You could say that I recently got a job at a pet supply store. My probationary period ended in June. After that, I was put on the main staff. I’ll tell you what that entails.
Regular employees of this pet store at the end of each month can pick up merchandise that has been written off. For example, food with damaged packaging or expiration date, accessories for pets, if they have a small defect.
The way it works is that we agree among ourselves on who will take what. I don’t have pets, but I still get something for myself, because everyone gets deducted for such defects anyway.
So, for the first time, I got a bag of cat food. My wife’s parents have a cat in a private home, so I gave the food to them.
Then I realized that I would always try to get something just for cats. I told my colleagues about it, because some people didn’t care.
The next time I got a cat lounge. It was a little torn, but my mother-in-law could easily stitch it up, even by hand, and the house lounger is sure to work.
However, when I brought it to them, they were not happy about it. They were already coming to the end of food, and instead of gratitude, I heard: “You should have taken the food, you couldn’t figure it out on your own!”
I must admit that it was unpleasant to hear, because the last time I explained to them how I got my pet products. This time I reminded them and they pretended to understand and hear me.
As we drove home, I suggested to my wife that I buy her parents’ cat a good food each month. If it was free, I would take it with a supply. So that was the deal.
Only it was strange that after a month we ran out of 10 kilos of food. I asked my mother-in-law about it and she confessed that she had already promised her neighbor to bring fodder too.
She knew that I would bring fodder again, so she poured it out of her stock. But we bought her some very expensive food. I began to explain to her that I would bring food only for her cat and the neighbors do not need to promise anything.
And again, instead of saying thank you, she was embarrassed in front of the neighbor. So in response, I heard the following outrage: “You work in a pet store! Can’t you take it!”. They continued to think that I did not want to do anything on purpose in order to get their food.
At this point I realized I had to end this whole circus. I simply told my wife’s parents that I wouldn’t bring them anything else out of principle. That was a bad idea in the first place. I explained to them not to expect anything more from me.
