Working sure does open my eyes to the behavior of
people. Whether we’re busy or not
something always comes along to amaze me.
The things people will do for free food samples will make your jaw
drop. Most of the time, we’re too busy
to think a lot about this behavior at the time.
And luckily, there are some very nice people out there, but there’s also
some that show just how bad humans can be.
However, I’m not going there in this post. I have a question for all of you about
service animals. Do any of you know if
service dogs eat on the job? I’ll
explain below.
Lately, I’ve noticed an influx of people with service dogs
in the store over the last couple of months.
I think service animals are great and do great work for impaired
individuals, but I have a lot of doubts if all of these animals are really
service dogs. I think anyone can go into
a pet store (such as Petco and Petsmart) and buy a service vest for a dog. My issue is that these people come into the store
with the “service animal” on a leash and they eat, and feed the dog as well,
while standing in the store with other shoppers also partaking of the free
samples.
A very heated argument took place last week over this issue
between a shopper and an older man with his “service dog.” Now this older man is in the store all the
time eating free samples and feeding his dog in the isle beside/or in front of
our food carts. Management had to intervene
as the argument escalated between the two men as they made their way down the
isle. They stopped right in front of six
of us with samples so there were a lot of witnesses to this incident along with
the other shoppers in the store. The man
confronting the person with the dog was so red with the veins bulging in his
neck that we thought he’d have a heart attack.
None of us needed that bit of excitement happening right
there.
I think that there should be a way to check this type of
situation. Only real service animals
should be allowed to come in the store.
I hope a way to remedy this will be implemented soon.
Once the men were taken upfront to cool off, the gal beside
me told me about an incident that happened a few years ago with a man and his
service animal. The dog was allowed to
wander under the gal’s sample table eating up any crumbs that had fallen and
then it lifted its leg and peed on her cart.
She had to shut down and take everything to the back and sanitize all
the equipment and throw away the food. I
don’t think a service dog would do this.
There are never too many dull moments in the food sample
business. Any thoughts anyone?
