I, as your dog trainer, am obliged to tell you that the ONLY reason you have to send me an *urgent* voicemail is MAYBE that you won’t be home for our appointment in 20 minutes because your kid just broke his arm and you are headed to Emergency Room, RIGHT NOW! Ok, I’ll give you that one, and if you actually thought to call me, thanks - now put down the phone and take care of your kid, I’m not that much of a hard ass. However, you may NOT, you flaming retard, page me, send me an additional voicemail, and then mark it urgent, because you want to “talk about the problems you are having with your little dog.” This, at 6:40 pm, from you, a client that lives too far away, I’ve only seen once and then you whined about the price; now you would like some free advice. THIS IS NOT AN URGENT ISSUE!! And I resent the fact that you are bullying into my life in such a manner.
Dog trainers work hard; we let our clients into our lives, we worry about your dogs when we go home, we give you our weekends, and we bring your not so housebroken dogs into our homes to wreck our carpets. We grit our teeth when you call at 7 am or 10 pm, and we try to forgive you because maybe you think that you’re really calling an office and don’t know that you are calling our home or the cell phone in our pocket. (Have you done the math? Do you really think we can afford an office?) We smile and say it’s ok when we show up for the 3rd time and you haven’t done your homework, are completely unprepared, and continually interrupt the lesson to yell at your kids. Is is too much to ask that you leave polite messages on our phones and try to understand that our only priority in life is not to answer you within 4 minutes of your summons?
I chose to simply leave a message for this person, and completely ignored her next two calls (this is after I left a message saying I am no longer available to travel 2 hours away for a lesson that she’ll want a discount on). I am NOT OBLIGATED to give you free advice or spend 30 minutes on the phone holding your hand and trying to fix a problem you have created. You, my friend, have found my boundary, and I refuse to cross it for you. What a beautiful, freeing moment in my life.
Posted on October 18th, 2007 by michelle
Filed under: The Naked Part, Training
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