Parenting. There are a lot of different ways to parent children, and while not everyone needs to be a helicopter parent, parents should not leave their children unsupervised, and this includes when shopping. Retail workers are not free babysitters.

In this story, a mom and her son enter a pet store, but instead of wandering around the store together, they are in completely different rooms. The mom has no idea what her child is doing, and he’s up to no good, making a mess and bothering the animals.

Eventually, an employee who happens to be the owner’s son steps in to stop the boy and track down his mother.

Keep reading to see what happens when the mother calls back requesting to speak to the boss.

The time a lady lied to my boss to get me fired… Boss was my Dad

Background: I grew up in the pet store business. My Dad moved us around a lot buying stores that were failing and then turning them around to re-sell. Flipping them essentially.

The last one we stayed in for many years so I have tons of stories.

Growing up in retail led to a steady string of other retail jobs as well so I will have plenty of stories to share. This is one of my favorites.

His dad sounds like a real character!

The most common theme I see in TFR is the longing to be able to tell the awful customers exactly what you think. This made working for my Dad a great time.

My Dad is an amazing man. 5 minutes talking to him and he would have you writing him a check to purchase your own car from him. He could sell anything to anyone.

He also gave zero F’s what ANYONE thought of him or what he had to say.

When customers threatened “never to come back” he would clear their items from the counter and show them to the door. He was brutal and truthfully a bit on the crazy side.

Children don’t really pay attention to signs.

One of the big problems in the pet store business is much of your inventory is alive and people (especially children) love teasing and poking at the animals.

This is not only harmful to the animals but also creates a liability risk.

Anyone in the pet store industry will tell you that no amount of “danger: do not touch” signs will stand up against a lawsuit.

Which brings us to our wonderful customer. We will call her Liar Liar or “LL”. Her obnoxious young child (likely 7 or 8 years old) will be called “OC”. I will be “Me” and Dad will be “Dad”.

The mom needed to watch her son but didn’t.

So late afternoon LL and OC come into our store to “browse” and likely just kill time. Or perhaps buy a can of fish food.

From the time they enter LL has zero idea where OC is and what he is doing. This kid is out of control. Knocking things off of shelves. Running. Just a little jerk. Meanwhile LL is oblivious and browsing.

Our store was decent sized for an independent pet store and we had the best fish room in the state (built by myself – shameless plug but hey I am still proud after all these years).

So LL is off in the fish room while OC makes his way to the exotic birds section. Another of our specialties. There were many very sweet and very expensive birds there and we were quite protective of them.

That poor bird!

OC is being very loud. Yelling at the birds etc.

I come by and catch him poking at a very sweet Amazon Parrot that we had purchased from a family who could not keep her very recently and she was still acclimating. This bird was sweet and talked like crazy. This was the only time I heard her scream.

I took a play straight from Dad’s playbook and asked OC where his parents were.

He said he didn’t know. So I led him to the front counter and instructed him to stay there with an employee while I located his mother.

The mother was not happy.

When I found his mother I explained to her what had happened and that he was no longer allowed to roam our store unattended as he was a danger to himself and our animals.

She storms to the front, grabs her child and leaves in a huff.

I should mention here that the conversation with LL took place in the fish room. Directly on the other side was Dad’s office and the tops are open (not full walls).

A couple of hours later LL calls and asks to speak to the owner.

Let’s see how this call went…

Call gets transferred to Dad and happened as follows:

LL: I was in your store with my son and your employee was very rude to both of us. He said terrible things about my son, swore at him and me, grabbed my son by the arm and threw us both out of your store! I want him fired!! I was prepared to spend a gajillion dollars at your store!!

Dad: I am very sorry to hear that. Please give me some time to get to the bottom of it and give me a call back tomorrow.

What LL didn’t know was that Dad had witnessed OC’s behavior, saw me escort him to the counter and then retreated to his office where he heard our entire interaction.

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This is epic!

Next day LL calls back for Dad…

LL: I called yesterday and I want to know if that employee has been fired. I will call the BBB Blah blah blah!!!!

Dad: Well… I was gonna deal with this while on the phone with you yesterday but I thought a day for you to come to your senses may have helped you. I see that it didn’t. I saw your child destroying my store and my property. I saw him terrorizing my animals. I saw the employee, my son, lead him to the counter and speak with him respectfully. I saw you ignoring your child while he destroyed my property and further I heard the entire exchange between my employee/son and yourself. So I thought about firing him but then I realized that you and your child are both awful and I would prefer you never enter my store again. Thank you for the customer feedback. Back off. click

My dad was the best.

I’m sure she wasn’t going to spend a dime. He did the right thing by putting her in her place.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person loved the story.

I’d watch a TV show about this store too!

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a student who did the math and figured out he was better off skipping school than serving detention if he forgot his ID.

This certainly sounds like a dramatic moment!

A pet store employee weighs in.

Parents, watch your children. Is that too much to ask? If it is, don’t take them with you when you go shopping. Hire a babysitter. If you’re taking them to a store, you can’t expect them to be on their best behavior, and you can’t expect the employees to watch them.

The dad in this story sounds awesome. I love how he doesn’t even humor the customers. His attitude is very entertaining.