I’m not trying to be rude but the reason you have such a hard time as well as other shelters is because you charge a lot for the animal. I’ve been there many times and seen a lot of animals i would love to take home but they are expensive. Most people get their pets for cheap or free thats why nobody buys from you. I agree that they need homes but if you care about them getting a home your wouldn’t be trying to get rich off selling them. Sorry but the truth hurts. With the economy the way it is and it getting worse your gonna have to give them away or sell them really cheap or your gonna spend more money putting them to sleep which i think is cruel.

I got really, really pissed off, then decided to wait to reply until I could do so rationally. Cussing someone out who attacks you out of misconceptions they have just slams the door on actually addressing those misconceptions. So I waited. A month passed. This morning I sent the person this response:

I let this email sit for nearly a month because I didn’t want to reply in anger. I don’t know if it will do any good to reply at all, since you seem to have your mind made up based on some misconceptions you have, but just in case I am wrong about that, here goes…

First off, I don’t work for the shelter. I am a volunteer there and do not represent the shelter. I occasionally post to Craigslist trying to help animals that just aren’t finding homes, as I did in this case.

I agree that economic times are hard but the shelters certainly are not trying to “get rich” with adoption fees. Actually, at least in the case of Henderson County, none of the money actually goes to the shelter. Take for instance the highest adoption fee, for a female dog that was previously unspayed with no known vaccination history; the fee is $90:

* $50 is paid to the Humane Alliance (and if you think THEY are profiting from this, try calling around for vet quotes on what it really costs to spay a dog)
* $8 is for the 1 year rabies vaccine, required by NC law
* $10 is for the microchip to identify the dog if she ever is lost
* $12 is for the other vaccinations given at the shelter, a combo vaccine with distemper, parvo, etc. and a bordetella shot. Any other treatments or dewormings the dog may have had while at the shelter are not charged for.
* $10 – This is the actual adoption fee. The money goes to a county administrative fund, not to the shelter itself. And any donations that come in go to the county low income spay/neuter program. THERE IS NO ‘PROFIT’

With puppies and kittens too young to be spayed or neutered, there’s a $100 deposit, which is promptly refunded as soon as proof of surgery is given. This was necessary because some people were not getting the animals fixed otherwise.

You might not have been aware of this, but if some of the above things have already been done, the adoption fee goes down accordingly. Several times recently, someone adopted a dog or a cat but then surrendered them back to the shelter for some reason. These animals can be adopted for as little as $10 depending on if the vaccines are still current, etc. Other times, a volunteer has sponsored the animal they’ve become personally attached to by contributing towards their adoption fee or paying for their surgery. I’ve done this myself a few times. If you ask at the shelter, the staff can tell you what animals have lower fees…

The ‘free’ dog someone gets from the local paper or wherever is often going to cost way more than $90 if they are responsible and have them neutered and properly vaccinated – and if someone doesn’t do these things, shame on them – they are part of the problem. If someone can’t afford an adoption fee, how do they plan to pay for it if the animal gets sick, or has some other emergency? Yeah, that sounds harsh, but if someone can’t afford basic veterinary care they shouldn’t have pets. I am saying this as someone who is still in debt, paying off thousands of dollars of vet bills ran up on credit cards several years back when several animals all had health emergencies at once, so I do understand how hard it can be.

The shelter is understaffed, overworked, and it’s an unimaginably difficult job, both emotionally and physically. It would break me, and I have nothing but respect for those who stick it out, and have the courage to do what most of us don’t, because they love animals and are trying to make things better in this county. You wrote your email thinking you were writing to a shelter employee, which as it turns out, you weren’t. Please have some compassion and *think* before you write next time — imagine spending nine or ten hours busting your butt cleaning cages, taking care of animals, dealing with people dropping off animal after animal (some for legitimate reasons, some not so legitimate) dealing with the abused and abandoned ones the officers bring in, and at the end of some days, and having to put dozens of them down because the shelter is full… then coming home to have some stranger who doesn’t have all the facts crap all you them in an email. That is what I think is cruel.

I probably just wasted an hour I could have spent at the shelter with the animals, which is where I am headed now. But maybe she really never thought about where those fees really go? Or maybe other people who think the same way will read this and learn from it?

So I am off to garden a bit (and fling slugs) then spend some time volunteering at the shelter, and maybe after Joy gets off work we can sit out on the patio, watch the hummingbirds at the feeder and not think about oil slicks, wars, ecological destruction, the economy, genetic engineering, the decline of our culture, corruption, greed, corporatocracy, and things like that for just a few hours.

But here are the lyrics anyway*… Just substitute “modern society” for LA.

*I looked it up and you really can be sued for quoting material like this. I removed the quoted stuff, and the lyrics can be found on the lyrics page on Tool’s official site

The first green light brought us to the front of the line, but we didn’t make it through. By the time the light turned green again, a steady stream of oncoming traffic that was not turning prevented us from moving at all. There was a little green car behind us with a woman with ratted-out bleach blonde hair and she apparently blamed us for ‘missing’ the light; she got right up on our bumper, throwing her arms all over the place and inching forward like she was going to pass us.

The light turned green again…more oncoming traffic. Finally we saw an opening because one of the oncoming cars was turning right (64 is a one-way highway at that spot so there were two lanes to turn onto) and we started to proceed forward, but suddenly there was motion to the left as the psycho redneck b*#$@! behind us whipped around to try and pass us on the left by pulling into the oncoming lane. We found ourselves sandwiched between her car and the minivan that had been turning right, had to slam on our brakes to avoid hitting the van because she was forcing herself past us even if it meant us hitting her or the other van.

Hearts pounding, we made it into the shopping center parking lot and pulling in right ahead of us was the @##$&*% who had nearly caused a major wreck. Gee… her little reckless tantrum hadn’t gotten her very far ahead, had it? We were stunned and apalled to see she had two small children in her car, one in the front seat (a very small child, isn’t that very unsafe and I think maybe even illegal?) and one in the back in a baby seat. That was just the final straw for Joy, who was already furious over the whole scene. She pulled over, got out of the car, and stomped over to the woman’s open window.

“Thanks for nearly causing a three car accident back there, with your two childen in the car!” Joy said, then calmly turned around and started to walk away. The woman’s response? “Oh yeah? Well at least I ain’t SLOW, like you!” she brayed. And she continued to scream unintelligible curses at us to impress her fellow rednecks at the Wal-Mart gas station, as we drove off.

What a wonderful example she is setting for her kids; what struck us most was not the lack of regard or respect she showed for everyone else in pulling that stupid stunt, but how little respect she apparently has for her own children’s lives, by endangering them in that manner.

We have now had someone out to service the furnace at the new house a total of six times. Well… actually the last time, (which I might point out, was just YESTERDAY) was a routine inspection to make sure everything was working right after the previous five repairs. We’ve had functioning heat for several days, the inspector that came out yesterday hooked up the kitchen duct (which wasn’t tied in to the heat system) and tested things out and pronounced the furnace healthy. We had 100 gallons of oil delivered and figured things were finally smoothed out and we could finish moving the last of the stuff out of the old house tomorrow (yes, there is still more to move) and work on getting settled.

So this morning, when I awoke after an uncomfortable, restless night to find the house oppressively HOT this time, and the furnace running full tilt even though the thermostat was set to 59… lets just say I’m running out of happy thoughts. I tried turning the thermostat all the way down to no avail, all along with me thinking "but that’s my $250 worth of oil that son-of-a-b**** furnace is eating!" We called the landlord, who called the furnace people, and then we had no choice but to leave for work since we couldn’t afford to miss any more of it and the clinic was short-handed. The landlord said she’d come out to let them in.

And then, halfway through the day, still having not heard anything about the situation, it occurred to us… ‘gee, maybe we should have left a window or two open, since it was 80 inside when we left?!’ I called the landlord who said she was on her way to meet them at the house, and she promised to open a window if it was really hot and to call when they were done. But I haven’t heard anything, I’ve left another message for her (four hours have passed) and I am starting to freak a bit. And we still have another hour at least to go at work, plus the half hour it takes to get home. Of course I am highly skilled at paranoia and conjuring up worst case scenarios, so at this point am convinced the house burned down… and feeling very sorry for myself — why can’t we just have some peace and normality in our lives? Why does everything always have to turn into chaos and calamity?

This same little dog runs up and down the street at all hours of the day or night, barking like an idiot. One day last year he darted in front of a car to chase after Lindsy, Mojo, and I when we were on a walk. When I looked over to the house where he lived, to see if he’d maybe gotten out of his yard somehow, I was surprised to see his owner sitting on the patio, beaming like an idiot with that "isn’t he just adorable how he thinks he can take on the big dogs" look on her face. Argh.

1. a Simple Password Reset

Scenario: – User has changed their voicemail password to something they thought was really clever on Friday, and now on Monday they have no earthly idea what it was. We do about a dozen or so of these a day, more after a long weekend.

The Old System:

Open new ticket, which automatically fills in the date and time the ticket was opened. Input phone number and verify address and location auto-filled correctly. Gather callback number if needed. If no auto-fill, gather contact’s location and address. Enter the problem, and the resolution, and select the problem type and the ‘Closed’ option under case status, which auto-fills the date/time that the ticket was closed. Save ticket.

Time spent: less than two minutes.

The New System:

Open new ticket. Input account number and hit enter to bring up our account, wait for address screen to come up (15-30 seconds). Now if this step didn’t work, you will need to open up a screen that shows you every single account the company has, click a letter to search alphabetically, scroll through several screens to find the right account, then select it. Once the location screen has loaded, cancel because the screen contains a listing for every switch, router and other piece of equipment the entire city owns and all you need is a simple address. See if the location is in the dropdown list (which by the way also scrolls very slowly, and is missing quite a few locations) back on ticket screen. If it’s there select it, if not type it in. Fill in contact name, number and issue. Hit save.

Click on timestamps for everything up to ‘Isolated’ and fill in Initial diagnosis, which would be "Password Reset". Click on timestamp over in Current Action and fill in the diary with details. Fill in something for the follow up time and action, because, even though there is no follow up needed, the form will not save without it. At this time, the Resolved and Closed buttons are disabled so you will have to save the ticket, close it, and reopen it two more times.

Find the ticket in the Trouble Ticket List and open it again. Click the Resolved/Fix Timestamp and enter the resolution of "Password Reset." The closed button will still be disabled so you will have to save the ticket again and close it – AGAIN.

Find the ticket in the trouble list and open it again. Now it will let you clear the follow up action boxes if you want. Click ‘Closed’. Save it one more time.

Time Spent: At least 10 minutes, a lot more if the system is particularly slow that day.

2. Searching Call History

Scenario: Caller says "I’ve called twice before on this same issue" or the always fun cryptic "I need you to do that thing they did last time to fix my phone."

The Old System:

Click in the field you wish to search on. Click the search button and enter the search text. Search.

The New System:
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Dream on.

OK, if you are feeling masochistic, you can bring up a search form, enter your criteria, hit ‘Search’, wait for at least 5 minutes while the entire system freezes with an hourglass, and then close the error message that says the search timed out when it finally comes up. Seriously. This has never worked, not once. By then you are long off the call and have figured out some other way to find the info, or given up. If you are really desperate you can sort the ticket list by address and open every single ticket for that address and access the diary for each one, then scroll through all the notes for what you are looking for. Have fun.