You've Read About Bad Lfs

[GothicCandle]

Man, I know how you feel. I used to work at Petsupermarket and we would get all kinds of weird people in. Once, there was this lady who wanted to buy one of those tiny hexagonal betta "tanks" (it's wayyy too small for any betta) and she wanted to put goldfish in it! AHH!

I had to refuse quite a lot of people, actually. People wanted to buy arowanas for 10gls. Oi.

YIKES!!

 

[jasonskillz]

slap them for me plz
*spit*

 

[aquaticadmirer]

I used to work at a pet store, and there were a few class act morons that came in! My favorite was a man who brought a fully grown Oscar in a 5 gallon bucket into the store and wanted to know what was wrong with it. He said all he did was a water change and all of a sudden the fish started swimming funny. So my first question was if he used any dechlorinator in the new water, to which he replied: "Well I ran out but the tank was dirty and I didn't think I really needed it"!! I mean come on now...did you think you just put it in there for fun or something? AND if you thought your fish was just sick, hauling it into the store in a bucket isn't going to help his condition too much! (turned out that wasn't the case, and the pet store was the right place to be to get some dechlorinator ASAP, but still!)

That being said, pet store employees can be just as bad...there was one lady who had recently been hired and she was asked to remove any dead fish from the tanks. About 5 minutes later, she walks up to me with a closed fist and says "What do I do with these??" and then shows me her bare handful of dead decaying fish. I was thoroughly disgusted...I should have told her we just have to hold on to them all day until we can find a dumpster and see what she would have done!

So the moral to the story is that morons are everywhere. All you have to do is wait for something stupid to happen.

 

[Fate2006]

LMAO! my favorite one was a guy who brough us a 22" pacu which had a terrible ulcer... and asked why it had it... we asked what size tank he had it in... a 25gallon tank!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with another pacu in it aswell!!!!! we started on about him getting a larger tank right away and he just said "oh ya I'll think about it" he found the meds for the fish bought em and left without talking to us again... what an idiot... Also... anyone ever been to a superpet? I've never been to one and never heard anything good or bad about them... anybody live in Canada here that's been to one?

 

[Azaezl]

My local pets at home is terrible, only 1 bloke there knows anything about fish so any day he isn't in you get idiots buying goldfish bowls and about 5 goldfish all at the same time. When I bought my second senegalus the bloke who served me didn't even know what it was, he wrote down knife fish at first!!! I was like "errr no, that's wrong!"

They had my 9" & 7" senegalus in a tank with another sen who was 5" and 4 parrots, the tank couldn't have been more then about 20 gal, prob less. Last time I went in they had about 8 2 inch sens, 4 parrots and the 5" sen. Also the label had no info about how big they grow, what they eat, tank requirements or anything. So unless the "fish" guy is in then you'd have no way of finding out about them as the rest are clueless.

My other lfs(garden centre) is better, all of the staff have a basic knowledge of fish(some are very knowledgeable) and label the fish with max. size, tank requirments, whether they are aggressive, etc. That's why I gave my geo to them because I knew he'd be looked after properly, plus he's not up for sale, he'll live out the rest of his life there with a female They also have a huge tank with about 5 massive plecs in, no doubt bought from pets at home by people with 5 gal tanks and then passed on to them.

I also recall one time in pets at home I was looking at all the fish and noticed one of the tanks with a bunch of black moors in, a few of the fish had white spot I also witnessed someone being sold a fish out of that tank and then a few days later all the tanks were labelled saying "not for sale, undergoing treatment" I wonder if that person got a refund or free treatment or anything?

I think you find most lfs have a faily equal ratio of stupid employees to customers, only a rare few have good employees and / or good customers. Such a shame, I think every fish shop should have some sort of large poster type thing telling people all about tank size, community fish, the nitrogen cycle etc. Then people could have a good read, see what size tank they can afford and what sort of fish to put in it.

 

[The-Wolf]

Although I agree the customer sounded like a prize pratt, I think you could have handled it better. Perhaps asking the questions before you bagged the fish?

I had no need to ask the questions, the customer is a regular and I sold him his Rio300 at my old job.

I also think that we should be trying to educate folks, not scare them away. No doubt, as he said, he'll go to PAH and not get any decent advice now, purely because of your hostile reaction. It's one thing being "polite" but if all you can say is "I'm not selling you any fish", rather than how he should go about it - how's he supposed to learn? He'll only go on to make the same mistakes, just with different shops. And you've lost someone who could have become a valuable customer and maybe become a good fishkeeper.

Trust me, this customer dosn't want to be 'educated'

He may not have been a class A idiot. He might just not have known any better. And now he wont, because he was scared off by a (dont be angry with me please) slightly holier than thou attitude

he knows better, I and my collegues have told him time and time again.
no need to worry Lisa, I don't get angry
heindsight is always 20/20 and of course we can all handle situations better after the event.
pont noted and will try to adapt for 'next time'

How does it snowing outside effect the fish in the bags??? were you not inside at the time???

Although the fish room is well insulated and quite warm on cold days, the till area (where we put bags whilst getting other fish) is not.
in fact there is a huge difference between the two rooms.

 

[timmystood]

I think you find most lfs have a faily equal ratio of stupid employees to customers, only a rare few have good employees and / or good customers.

Now hold on! We try out best... you can't expect us to know everything.. it's just likely that you ask a question they don't know and hence... come across as an idiot.

 

[fenwoman]

Customer; yes I have a touch of white spot on my clown loaches, what do you recomend?
Me; is this a different tank?
Customer; No I only have one tank?
Me; I'm sorry, I'm not selling you fish to put into a tank that is diseased, especially not neons.
(with that I unbag the fish in front of him)


See to be honest this was the cause of the hostilities, if you had been a little politer (everyone makes mistakes, he was asking you about the disease, maybe he didnt know much about it?)

Unbagging fish infront of a customer, after reacting so strongly? no wonder he got the hum. Should have attempted to 'educate' him, rather than been so forward. You are after all the employee, he is the customer.

I personally (had I been so stupid a fish keeper) would have complained to the manager.

--- Sorry, I realise this may sound harsh, but I've had a few bad experiences with my local Pets at Home (trying to tell them that the reson their fish were gasping last summer is because their huge bank of tanks gets full sunn all day...) telling a staff member I wasnt going to buy fish until he had removed the dead fish fom the other tanks etc. [which he couldnt be arsed to do 'thats not on my rota']). So being the customer can be equally annoying.

Well what should he have done or said? I would have done exactly the same thing. Should he have said "I am so sorry for your misfortune. Please take these fish, and I look forward to seeing you again in the future " (coming back to buy more once this lot have died)
Sometimes it seems people try to be inoffensive almost to the point of grovelling. People who have done no research should be educated of course, but why is it that the customer like this expects to be fed spoon fed the info instead of doing the research themselves? All boils down to the 'blame' culture we live in today where nobody is ever personally to blame. A customer does no research, then buys a widget (fish, car, washing machine, puppy) then when it all goes wrong, the person blames the seller for not giving them the information they should have got before going out and buying.

 

[fenwoman]

Although I agree the customer sounded like a prize pratt, I think you could have handled it better. Perhaps asking the questions before you bagged the fish? Therefore saving them the stress of getting them out, only to be put back in again.

I also think that we should be trying to educate folks, not scare them away. No doubt, as he said, he'll go to PAH and not get any decent advice now, purely because of your hostile reaction. It's one thing being "polite" but if all you can say is "I'm not selling you any fish", rather than how he should go about it - how's he supposed to learn? He'll only go on to make the same mistakes, just with different shops. And you've lost someone who could have become a valuable customer and maybe become a good fishkeeper.

He may not have been a class A idiot. He might just not have known any better. And now he wont, because he was scared off by a (dont be angry with me please) slightly holier than thou attitude

But Lisa, the customer didn't mention whitespot before he chose the fish. It was an afterthought. Personally , if I went to a lfs and they started asking me loads of questions like "do you have whitespot or any other disease, what are the water parameters, how long do you have the light on, etc" I would get annoyed.
Perhaps there should be a form to fill out and boxes to tick before getting to buy fish? Give each customer a questionnaire to fill in to see if they are suitable to buy fish?
I can see both sides of the coin here after my less than good experience last week, but on the other hand, should a lfs keep his mouth shut, or start making enquiries about the customer's fitness to buy fish?
Personally I think the OP did the right thing.

 

[Kuhni]

Hrrmmm... how does a thread talking about experiences of an Fish Store employee bout bad customers suddenly turn into another hate thread about fish stores.. Personally I think every one of these threads should be Closed. They just
create argument.

 

[Azaezl]

I think you find most lfs have a faily equal ratio of stupid employees to customers, only a rare few have good employees and / or good customers.

Now hold on! We try out best... you can't expect us to know everything.. it's just likely that you ask a question they don't know and hence... come across as an idiot.

I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying, what I meant was employees who don't know anything / customers who don't know anything. Plus this is just my personal experience of pet shops I've been in(which is only 20 or so), out of all the shops I've been in most have only had 1 person who's known what they were doing(so if they aren't in, people can't get ANY advice) and the majority of customers are clueless.

I don't expect someone to know the answers to all my questions but basic "how big will it grow?" "what does it eat?" etc, you should be able to get some basic information not the in's and out's of every fish, hence my suggestion of some sort of poster chart and basic informative labels on the tanks stating max size, aggressiveness, etc.

I'm sorry if I've offended you or anyone else who works in a fish shop, but this is just my opinion from my own experiences(and my dad's as he's been into fish for years)

 

[Azaezl]

Perhaps there should be a form to fill out and boxes to tick before getting to buy fish? Give each customer a questionnaire to fill in to see if they are suitable to buy fish?
I can see both sides of the coin here after my less than good experience last week, but on the other hand, should a lfs keep his mouth shut, or start making enquiries about the customer's fitness to buy fish?

This is also a good idea, if some large chart or poster or something could be made then it would stop all the bad experiences for both employee and customer. If you could look at a chart see that a juwel 180(for example) could hold 10 of these size fish or 5 of this size fish. Explains that you should cycle before getting fish and have test kits etc all ready before getting the fish. If all the fish tanks had labels on something like max.size = 5inches, food = omnivore; flakes, bloodworms,etc compatabillity = semi-aggresive (a bit like tropicalfish4u's website with the little boxes) it would save so much time. Then a total newbie(or inexperienced employee) could be slightly informed and not make any / as many bad decisions stocking a tank.

 

[LisaLQ]

Aaaah Wolf, you didn't say you knew him and had told him time and time again (or did you? god my memory's crap) - had I known that I would have agreed with you straight out - the guys a plank.

In that case, your attitude was justified, I'd have probably added a few "numpty"s, choice swear words and a slap upside the head...lol.

 

[efish]

This is also a good idea, if some large chart or poster or something could be made then it would stop all the bad experiences for both employee and customer. If you could look at a chart see that a juwel 180(for example) could hold 10 of these size fish or 5 of this size fish. Explains that you should cycle before getting fish and have test kits etc all ready before getting the fish. If all the fish tanks had labels on something like max.size = 5inches, food = omnivore; flakes, bloodworms,etc compatabillity = semi-aggresive (a bit like tropicalfish4u's website with the little boxes) it would save so much time. Then a total newbie(or inexperienced employee) could be slightly informed and not make any / as many bad decisions stocking a tank.
[/quote]

thank you we try to help, i feel for shop workers people just get excited, since weve been selling marine fish ive had to call every customer who has bought both tropical freshwater and marine to check they have both tanks, about 50% of people just want a nemo fish and dont realise.

 

[nurglespuss]

He should have said 'Whitespot is a highly contagious disease, I am sorry but I can't sell you these fish at the moment, please come with me and I will help you choose the right medication, and then once everythings cleared up please come back and you can have your fish, though I do advise stocking them a little more slowly even in a mature tank'.

I think that would have done it, whether he knew the guy or not.

Be polite, and informative, its your job.

But yeah as Lisa said, should have said you knew him, and elaborated a little more.

I stand by my original comments.