First off, I would like to say that I do not like being called a liar.  By
what right do you propose to tell everyone that my story was "manufactured"?
How do you know?  I was the one that lived it.
 
If you would like to continue this discussion offline, so be it; I do not
think that this is the forum for two people to devolve into "You're a liar!"
"No I'm not!" types of discussion.
 
My facts are not manufactured.  I was a bather at my local PetSmart for five
months during the summer/early fall of 1996.  Your quotes from my letter are
wrong.  I never said I went to the doctor for the dog bite.  I said I went
to my supervisor.  The bite was not serious enough for a doctor, but I did
want it recorded in official documents because that is proper procedure.
The female assistant manager I went to never made a report on it.  With the
chemical burn or whatever it was on my hands, I went to the same supervisor,
who told me that it was "no big deal, all bathers get it, you just have to
put up with it and use a lot of Bag Balm on your hands and arms".  I did go
to the doctor with dizzy spells (and showed her my hands while I was there).
She did say that my problems all seemed work related, but it never went any
further than that.  As far as I know, there is no reason for a doctor to
have to report this to anyone else.
 
As far as the animal abuses go, I certainly didn't make that up, either.
Why the hell would I want to make up something like that if it weren't true?
Just to be a trouble maker?  I don't think so!  If I liked trouble, I would
have posted my name and my city.  As it is, I'm afraid that if I post my
name and/or city, somebody from PetSmart here will hear of it (they still
have some of the same management people who might remember me) and try to
start something legal with me for slander or whatever.  I am not a rich
person.  There's no way I could fight something like that in the legal
system.  So I don't want them to connect this story to me in any way.
 
I just wanted to tell this story to get it off my chest, and to share it
with other people who are like-minded as far as caring for animals.  I have
worked with animals for a number of years.  My first job was as a
receptionist for a vet.  I then worked as a vet tech for a number of years,
until the local animal shelter started bringing us unwanted animals to put
down.  Then I quit, because I couldn't handle it any more emotionally.  I
later turned down a position as a director at a county humane society back
east, when it was offered to me, for the same reason.  Later on, we moved
across country, and a few months later the job that we moved here for my
husband to take fizzled out and he was laid off.  Shortly afterward, I was
laid off, too.  I took the job at PetSmart because I had been away from
working with animals for years, I had to have a job immediately (my husband
is partially disabled and it's much faster for me to find work than it is
for him), and I was going through a "getting back to my roots" period in my
life.  Once there, I couldn't quit until I found something else, in a
completely different field (I also discovered that I am just too out of
shape and old for that kind of hard work anymore).
 
The point of all this autobiographical stuff is that, I'm trying to convince
an (apparently) hostile crowd out there that I am not just some weirdo who
doesn't know what she's talking about and likes to cause trouble.  I am just
very hurt that this one particular person would accuse me of lying.  I am
not used to having my integrity questioned.  If you want proof, sorry, I
guess I forgot to take evidence and documentation; I never thought I would
have to prove any of it.
 
I was just trying to share an experience with people I thought would care.
I don't like keeping something this lousy all to myself, it makes me feel
depressed thinking about it, and I thought that sharing it in this forum
would make me feel better.  I also got some good advice from one person
about how to report these abuses anonymously.  I guess I knew already I
could report it anonymously to the Humane Society, but I have such a phobia
about confrontations that I just kept putting it off and never did it.
 
[VK]
[Posted in FML issue 2378]