By hamiltonma - 01/08/2015 03:20 - United States - Boone

Today, while volunteering at my local animal shelter, I was asked to clean the cat room. This entailed taking each cat out of its cage by hand and cleaning the inside. They forgot to mention that some of the cats were feral. I now look like I belly flopped into a cactus. FML
I agree, your life sucks 23 939
You deserved it 2 314

hamiltonma tells us more.

OP here! The people who were running the animal shelter literally put me in a small room with around 25 cats in cages and told me to clean them. I asked for gloves, and they had none. They also didn't mention that most of the cats in the room were caught off the street and were waiting to be spayed, and then re-released. I went to grab the first cat from the cage and put it into a carrier so I could clean the cage, and it literally went crazy. It grabbed ahold of my hand with it's teeth and started scratching all up and down my arms. After I showed the person in charge, they shrugged and told me to keep cleaning! I went home with scratches everywhere! Needless to say, I will not be returning! Thanks for all the comments everyone! I am feeling better today, and have been religiously applying hydrogen peroxide to me wounds! Thanks again!

Top comments

You should "forget" to mention that you are done volunteering there.

Wow, sounds like a health and safety nightmare. Is there a service you could contact to complain?

Comments

You should "forget" to mention that you are done volunteering there.

ezrajab 22

Unless u signed something before starting to work there I sense a lawsuit in you near future

a lawsuit really? is that your stupid answer for everything? is this the lady that spilled coffee into her lap at McDonalds because she was holding it between her legs?

tarlax 11

To be honest, your comment is just as stupid as his since you're buying into the old urban legend about that lawsuit being frivolous. She didn't sue because she spilled hot coffee on herself, she sued because she spilled ******* SUPERHEATED coffee on herself. Yeah she was stupid to be holding the cup between her legs, but it was a 100% justified lawsuit. That's really a pet peeve.

17, you are a disgrace. That McDonalds story was an absolute joke. Superheated coffee? Get real. Frivolous lawsuits are so abundant in this country, everyone just looking to take advantage of the system and make easy money. Hard work and pride has gone out the window, way to make that known... superheated coffee haha get a ******* life...

tarlax 11

Yeah dude I'm a huge disgrace, using facts and reality, yeah. "Hmm, read the facts of the story or mindlessly follow the common yet completely wrong belief that it was a frivolous lawsuit? Hmmm, I know which one I'LL choose!" For someone telling an internet commenter to get a ******* life, you sure are awfully hypocritical and emotional about this.

chidofrito 11

Are you stupid as well? If you had bothered to do any reading about that particular lawsuit, you'd have known that the coffee was so hot that she got serious burns on her genitalia and had to have reconstructive surgery as a result. That coffee's temperature was easily beyond the typical 160-180 degrees serving temperature. 100% justified lawsuit

#19, I guess you didn't read the part that said McDonalds owned up to the fact that they knew their coffee was hotter than it should have been. I have spilled hot coffee on my self before on accident. It didn't burn me that bad. The coffee at McDonalds was 185-190 F, when it should have been around 145-155 degrees. 185-190 is scalding and would cause the burns that the poor woman got. If it was at 155 F, the coffee would have cooled pretty quickly causing only minor burns.

trust me, I saw the burns. they were horrific and I've spilled some hot cocoa on myself before, but I never got wounds as bad as that. it looked like someone had poured gasoline on her and lit it on fire.

I heard the the coffee was so hot it warped the plastic lid, causing it to spill. Added to third degree burns, maybe it's not the best lawsuit but if that's true if say it wasn't frivolous.

I was talking about Ted Nugent but that really sucks:(... and yea you'll get down voted for any ******* thing.

I think "cat scratch fever" was a reference to the song, not the illness.

that's the type of pussy you don't mess with

They definitely should've went through the procedures with you instead of leaving you alone. And made sure they pointed out the feral cats or at least had signs put up. I'm sorry that happened OP. You should "forget" to mention that you don't volunteer there anymore.

how can you not expect that at the pound?

ChadHelton 8

treat ALL unknown cats as feral.

JustinJK 21

The shelter that I've worked at keeps feral cats separately and only handled by actual employees, not volunteers.

Uh I volunteer with cats and they keep the unsocialized cats in a separate area where only highly trained staff work with them. This is likely either a very large and or very disorganized shelter. I have never been scratched and was only nipped once by a grouchy old man cat.

******* that like rough play... kinky

You work at an animal shelter and you don't know to treat every animal as a (potentially) dangerous one?

I volunteer, almost every time cleaning, feeding, and watering cats. Employees ALWAYS warned me about dangerous or unfriendly animals and instructed or showed me if any cat needed to be handled a certain way. We never handled feral cats other than spay and neutering, in which the cat had to be brought on a certain day to go to the vets and picked up after the procedure. Employees always handled them as well, or at LEAST well experienced volunteers.