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First real post. 
Warning: I tend to be long winded
Some stories from someone who has been dealing with customers all her life.
A little background:
My parents have owned a campground since before I was born. We live on the same property as the campground, actually our house is attached to the office and camp store. Our home phone is the business line. You get the picture. We are never away from the customers until we close for the winter. I am in college, but still live and work at home during the breaks.
The campground is a family oriented campground with a bit of an agrotourism twist. We have a small petting farm where the campers can feed the animals. We have 2 very gentle horses, a llama, chickens, and a bunch of sheep and goats. We sell yarn made from the wool of our sheep, and we did sell eggs from our chickens, until a neighbor's dog killed them all last March, but that is another story
My job has been to take care of the animals since I was about 11 or 12, hence my nifty title of "barn manager." I really enjoy talking with people about the animals. I take very good care of them. I have worked for 2 large animal veterinarians and am an animal science major at school. Animal cruelty really gets under my skin, which is why the following story still bothers me.
The story -
This was a couple years ago, so I don't remember all the specifics.
SW = Sucky woman
WC = workcamper (works for my parents in the office)
Me = IoRamona
Thoughts in italics
() = my explanations
I was in the house at the time and WC said that there was someone who wanted to talk to me about Georgie. Now Georgie is a little pygmy goat with a lot of personality. We haven't been able to keep him penned in since we got him, so we just let him go where he wants. He never wanders far. The kids love the fact that he is outside, and they can go right up to him and hug, pat, and feed him. Being a goat he occasionally gets into trouble, such as jumping into minivans when the doors are open and there are kids inside. Like I said the kids love him, and he loves the kids.
So when WC said this woman (SW) wanted to see me about Georgie, I was thinking oh jeez he followed your kids into your car and ate your check book or something similar.
I get out to the where the SW was -
SW: Your goat Georgie, he is disgusting.
Me: Oh no what did he do now?
SW: He is has poop on him!!
Me: George is never dirty, I better go check on him
SW: His hair is all long and matted and completely gross!!
Me: Wait an minute, Georgie has short hair. Did you mean Curly? (He was our very old Angora goat)
SW: Yeah, Whatever. That goat is disgusting. He has matted hair and poop on him. This is animal cruelty!!!!
(I was completely taken aback and speechless for a minute)
Me: I haven't sheared (clipped) him yet because it hasn't been warm enough. It has been cold and rainy. And all angora goats get long hair that/ SW interrupts
SW: This is animal cruelty!!! I am going to call the ASPCA on you!!
I try to explain again but she just said more about how I'm cruel to my animals and she is going to call someone about it, and then walks away.
I didn't even know what to say. I mean, they are animals, they live in the barn, they will get a little poop on them. It wasn't like he was completely coated. Curly had a few small goat pellets stuck in his long hair, which is much like dread-locks after a year of growth (my vet liked to call him the Rasta goat).
I tried to explain to her why he hadn't been clipped yet. It had been very cold and wet. He could have become very sick if I had clipped him in weather like that. I even keep my young healthy sheep in the barn for a day or two after they are sheared if the weather is bad. It really upset me at the time that anyone could think I didn't take good care of my animals. I found out later from my dad (who does security on weekends) that this SW had been a huge pain in the ass. She got drunk, loud and was belligerent when he asked her and her drinking buddies to quiet down. I can't remember at this point, but he may have booted her out.
OK, second story. This one is from this summer.
There are usually activities and events for the campers on weekends. This weekend happened to be out Halloween themed weekend - the Haunted Campground. We do all sorts of Halloween stuff, decorating camp sites, candy hunt, costume contest, etc. We have a hay wagon with high sides, pulled by my dad's cool antique tractor (an early 1940s Ford), that we use to do rides through the campground every weekend.
This weekend we did them around dusk, and after dark to make things a bit spooky. I took my turn as chaperon on the last few rides. On most rides I do a spiel to the campers about staying seated and keeping their arms and legs inside the wagon. This is mostly for the little kids so they don't get their arms snagged on tree branches or fall over if they are standing and we hit a bump. I don't always go through this, especially when there are older kids on the wagon.
So we are doing our last ride of the night and there aren't any little kids on, mostly adults and kids over 12 or 13. There is a bright moon, but it is pitch black down in the campground because of the tree cover. I skipped my spiel because of the age of the kids and it was the last ride. I don't think the other people who were chaperoning were giving the spiel either. I was sitting near the back, so I couldn't see the people in the front.
We come around one of the bends in the road and start to head back to where the activities are going on, when some ~14 year old boys stand up and start to jump over the side of the wagon.
I only saw one at the time because he had a white shirt on, but was told there were others. One or two made it over the side and I yelled at the one with the white shirt to sit down.
I couldn't believe that they would do that. It was pitch dark, the side of the wagon are a good 7+feet off the ground, and there was ditch on either side of the road. They could have easily rolled under the wheels of the wagon or fallen in the ditch and broken bones. I was livid at their stupidity. *sigh* Oh well. They weren't injured and my parents didn't get sued, so all is well. Maybe the next time those boys pull a stunt like that they will get hurt and learn from it . . . or maybe not.
~IoRamona
Warning: I tend to be long winded
Some stories from someone who has been dealing with customers all her life.
A little background:
My parents have owned a campground since before I was born. We live on the same property as the campground, actually our house is attached to the office and camp store. Our home phone is the business line. You get the picture. We are never away from the customers until we close for the winter. I am in college, but still live and work at home during the breaks.
The campground is a family oriented campground with a bit of an agrotourism twist. We have a small petting farm where the campers can feed the animals. We have 2 very gentle horses, a llama, chickens, and a bunch of sheep and goats. We sell yarn made from the wool of our sheep, and we did sell eggs from our chickens, until a neighbor's dog killed them all last March, but that is another story
My job has been to take care of the animals since I was about 11 or 12, hence my nifty title of "barn manager." I really enjoy talking with people about the animals. I take very good care of them. I have worked for 2 large animal veterinarians and am an animal science major at school. Animal cruelty really gets under my skin, which is why the following story still bothers me.
The story -
This was a couple years ago, so I don't remember all the specifics.
SW = Sucky woman
WC = workcamper (works for my parents in the office)
Me = IoRamona
Thoughts in italics
() = my explanations
I was in the house at the time and WC said that there was someone who wanted to talk to me about Georgie. Now Georgie is a little pygmy goat with a lot of personality. We haven't been able to keep him penned in since we got him, so we just let him go where he wants. He never wanders far. The kids love the fact that he is outside, and they can go right up to him and hug, pat, and feed him. Being a goat he occasionally gets into trouble, such as jumping into minivans when the doors are open and there are kids inside. Like I said the kids love him, and he loves the kids.
So when WC said this woman (SW) wanted to see me about Georgie, I was thinking oh jeez he followed your kids into your car and ate your check book or something similar.
I get out to the where the SW was -
SW: Your goat Georgie, he is disgusting.
Me: Oh no what did he do now?
SW: He is has poop on him!!
Me: George is never dirty, I better go check on him
SW: His hair is all long and matted and completely gross!!
Me: Wait an minute, Georgie has short hair. Did you mean Curly? (He was our very old Angora goat)
SW: Yeah, Whatever. That goat is disgusting. He has matted hair and poop on him. This is animal cruelty!!!!
(I was completely taken aback and speechless for a minute)
Me: I haven't sheared (clipped) him yet because it hasn't been warm enough. It has been cold and rainy. And all angora goats get long hair that/ SW interrupts
SW: This is animal cruelty!!! I am going to call the ASPCA on you!!
I try to explain again but she just said more about how I'm cruel to my animals and she is going to call someone about it, and then walks away.
I didn't even know what to say. I mean, they are animals, they live in the barn, they will get a little poop on them. It wasn't like he was completely coated. Curly had a few small goat pellets stuck in his long hair, which is much like dread-locks after a year of growth (my vet liked to call him the Rasta goat).
I tried to explain to her why he hadn't been clipped yet. It had been very cold and wet. He could have become very sick if I had clipped him in weather like that. I even keep my young healthy sheep in the barn for a day or two after they are sheared if the weather is bad. It really upset me at the time that anyone could think I didn't take good care of my animals. I found out later from my dad (who does security on weekends) that this SW had been a huge pain in the ass. She got drunk, loud and was belligerent when he asked her and her drinking buddies to quiet down. I can't remember at this point, but he may have booted her out.
OK, second story. This one is from this summer.
There are usually activities and events for the campers on weekends. This weekend happened to be out Halloween themed weekend - the Haunted Campground. We do all sorts of Halloween stuff, decorating camp sites, candy hunt, costume contest, etc. We have a hay wagon with high sides, pulled by my dad's cool antique tractor (an early 1940s Ford), that we use to do rides through the campground every weekend.
This weekend we did them around dusk, and after dark to make things a bit spooky. I took my turn as chaperon on the last few rides. On most rides I do a spiel to the campers about staying seated and keeping their arms and legs inside the wagon. This is mostly for the little kids so they don't get their arms snagged on tree branches or fall over if they are standing and we hit a bump. I don't always go through this, especially when there are older kids on the wagon.
So we are doing our last ride of the night and there aren't any little kids on, mostly adults and kids over 12 or 13. There is a bright moon, but it is pitch black down in the campground because of the tree cover. I skipped my spiel because of the age of the kids and it was the last ride. I don't think the other people who were chaperoning were giving the spiel either. I was sitting near the back, so I couldn't see the people in the front.
We come around one of the bends in the road and start to head back to where the activities are going on, when some ~14 year old boys stand up and start to jump over the side of the wagon.
I only saw one at the time because he had a white shirt on, but was told there were others. One or two made it over the side and I yelled at the one with the white shirt to sit down. I couldn't believe that they would do that. It was pitch dark, the side of the wagon are a good 7+feet off the ground, and there was ditch on either side of the road. They could have easily rolled under the wheels of the wagon or fallen in the ditch and broken bones. I was livid at their stupidity. *sigh* Oh well. They weren't injured and my parents didn't get sued, so all is well. Maybe the next time those boys pull a stunt like that they will get hurt and learn from it . . . or maybe not.
~IoRamona
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