Dear Larry,

I had to read your post on FML twice because I was sure I was
misreading your tone. Then I showed it to a few other people just to
make sure I wasn't reading into it. Let me make sure I understand your
position here.

I make multiple attempts to contact your shelter via the avenues you've
made available for the public to contact you. That is to say, I went
out of my way to contact your shelter on more than one occasion in
order to (a) give you money and (b) provide a loving and capable home
to a pair of ferrets in need, thus reducing your overhead and workload
even if just a bit. Literally weeks pass without hearing anything from
your shelter. I post an inquiry on FML looking for a shelter that can
work with me on this in a reasonably timely manner. I do not slam you
or your organization when I do this; I only mention S&T because it's
one of the shelters I already tried and didn't want people to recommend
something that I've already tried, which is I think a pretty rational
and logical course of action. In response to that FML post I hear from
(a) two of the shelters that I had tried to contact (including "Dave"
and "Patty" from Scales & Tails) who have so far gone out of their way
to work with me, (b) about 20 people offering suggestions and advice,
and incidentally (c) several people who have had similar experiences
with S&T not responding to their inquiries.

With all this in mind, about a week passes and you decide NOT to reach
out to me via private email to work with me on this, but instead post
a message to the FML with these points:

1. A request for "a little slack."
2. An admission that you may have deleted my application.
3. An admission that your applications are sometimes identified as
   spam that you "never, ever click".
4. A suggestion that I "change [my] expectations."

I think the person here who needs to change expectations is you. Allow
me to address your points in kind.

1. By giving your shelter two weeks to respond to the two applications
I submitted, WITHOUT sending dozens of annoying follow-up "hey, please
respond now" emails, and by NOT slamming your shelter in any manner in
any public or private communication, I thought I had given you quite a
bit of slack. Tell me, sir, what else did you expect of me? How many
weeks do you believe is the appropriate waiting time before I should
innocently ask other people for an alternate venue? And where exactly
on your web site do you make this time frame clear to prospective
adopters?

2. Since you've admitted that you may have deleted my application, why
would I be in any way at fault?

3. Since you've admitted that your application may have been identified
as spam and you "never, ever" review them, why would I be in any way at
fault?

4. Let me tell you what my expectations were, and afterwards I would
like you to tell me exactly where I erred in my expectations and what
kind of expectations you think I should have had instead. First, above
and beyond anything else I expect that a shelter would want to do
anything in their reasonable power to find loving and capable homes
for their charges. I expect them to closely monitor all venues of
communication for potential adopters, particularly those venues which
the shelter explicitly puts into the public eye, and I expect them to
reply to inquiries in a reasonably timely manner. I expect the shelter
to maintain a certain level of professionalism and decorum, at least
on par with those who wish to be adopters. I expect the shelter to
recognize their shortcomings, potential and otherwise, and make even
a token effort at working around them. (Understaffed? Fine. Automate
everything you can. And don't tell me that you can't do anything about
applications. Your web site runs on WordPress which means it's on a
database, which means you can put 100% of your applications into your
database which would be completely unaffected by spam emails.)

You need not respond to these questions as they are largely rhetorical.
I have contacted "Dave" and "Patty" from your shelter and informed them
that in light of this acidic attack on me I am no longer interested in
adopting from Scales & Tails. You are entirely out of line here. Yes, I
respect that the animals come first - but without adopters your animals
don't have much to live for, and neither your attitude nor your process
is at all conducive to attracting willing adopters.

Good luck with your shelter.

[Posted in FML 7758]