u/KindBrilliant7879

i work for a franchise mobile company, so it’s not my personal van, fyi. this is my first mobile company and i’ve only been with them for about 2 months.

yesterday i was trying to get to a client’s address. my GPS took me to a random daycare which obv wasn’t right. the daycare had one of those sort of pavilion overhang things in front of the entrance which shades the area, you drive under it. i had to loop around anyways to get back out, and it was so hot and my AC was struggling, so i decided to park under the pavilion while i contacted the pet parent to keep the van a bit cooler. i got underneath it just fine - there was a clearance sign that barely tapped my AC unit, but having driven tall vehicles through similar areas before, i assumed i would be able to get out just fine, because i got in just fine. idk maybe that was really stupid of me😭 pet parent got back to me and corrected the address (dispatch had put in the address incorrectly). i plugged that into my gps and began to drive forward, back towards the exit (for context, this wasn’t just a parking lot - the entrance looped around). i heard the loudest crash sound and my stomach immediately dropped😭 i got out of the van and saw the plastic casing and foam for the AC unit on the ground. at first i assumed it was just the casing that came off - i was really upset with myself but opted to just putting it in the passenger seat and continue. it was only when i got to my next location that i got out and saw how bad the damage was - the internals of the AC unit were mangled on top of the van. that client ended up cancelling on me anyways because she had booked for a bath but wanted a full haircut and I didn’t have time for that. Either way i wouldn’t have been able to do any appointment in this heat with no AC lol. im ngl started crying and panicking and called my boss and explained what happened; he instructed me to drive the van back to its spot. i apologized profusely and offered to pay the damages and said i understood if he had to fire me over this. he ended up calling me back a few mins later saying to come pick up a different van to finish my appointments - another groomer went home early due to being sick. so i guess it can’t be that bad if he wanted me to get in another van and drive it? 😭

i was beside myself. i just got this job and i really need it right now. this van whose AC unit i destroyed lives at this auto repair place. when i got there, the owner saw the pieces in the passenger seat and asked what happened and i burst into tears again lol. turns out he knows my boss well and he kept comforting me saying that’s what insurance was for and that “aw hell [boss name] ain’t gonna fire you!”, but i really don’t know and idk im just so upset with myself and just wanted to vent to other people who understand my situation i guess lol

before I say anything, I already broke up with him this evening, so I don’t need advice on what to do. I just feel fucking crazy and heartbroken. please refrain from the “jesus this is exhausting” type comments that offer no insight - trust me, i know. lol.

For the past 6 months, my boyfriend has been complaining incessantly about the exact same problems every time he sees me. It literally became the only thing we talked about anymore. He was constantly complaining to me about how he was so miserable in this band he’s in because he’s unhappy with the direction, the people in it, the music, everything. For months I just listened and sympathized, but after the 100th time of hearing about how he’s so depressed and feels like he’s wasting his time, I started to gently suggest trying to talk to his band mates about it, which he had so far not done at all. He brushed me off and seemed to get defensive, so I left it alone. He also constantly complained about his headaches, which happened multiple times a week and rendered him unable to do anything but lay in bed. Theres a short laundry list of other overarching problems he complained about as well. As for the headaches, he has a prescription medication, but it does not work, he has expressed that to me multiple times. His dad’s headache medication seemed to work sometimes, so I suggested he see the doctor again and at least try to get the prescription changed. I gently suggested this a few times over many months, and he never did it.

Three weeks ago, he complained to me about the band situation again. About how his band mate was driving him insane and how he wanted to tell him to cut it out. I’m not going to lie, I felt kind of frustrated but tried not to let it show. I decided to try to encourage him, to push him a little bit. After about 10-20 mins of trying to gently encourage him to talk to his bandmate to no avail, I semi-jokingly said that if he didn’t talk to his bandmate about the issue, I would. I was being playful, but I was also sincerely trying to get him to do something about it. He got very upset and defensive with me, and it led to a fight. He told me I was being way too pushy and he felt like I thought he was incompetent. The constant complaining about his life has weighed on me and my mental health and my relationship with him, so, during this whole spat, I set a boundary: unless he was seeking advice on how to solve, or actively trying to solve these reoccurring issues, I could not talk to him about it. It was just taking an immense toll on me mentally and emotionally. He was upset about this but seemed to begrudgingly agree.

Fast forward to a week ago today. He was complaining about his head again, and honestly I just felt stressed, frustrated, and concerned. He hasn’t done anything at all about the headaches and I was tired of stressing over his health. This is exactly what I told him, verbatim: “Hey, I need you to call the doctor and ask about a referral to a neurologist or something similar for your headaches. I know it’s late at night, so you’ll have to leave a voicemail and they’ll call you back tomorrow. Can you do that for me?”. I was trying to reinforce my boundary, and I was also just plain concerned about his health and wellbeing. This was apparently absolutely unacceptable. My asking him to call the doctor could be in a “pictures taken seconds before disaster” compilation.

An absolute shit storm was unleashed. He first got very nasty with me and defensive, saying he was going to take his dad’s medication and that counted as doing something about it. I tried to keep calm and explain i wasn’t mad or anything, just concerned, and that he’d been suffering for a really long time, and that it was about time he did something less temporary about it. Like, at least get a prescription of your own that works, ya know? He kept getting worse and worse, saying he just wanted to have a good night with me and that it was ruined now. I told him he was blowing this out of proportion, that it seriously wasn’t a big deal. He said I was being so pushy and demanding and bossy, and that I constantly told him what to do and I was constantly so demanding and pushy. He kept absolutely insisting ten toes down that what I said was a disrespectful demand. I tried to defend myself and he kept interrupting me with so much resentment; at one point, he just kept talking over me saying “no it’s just who you are it’s just in your personality you just can’t help it it’s just who you are you just have to know everything”. he also said that my “behavior” just wasn’t normal, mocked me, and raised his voice at me multiple times. I was so fucking taken aback, mad, sad, and confused. like how did we get here, what???? I’ll admit i’ve been more vocal about trying to help him solve his issues, but jesus christ the only other time I could describe myself as actually being pushy was when i playfully said i would tell his bandmate if he didn’t. He’s so emotional I generally avoid being straightforward about this kind of thing like the fucking plague. I never ever tell him what to do… one it’s not my place and two he has such an extreme reaction to even feeling like someone is wanting him to do something he doesn’t want to do. I have no idea where the “you constantly tell me what to do” could possibly even come from, none. I feel fucking insane just typing this out. I asked him respectfully to leave multiple times, saying I was getting really frustrated and I needed space from him. He refused. I said I didn’t want to blow up and I didn’t want to fight. It took me asking 3 separate times before he finally left. Even though I felt I did nothing wrong, I still apologized multiple times and explained I wasn’t at all trying to be demanding or bossy or any of that.

Since then we’ve talked about it a million times. He keeps saying he’s not justifying his behavior, but then he continuously says that he only acted that way because he really didn’t like the way i spoke to him and what i said. He absolutely will not back down on that fact. He’s insistent that he’s not excusing his behavior, but he is… it’s my fault for provoking him. I just really feel like what I asked wasn’t a demanding thing to say. I feel fucking insane and angry and confused. He’s insistent that I had a “tone” when I said it, which is possible as I’m autistic and have trouble with my tone, but like.. even then? How does that cause that reaction? Why not say something like, i dunno… “you sound annoyed, are you annoyed with me?”. He has since only doubled down and stood behind everything he said about me, which is part of why I just broke up with him. I don’t want to be with someone who not only says those things about me but stands by them.

I just need someone to tell me if i’m crazy or not because i feel like im living in a fever dream. I love him to fucking death and he’s my best friend. I really don’t know what’s going on. AIO?

Recently I’ve switched to a mobile company and so I see a lot of elderly dogs. The other day, I had an eighteen-year-old dog - some kind of toy poodle mix would be my guess. It was obvious to me that he had at least some level of doggy dementia - he didn’t seem to have any idea where he was, what was going on, who he was, etc. He was very aggressive and bit excessively for anything near his muzzle at all - I ended up not being able to even touch his muzzle with a brush (he had sores and goop around his eyes, which made me nervous about brushing his muzzle and catching a sore. I also didn’t feel comfortable gripping his face too tightly, as he seemed to have a significant amount of mouth pain. He had like, no teeth left). It seemed clear to me that this dog was in pain and terribly confused if not terrified.

It was only my second day working by myself so I felt nervous turning him away. Ultimately it was a vanity groom; he wasn’t matted or getting very long. he could still walk outside but refused to stand at all in the van, and had to be muzzled the whole time (he barely had any teeth, but after he bit me twice and would aim with his few teeth left, I decided it hurt too much to he worth going without a muzzle lol).

In the following days I’ve felt mixed feelings and guilt around the groom. I talked to the pet parent about his age afterwards, and the PP asked me if it was worth it to have him groomed. I emphasized that, at his age, it’s probably best to prioritize his comfort, but to talk to his vet about it.

Even if the dog wasn’t at death’s door at 18 years old, I feel that it’s cruel and inhumane to put a dog so confused and scared through that process. I was very gentle and slow with him, but he had no idea what was going on at any point.

Should I turn away dogs like this in the future? How can I adequately explain this to pet parents when I’m by myself and don’t have coworkers or management on-scene to back me up if the pet parent becomes upset?

I just had an interview for a franchise mobile grooming company and am feeling really uneasy about taking the job.

I come from PS grooming, never been in mobile. I have a mild disability - my spine is surgically fused, so at PS I had a weight limit of 40lbs. I disclosed this fact to the interviewer and asked about this, and he said they’d make dispatch aware but couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t get very large dogs on occasion. The work days are 10 hours, and he said the clientele base is mostly senior dogs, high anxiety dogs who have been turned away from other salons, and very large dogs. There’s very little flexibility in schedule/hours.

At PS, I was working 6 to 8 hour days depending on the schedule that day, which was perfect for me because of my disability. I know mobile grooming is one-on-one appointments, which would definitely be easier than juggling multiple at once, and the money is supposedly much better, but I’m just feeling uneasy about it. I have a trial groom tomorrow at 7:30am.

Any advice or insight at all? I’m nervous lol.

that's it that's all i have to say. this shit is awesome.