Apologies in advance for the novel I'm about to write-- I honestly am so relieved to see this comment because I have recently been feeling severely taken advantage of. I likewise tend to silently struggle with this and seem to have this natural response to an owner's unfair expectation that's like "sure I'll do that thing you asked me no questions asked, whatever makes your life easier!" and then quickly realize that I have every right to be compensated for the extra time/going out of my way. I'm talking "your dog ruined my entire front door scratching during the singular hour we were away for the entire day, but you told me you couldn't believe he would do that and I immediately backed down and said we'll just take care of it".... and proceeded to apologize to the owner for some reason... ugh. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like a lot of the people who sign up for Rover have the same outgoing, people-pleaser demeanor and it's unfortunately not always the best trait when it comes to running a personal business or offering services.

I'm still working on this but I've noticed that it's a lot less intimidating to address these issues with clients when you introduce a bit of math or make it sound like a "policy" you've been forced to stick to. Example: this past week, we had a dog booked for a Saturday-Sunday overnight stay, and the owner took my "I'm flexible with drop-off/pick-off, so you can text me a day or two before if something changes or you don't know your exact plans yet" and SERIOUSLY ran with it-- as in tried to pay $30 for a Saturday morning 7 AM drop-off - a Sunday night 9 PM pick-up. I get that Rover operates on the 24 hr. = 1 night of boarding scale, but I can't imagine anyone who thinks $30 is a fair price for what amounts to the entire weekend. I was really nervous about addressing this with the client mainly because I had already put my foot in my mouth when I chose to be overly accommodating without thinking it through (yet again... ugh). I was so pleasantly surprised that when I kept it number-y and just responded by saying "9 PM is fine for pick-up, but we've recently had some clients get upset and not understand why 1 night of boarding would equal 7 AM Saturday drop-off- 7 AM Sunday pick-up, and we even provide a good amount of wiggle room to be fair. Typically, we won't charge for an additional stay if you are able to pick-up within 30 hours (AKA pick-up your pet by 12 PM Sunday), but we have to consider the amount of extra care that goes into keeping a dog for 38 hours. Unfortunately, the owner responded by asking if 5 pm was ok and if that ... (more)