My Venting Is Out of Control!

What the hell is wrong with some people?

This entitlement era has to end…it is not just the young, but the middle age as well as the elderly.

We knew it was hard work managing a Pumpkin Patch, the difference being Patch. We not only sell the pumpkins which we LOVE to do, but just doesn’t seem to be top priority to this owner. For some reason he believes that giving everything away for free will bring him business...wrong. We have free popcorn, free pumpkin painting, free admission, free petting zoo, free movies …the list goes on and on. He feels if we give all this away, when the time comes for them to buy their pumpkin they will return to us. But, in the meantime to make it all balance out, our pumpkin prices are exuberant. Many of these freebie takers say the same thing, when it comes time to purchase their pumpkins they will go down to the grocery store where they can pick one up at a fraction of our price. We continue to tell ourselves that it is not our business, it is his and we only work for him so we do it the way he wants it done.

It is just so hard for us to understand how there are so many idiots out here who believe that it is okay to allow their children to destroy merchandise and not give a damn about the property. It is all about them. How rude is it that we work here 12 hours per day with no breaks or time for lunch and it never fails whenever we try to grab something to eat, some idiot will come up and ask us if they can go into the petting zoo. I smile and say they are at lunch at this moment and it will be just a while longer. I tell them to look around and gather their purchases and we will be right there just as soon as we finish our sandwiches. They very bluntly state that they are not here to purchase a pumpkin, they are only here to see the animals. Dah!

We are just so irritated at how much needless work that has to be done due to people’s stupidity. Where else does anyone work where when a family leaves the lot, we have to go around and pick up behind them? They allow their children to pick up and move every item, including huge pumpkins that then get dropped…

Do you know what happens to those pumpkins? Days later we are shoveling them up and tossing them in the trash.

We have displays throughout of all the different pumpkins and items we have for sale and people just allow their kids to walk on them, crawl on them, roll them around and pick up and drop or even better some throw them.

Kids are not supervised at all…too many parents bring them here thinking it is a park and allow them to just run amuck…climbing all over the pumpkins, even after us taking so much time building them a fort and pumpkin/hay horses for them to climb on. We are both tired of having to tell every parent not to allow their children to jump, walk, sit, or roll all over the pumpkins. Doesn’t anybody have and use any common sense any longer? These are edible items that we are trying to sell, but instead we end up trashing more than we sell.

Why must we have to repeat ourselves several times regarding things that should be obvious? Because there are too many self-absorbed people that feel the rules do not apply to them. Most of our rules are not rules, they are common sense, but too many people take it as if we are picking on them, or as some stated that we are being aggressive by asking them to please keep their children off of the pumpkins.

Then…don’t get me started about the petting zoo! We have hundreds, I kid you not…hundreds of people daily and thousands over the weekend coming through the patch and we have to limit the time that they spend inside the petting zoo and ask that they only go in once a visit, so that others may have a turn. Of course, they all feel that it does not apply to them, so we have to remind them and then they get all Diva like and play the it’s all about me card.

Some people are just so dense!

Last week we had this couple come in during a very busy time with two young children. Each child ran in and grabbed wagons that are supposed to be used for purchases. There were only a few wagons left for buyers, plus the kids had already run over several of our displays and a few people within feet of grabbing the wagons. At this point, I very calmly asked them to limit to one wagon and to make sure they supervise the kids if they pull the wagon, they rolled their eyes but went about their business.

Later, this same family went into the petting zoo, rules explained to all that there is no running or screaming. The rest of the group complied, but almost immediately, their child was screeching and running around, we firmly asked several times for this mother to please control her daughter or we would have to ask them to leave the animal area. It continued and the animals were getting rangy, so we asked her to leave. They huffed out of here as if we just committed some sort of crime against them. A few days later we, as we often do, we checked into any reviews about the patch and found a very different view on what happened. Needless to say, they did not say anything nice about us or the lot, but we have learned that you can’t and won’t be able to please everyone. If we have pissed off a few families, then so be it, because when it comes to customer service we are really good at it, so the hundreds of great people who compliment us all the time is worth a few sore losers.

Good news…only 2 more weeks of the pumpkin patch…we are so looking forward to doing the Christmas Tree sales, they are so much easier since it is all about selling, not entertaining.

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