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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Sinimeg on 2024-04-08 04:46:45.

It didn’t happen today, but it was today when I received the text saying to not come back.

So, on Thursday I was volunteering at a cat rescue, I started doing it at the end of January and was going once a week unless I had something else to do that prevented me from going. So, I arrive and shortly after they ask me to disinfect some stuff with a specific product that I only have used twice in two separated occasions and like, with a month of difference, so I wasn’t sure how to apply it. The worker explained it to me, and the process is vastly different from what I remember, but I thought that I got it. Apply the product, put them in clean water and wait 30 mins, perfect. Welp, I was wrong, apparently I misunderstood the instructions and what I had to do is apply the product, wait 30 mins and rinse it with water. My bad. I’m reprimanded, but after that I do what they told me and go on with other tasks

Then, later they send me to the floor below the main room, where there are some cats being taught how to socialize. There’s another volunteer and we have to clean the litter boxes, sweep the floor, mop the floor, put more water on the water fountains and food on the bowls. While she does the litter boxes I put more water and food. We clear up the floor to start sweeping and moping, and soon after sweeping she goes to do other stuff and I’m left alone doing the rest. I put back on the floor everything that I see, that are mostly the toys since we don’t move everything for the afternoon cleanings, it being more light cleaning in contrast of the deep cleanings of the Mondays. And I forget the food bowls. Because I don’t see them where we leave the toys, and since I don’t usually move the bowls I didn’t think about that she might have done it. I didn’t checked, I assumed that they would be on the floor like always, even tho it didn’t register in my brain that I didn’t see them when I was moping the floor.

The poor cats were left without food till next morning. From 8pm till 9am.

And this afternoon I got a text saying that the cats were left without food that night, and it was only then that I remembered not seeing the bowls on the floor when I left, and also saying that apparently I didn’t disinfect the things that I had to disinfect right the second time either. And then I was kicked out, with the end of the text reading “we don’t need your services anymore”. And I feel fucking awful.

For the record, it was the first time that I messed up, and I feel that they could have been more lenient since it was my first offense in the two months that I was there. And because I feel that they didn’t explain how to disinfect properly since I don’t know why I fucked up the second time. But maybe that’s my childish part and my heartbreak, because I was starting to feel at ease and like I belonged there when I never felt that way before. I don’t know. I’m very sad, a bit angry and I feel like the most useless and worst person in the world. I’m torn between begging for a second opportunity and not showing my face to the outside world ever again.

And I don’t know how to tell my family because they’re already disappointed in me since I’m not what they expected and wanted me to be. And they were saying thins like how it’s obvious how much I liked volunteering at that place and how it was clear that it made me happy. They were very pleased and now I will disappoint them again on top of all that. I guess that that’s another fuck up. I’m collecting them as if they’re Pokemons, gotta catch ‘em all.

TL;DR: I was kicked out from being a volunteer in a cat shelter for forgetting to leave food for the cats one night and not disinfecting some stuff the right way.