Wow. Condescending, aggressive, short-triggered, and threatening "discharge". To the owner: what…read moreyou said did not make me feel very happy, made me feel weary about my daughter being there, and I believe you can treat your customers better.
I am a brand new customer, and here is my very first interaction with the owner:
To give information on our parenting schedule, I asked (to her assistant), "can you write down your email for me to send to?" The assistant was happy to help and went to a surface to write it down.
Owner needlessly replied: "[the email] is very easy, you can remember it. Your daughter kind of goes to Smarty Pants Preschool, it's just Smarty Pants Preschool @ (whatever popular email domain here) -- I would think you would remember that."
Business Owners: how do you expect a parent to respond? My response, "I might not remember that. You don't have to judge me."
She gave me an aggressive, glowing stare. And i watched her stare, waiting for what see had next to say or for the assistant to return.
Then she says slowly, "Nnooo..."
I asked to the assistant (who I thought was this lady's manager, "I would like to make a complaint on your worker here." (She was also very inappropriate with me on the phone yesterday, too, but that's a different story. Hey Smarty Pants! You have my permission to publicly release that phone call and of course sensor out my daughter's name. You can keep my name. I don't think you'd ever want that phone call to represent your company, to be frank!)
She jumped up with excitement and said, "I'm the owner, very nice to meet you!" (Her hand extended to shake my hand.) -- I later asked for more information, but ya know what? I'll just look at sunbiz.org and see if there's another party I can send a copy of this to.
I politely refused the condescending hand shake. It's a form of abuse, it's unnecessary, and I'm sure any customer would agree it is not a way to be introduced as the manner she presented. And I'm not interested in her ego--I'm interested in my daughter being in a safe, fun, abuse-free environment and what I can do to make the best of the day care.
After that, she said something around the lines of her walking to the door to discharge my daughter. She presented to me the problems she had with:
- my ex yelling at me outside of the establishment
- she felt that we were blocking staff to leave. I double checked, and my ex and I were at the sidewalk clearly away from obstructing the door.
- she had an issue with me calling the establishment about 5 minutes after that scene to make sure they had my information for future calls. And she was quite rude... I let that slide figuring, "this poor lady probably had a hard day." (The photo is when I called them and how long the conversation lasted -- so the owner can see after she claimed I can't be "calling at 6:15".)
- she expressed that she said "no" because I had "inappropriately stared at her".
We ended on a better note after the short talk and me receiving what I came for. On that ending, I said, "thank you. I will let you work on what you need to work on for yourself, and I am open to take any suggestions from you."
Her reply, "*I* don't have anything to work on."
Here we go again! I told her again what I had said, maybe a little differently, ("...you work...for yourself...and I am open...suggestions from you.", etc) -- and she appeared less triggered that time and seemed to get that I'm just a father looking to make sure they have info they need and I do, too.
She had no suggestions for me.
She extended her hand for a handshake, and I respectfully refused. I get it, some people get hurt by that, but I still have to respect my space for personal touch. I reframed the situation for her: she is basically asking for a touch, and I am not consenting/agreeing to it right now. As her being the owner of the establishment, I am happy to shake her hand when she has either resolved the emotional issues that she allowed to become associated with me, or when she simply disassociates those issues from me.
For now, we agreed to set this instance to the side, and I will be listening to my daughter *very*, *extra* closely to be sure the owner's stress responses are not transferring to her staff and then transferring to my child. We are new there, and I have kept my daughter there because I do not believe that will happen, and so far I believe she is safe and will really enjoy her time.
The owner then (at the end) helped me remember the situation with my personal/family number.
My next step is the Better Business Bureau. I thought also to go to the land lord since we have nearly a 10 year relationship (just as long as smarty pants does), but I don't see how Smarty Pants can learn and grow from talking with the land lord. The land lord and I both understand that businesses have problems, owners get stressed, and people tend to allow the hurt of their past to make them too biased for their own good.
