct of Melly and his father; mostly the attitude of entitlement. Melly could behave however he wished and we were supposed to pay for it? He could walk away from a perfectly good job where his employers had actually paid him more in salary and benefits than we were legally required to do, and then get paid the same amount of unemployment benefits as those poor souls who had lost their jobs through no fault of their own?
My sister once told me that I am incapable of just walking away from a fight. She didn’t say it in an approving manner.
I did fight the appeal, and I am pleased to say John and I were totally vindicated by the Hearing Officer. In fact, according to his calculations, Melly had been overpaid by us. Of course, this being Canada, Melly was not going to be forced to reimburse us for the overpayment, but at least he wouldn’t be squeezing any more money out of us, or out of the employment insurance programme until the penalty period expired.
I’d like to think Melly learned something from the experience and resolved to actually show up for work at his next job, but somehow I doubt it.
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