Have you ever had someone dislike you, completely out of the blue, for no reason? I find that to be very disconcerting. The woman who owns the stable is like that; she’s a very abrupt person, and doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with the running of the stable, leaving it all to working students, mostly extremely young.
Last night we arrived at the stable, in a rush to clean and feed and get out of there, and Kipper’s top door was closed, shutting him into this small box with no air circulation. There was a mare tied up to his stall, even though the aisle was otherwise empty. I have to ask the little girl to move her pony. I strip his stall completely down to bare cement, and go ask for two bales of straw. No adults around, just little girls who don’t have permission to go into the loft for straw. I finally bed his stall a bit with hay and leave.
I call this morning, and the woman is extremely rude to me about not reserving straw before four pm. Wtf? This rule is news to me. I explain, and have just started to tell her that the vet will be there in the morning for Kipper’s gelding, when I can tell she’s about to hang up on me mid-sentence. She must have heard the word “vet,” because she puts the phone back to her face and says “Did I hear you say the vet was coming?” Well, if you hadn’t been about to hang up on me, you would have heard. Grrrr…so rude.
I’m always polite. I’m nice to people, and I’m helpful, usually above and beyond the call of what’s necessary. To be unliked for no reason makes me feel strange and unsettled. I mean, in one sense I could care less – she’s a virtual stranger and obviously unhappy person. On the other hand, though, I now feel uncomfortable around the barn. :( I need to pay his board, I haven’t been billed, and I’ll now have to hunt this woman down and force her to talk to me so I can give her money. Weird damn situation.
In other news, I have two reallyreally good job leads. *bounce, bounce* Wish me luck…
Shall I describe the castration in detail tomorrow? lol…a treat for all the men in the audience. :)
“Two half bricks!? Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Only if you trap your thumbs …”
:-)
Bear in mind that there is a cultural ‘abruptness’ with some English that you would never encounter in the U.S. However, in this instance, I get the feeling she is like the old ‘Aunty Wainright’ in Last of the Summer Wine…
There are many in the horse world with apparent sticks lodged deep, if you know what I mean. I am so glad to have found so many barns without that problem, for high strung managers usually create high strung horses.
lol…that’s great. I mean disgusting. *snicker*
I have a terrible habit of replying to people’s comments by telling the punchline of a joke, assuming that either people will know what the joke is or will find the punchline funny anyway.
That particular joke starts “A man is stopped at Heathrow Airport Customs and when asked his occupation says “I’m the Sultan of Brunai’s Camel Castrator” …”
You know, if she is going to be making new rules and not telling you and preparing to hang up on you. I think it’s time to go to a new stable. Once he has healed up from his Gelding, look for a new stable. There is no reason for that. We ran a stable for years and if someone needed hay, we said, “LET THERE BE HAY!” And it was good! LOL No seriously, if she isn’t willing to accomodate your needs and his boxing your horse up, NO NO NO. Time to change.
Danielle
Oh bah! you have my sympathies with that woman. I’ve had a few people ‘randomly’ dislike me like that and I never quite know why. And actually it happens in the horse community more than not … I think this has a bit to do with the fact that it can be rather ‘judgemental’. People go to shows and get judged. You start judging how other people ride, then perhaps how they take care of their horses or how they handle them or how they run their business… if you are not careful you can twist yourself (or sounds like that manager is twisting herself) into a little knot of judgements.
On the bright side, gelding is fun! Or at least it was for my little boy. Granted yours is a LOT bigger, but it was quite interesting to have him knocked out flat on the grass then watch them roll his hind end over and rope his legs into place to get at his ‘parts’.
They seem a lot bigger when they are on the ground like that. No clue why. Perhaps it is the different visual perspective that you get of your horse (and the underbelly you rarely see).
Good luck with the job leads. I hope that you manage to catch this woman and have a word with her, it could be that she is just typically aloof in a way only certain types of British ladies can be:) It’s nothing against you personally, they just only like to communicate with their own social circle, maybe you can find a friendlier yard. I don’t think I want to hear about the castration and I’m a woman! I have seen young bulls be made into bullocks…youch…very medieval
I know how you feel.
A wife of one of the MF crowd very obviously does not like me. She doesn’t ignore me and isn’t rude to me, but it’s written all over her face whenever I speak to her. It is disconcerting, to say the least.
I want to protest “Hey, I’m a nice person. I didn’t do anything to you. Why don’t you like me?”. But then I turned it around and realized that there are just some people I don’t like, right off the bat – no reason, I just don’t – so I decided to chalk it up to one of those things and get over it.
Still hate it when it happens though. Kinda ruins your mood.
Yay on the job possibilities!
Actually, it was interesting – he did him standing. I’d never seen it done that way. Tranquilized, and local anesthetic, and it seemed to work fine. He said that something like one in a hundred horses die under general anesthesia. They only lay out the small ones that they can’t get under. He seems fine, though, and didn’t seem to feel anything at the time.
Actually, when we went back to the stable on the way home last night, the owner of the stable made a point of crossing the yard to talk to us, was very interested in how Kipper was doing, M’s plans for him, and offered to give us any help we needed with him…she was perfectly friendly…
Very odd…
Actually, when we went back to the stable on the way home last night, the owner of the stable made a point of crossing the yard to talk to us, was very interested in how Kipper was doing, M’s plans for him, and offered to give us any help we needed with him…she was perfectly friendly…
Very odd…
That is very odd… Twilight zone?