Ahhh, the timeless story of overexcited and annoying children in pet stores.

Despite the excitement, parents need to keep their little ones under control and respect the animals.

Read on in this story to find out what happens when it’s quite the opposite situation.

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

I have been lurking this subreddit for quite a long time and decided it was finally time to start sharing my stories. Please excuse any formatting errors (be gentle). This will be LOOOOONNNGGG.

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.

The most common theme I see in TFR is the longing to be able to tell the 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.

Dad is a super salesman and doesn’t put up with any rude customers.

He could sell anything to anyone. He also had no care 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.

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.

And now it starts to get interesting, enter out of control child into pet store.

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”.

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 terror.

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.

Okay, time to intervene when the animals are getting agitated.

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.

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. Call gets transferred to Dad and happened as follows:

Sounds like Mom wants justice for getting thrown out of the store.

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. 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!!!!

But the Dad knows the truth of the story.

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 at fault and I would prefer you never enter my store again. Thank you for the customer feedback. Click.

My dad was the best. If you want to hear more I would be glad to post more. Maybe next will be the time that he chased a customer out to his car…

Let’s see what reddit had to say about this relatable retail story.

This person is just happy with the justice.

This commenter has a few bullet points.

Boss Dad is a hero.

Again, this person thinks Dad is best kid of boss.

Customers also need to respect the store employees and in this case the animals!

Hopefully this mom and child have learned their lesson in simple manners.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.