Monday 2 March 2009

For the love of dog...

Today a woman told me I was anally retentive for asking her to take her dog out of my shop.

Hurrah for abuse from the general public! That's what makes it all worthwhile...

My volunteer on the till, Daphne, came into the office and said there was an 'obstreporous' (top marks for use of that word!) woman in the shop who was refusing to take her dog outside. I politely told the person in question that dogs are unfortunately not allowed in the shop, and would she mind taking it outside. She said that she wanted to see it in black and white where it said they weren't allowed in, so I pointed her in the direction of the notice on the front door that says 'Registered assistance dogs only'. This was not enough. 'Every other charity shop lets dogs in, why are you different', she replies. I know this isn't true, it is standard practice and very few shops at all will allow dogs in. Even the PDSA doesn't allow dogs! Admittedly our sign is not particularly visible, the writing is minute and the picture is so abstract I didn't realise til the other day that it is in fact meant to be a dog. But having been shown the sign, as requested, the customer continued to argue - when I said that perhaps other shops did not enforce the rule, she said 'so why are you being anally retentive'. Charming. Eventually she left.

People do get very funny about their dogs - it's not the first time I've suffered abuse at the hands of a dog owner! I was mauled by a dog once when in heated debate with it's owner over its presence in the shop, it started growling at me and then jumping up! I may have become slightly hysterical... I'm not a dog lover. That has no bearing at all on whether or not I enforce the rule, however. There are many reasons why animals ought not to be brought into shops, the least of which is that not everybody likes them.

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