Rip your local chain pet store

[Ticklemekevin10]

Just had a tangent in another thread about the subject so I thought I'd post a thread for other to do the same!

Please keep within the rules I don't wanna get in trouble haha

[mermaidwannabe]

I was in one whose employee, when netting fish out of their tank for me, dropped those fish from the net into the transfer bag from about six inches above it instead of gently lowering the net into the water in the bag and letting them swim out, which is the proper way. Even though he filled the bag with oxygen, all the fish traumatized and never made it home. They included minnows and small goldfish which, at the time, I was going to use to populate my outdoor pond.

This was at the very beginning of my recently renewed fishkeeping, and I was busy choosing the fish I wanted him to net out for me, and really wasn't paying attention to how he was treating them. Hubby was with me, and he sure noticed!

I have since e-mailed this company about it, and they did respond, apologizing, and hopefully they'll train their staff better.

That was the first and last time I've ever bought fish there. It was one of those well-known pet chain stores whose people you have to hunt down in order to get any help.

-- mermaidwannabe

[johndoe222]

I was at one whose employees new nothing about shrimp. Iasked how many ghost shrimp I could put in a 5g and they told me 4 at the max. Then they went and said that they wouldn't eat algea even if it were algea waffers. I now have about 20 shrimp and the love there algea waffers.

[candice&jeff]

I was at our local wal-mart once and the guy was telling another shopper that ghost shrimp would eat her betta! He said they are called ghost shrimp because they are aggressive and will attack and kill your fish! I politely told him he was wrong and that her betta would probally love the shrimp for dinner! LOL

[skullduggery1]

I was standing at one of these stores and was listening to a employee tell a customer that iridescent sharks only get 8 inches and pacu's 12 inches.Also that pacu were completely herbivores and would not eat there fish.I naturally had to say otherways.

[Xavier]

I went to the HQ of the biggest chain in my town, Nature Pet store, to see their ranchus/lionheads. They had 3 tiny 1 month old deformed lionheads. Every tank contained dead, dying, or deformed fish (missing eyes, gill covers, etc.)

Even a large tank with 3 blood parrots, had one of them gasping at the surface being picked at by the other 2. I looked at the snails since I wanted to try a large one in the GF tank, but found that all the snails were dead... all of them... sticking out of the shells, or just gone.

[Trillianne]

In my area its like oppositeland from what so many people here report the big box chains are actually more enjoyable to go to than the local lfs.

So long as you go in with the understanding that the majority of their people are not very fish educated and know what you want... they do have good stock and they are friendly and helpful.

Meanwhile the lfs has a couple of grouches that work there, that don't want to assist customers in any way, and looks like they don't much care. I've also had them pretty much lie to me... and not a lie of them not knowing and giving wrong information.

Read on for the story...

My first pleco lasted only a few days so I took him back with my water sample. I explained how I'd acclimated him, and the store was busy so I was browsing the fish while they were doing the water test. I hear them discussing the phosphates test and the lady helping me telling the gentleman there that she thought it was exceptionally high and she'd personally not replace the pleco. The gentleman must have been a manager or in some authority and said he didn't believe that was an issue and to replace the pleco.

When I asked after she's telling me they will replace the fish if they found anything with my water for me to be concerned about "Nope. Looked fine." Not a WORD about anything testing high.

Obviously I went home and read up on how the phosphates can affect my tank and I agree that they were likely not the issue that caused the death of the pleco. But to have her say "Nope. Looked fine." after arguing that she wouldn't replace my fish because of it... that's a LIE. A more truthful statement would have been "well nothing that should have caused your fish to die, but your phosphates seemed a little high."

Needless to say its more inconvenient to call ahead and then drive further to buy fish, but its worth every cent imo.

[roxy314]

LOL. I work at a well known pet store and from experience it all comes down to the worker themselves some places train their emloyees better some don't at all. I go out of my way daliy to help people, to get them the right answers if i don't know. Also i try to learn as
much as i can which is part of the reason I'm on this site u just have to find that one store that actually cares weather its a bigbchain store or not

[roxy314]

And one more thing nothing will change if u do nothing about it. Meaning service will not improve unless companies are advised of poor customer service/knowledge of employees.

[KatzeSlaugen]

i have two local stores i frequent. both are pretty great and i have actually heard them refuse sales to customers (and theyre big-box stores) the one has problems from time to time with dead fish, and the employees are occasionally rude, but they have a large selections of tanks, and food so i go there when i need that.

my other store has a lot of good employees and i cant remember the last time i saw dead fish in any of their tanks, i have nothing but good things to say about that location.

now a store thats about 30min drive from me (same big-box as the one with next to no dead fish) is a sh!thole. dead and diseased fish everywhere, horribly rude employees, have made many complaints about the health of their animals and lack of employee knowledge. all i have ever gotten back is that their health and knowledge is satisfactory.....sure it is...

[Lady Hobbs]

And one more thing nothing will change if u do nothing about it. Meaning service will not improve unless companies are advised of poor customer service/knowledge of employees.

Exactly. It does nothing to complain here if you don't speak to the management there.

[Ticklemekevin10]

Good stuff in hear! I dont want to offend any of you that work at a chain and I know not all are bad. The reason I started this thread was cause the last time I went to ***co they had firemouth, convict, and some different African cichlids all in the same tank and that annoyed me! Surprisingly there were dead fish in that particular tank but I'm sure it's not too far off. And I've bought 2 pleco there in different occasions and both died within a couple days and I checked my water conditions and they almost perfect.

Like I said there are good ones but they are few far in between. There one specific guy and a certain store that I trust an that's it

[Lady Hobbs]

I was also at the fish store today and saw firemouths with africans. Since this will not be permanent for them and sharing a tank for a few days, they are fine for now. Stores may have 50 tanks and carry 200 species. They have to put them somewhere, right?

Fish that die after you get them home is another whole different story.

[Ticklemekevin10]

What's your story on that lady Hobbs? Haha

[CassieLEO]

When I went to a chain animal supply store, I noticed that a tank full of plants I wanted also held a tank full of bala sharks with Ick on them. I then said to the sales lady that its too bad the fish are so sick and have ick because I wanted some of the plants that were in there. She then said that it was ok, only fish get ick and the plants cant carry ick into my tank. Well, I explained to her about Ick and she didnt seem the least bit concerned and left me there to go do something else. Ugh...

[Excellence]

Something dodgy was sold to me. I see no point in sharing the experience. Will telling people make me feel better? He's simply lost my business forever. I'm not going to slander him or his place here. He still needs a livelihood.

[dragoonwoman]

Something dodgy was sold to me. I see no point in sharing the experience. Will telling people make me feel better? He's simply lost my business forever. I'm not going to slander him or his place here. He still needs a livelihood.

Did you tell him about the "dodgy" something? He may have made an honest mistake.

Agreed that slamming stores isn't terribly productive. I've had cause to complain, but it's been to the management of the big box company. The 2 times I've done it, I got a response in less than 24 hours. I gave detailed reasons for my complaint and I was politely thanked. And I DID see a change the next time I went into that store.

The only time it was a problem was with the actual OWNER of a non-chain lfs. His staff were wonderful, but he was a total PITA. I don't go there any more. He has nothing I need, and I know of a much better lfs that's a 40-year-old family business. It's not as convenient to get to but it's worth the effort.

[Ticklemekevin10]

Very true. Suppose I was just bored. You can always leave out names as well. No one needs to know what store it actually was.

[Scrup]

I was told by one of box store employees once that my PH was way too high for mollies. He was surprised anything was living in the tank with a PH of 8. Not only was the "suggestion" of adding a ton of PH down into my tank (285 gallons total. Thats like an entire bottle a week) not a good idea, his reading was wrong, and, well, mollies do just fine in hard water.

I have a few LFS I have some grudges against. One of them sells live feeder mice and rats, they are kept in a pitch black room and terribly neglected and overcrowded (2-30 in a 20g tank, the tanks get cleaned once a week, if they remember). Overheard the employees talking about why half of them died. They forgot to give them water for a week. Good stuff.

The other LFS I go to have a few employees that just rub me the wrong way. An example- I asked about the group pricing that they do, and the guy I asked, turned to another employee and told him to tell me blah blah blah(insert long angry explanation here). He was right in front of me, I was talking to HIM, but he was too busy to answer me. I poked in "I'm standing right here..." he rolled his eyes and went on yelling at his co-worker.


But, those are the only options around here, and they do have a few awesome employees that really do love their fish, and I mean they ADORE them, but definitely some bad apples in the bunch.




Something dodgy was sold to me. I see no point in sharing the experience. Will telling people make me feel better? He's simply lost my business forever. I'm not going to slander him or his place here. He still needs a livelihood.

1- Its libel, not slander. Or you can classify it as defamation.
2- It is not defamation if it is the truth. No harm can come of posting an honest review, unless you live in Greece.
3-If his livelyhood is based off of dodgy sales, you are only perpetuating the cycle by not informing fellow consumers. Just my take on it.:ssmile:

[Sursion]

Some woman (who looked drug addicted, mind you) told me straight to my face that "Elephant Nose fish have no electrical current what-so-ever. No fish do."

Argh. All I could do was facepalm.

[Ticklemekevin10]

Thank you scrup! Everyone else is getting defensive on this thread. It's not like a little ol thread on an aquarium forum is gonna make any pet store lose their "livelihood"! The way I see it is if you don't wanna share then don't post, right? I agree it would be more productive to let that store know but can't I do both. Eh some people on here are just too on defensive side.

[Jacko]

I'm not offended at this thread, but thought that I should point some things out that alot of people don't seem to realize...
I'll be the first to say that I hate alot of what goes on in fish stores, I hate alot of the things my coworkers do but you can't control them. But you have to keep in mind that alot of times it's no fault of the employee that things are how they are.

Rude employees? After 5 hours of answering stupid questions, being ignored by customers because they think they know better than you, getting chewed out by crazy people and getting paid minimum wage for all this... it's really hard to continue caring what people do with their tanks for the last 3 hours. Half the time I'd rather grab your balding head and bash it into a tank repeatedly then answer the question "Can nemo live with my goldfish?" that you ask once a week when you come in for a new goldfish. You get in my face about how something is being done, yeah I'm gonna be rude to you... be polite about it and I wont.
impolite: yelling that you see a dead fish when I'm busy helping a customer
polite: waiting til I'm done with that customer and tell me
impolite: telling me I charge too much for a canister filter when they can get it online for 20 bucks less
polite: shutting up and buying the stupid thing online, you don't need to point it out... if you want one get the cheap one you found online, if you don't want one then why even bring it up?

Sick fish? It happens... you have hundreds of fish coming in 3 times a week you can't be sure that they're all healthy, if you see noticable disease obviously you remove them and don't put them in a tank with healthy fish, but you can't just destroy them, you put them in an empty tank and treat them. So that's another sick tank... expect at least 3 or 4 bags per order to be noticeably sick, you're looking at about a dozen sick tanks a week through no fault of your own, but it's held against you. And that's not counting the fish that come in that you don't notice anything wrong with. Obviously they aren't for sale and when you write what you're treating and a big NFS on the tank in sharpie you'd think people would realize it's being taken care of, but everyone likes to point out to you that the fish are sick. No **** sherlock?

Dead fish? Fish die, they just do... about 20% of any new shipment that comes into our place is dead 3 days later whether its disease or stress or something else entirely. That means we've got alot of dead fish on our hands, we take out the ones we find but when you've got dozens of tasks to do at once you can't spend the 3 minutes staring in a tank to spot the dead neon tetra wedged in a plant like a customer can.

Just my thoughts...

[Scrup]

Rude employees? After 5 hours of answering stupid questions, being ignored by customers because they think they know better than you, getting chewed out by crazy people and getting paid minimum wage for all this... it's really hard to continue caring what people do with their tanks for the last 3 hours. Half the time I'd rather grab your balding head and bash it into a tank repeatedly then answer the question "Can nemo live with my goldfish?" that you ask once a week when you come in for a new goldfish. You get in my face about how something is being done, yeah I'm gonna be rude to you... be polite about it and I wont.


Perhaps retail / customer service is not your true calling? Wanting to bash someones head in for asking a question is a sign that maybe you should look for another job, one where you don't deal with people as much.

[m1aman]

I bet the fish store employees have just as many "stories" about you guys as you do about them. :hmm3grin2orange:

[Ticklemekevin10]

Probably more haha And it's not me. I Keep to myself at the fish store

[MCools]

Honestly, it is a truly amazing person who can work in your average retail store on a full time basis and not want to kill people by the end of the week. I spent over 6 years in various retail stores and another 6 in customer service. I know from experience.

Thankfully, I've never worked in a fish/pet store. I wouldn't have the heart to sell to a LOT of people. I have gotten tons of bad advice from my LFS, but I try not to hold it against them. They spend their day listening to stupid people asking stupid questions- knowing full well these people won't act on the advice given. I don't ask them for advice, and when they give it I listen politely. If I don't agree, well, that's why I'm here.

[Sandz]

A fish store is a service industry... period... that being said, to have agrivation by the same numb skull that asks unedjucated questions repeatedly is understandable as well. To take it out on any unedjucated person though is not understandable. I would assume 90% of people who own fish in this world are drastically unedjucated about the animal they own and sites like this fight the good fight to edjucate and enhance the experience for both animal and owner.

An employee that concents to working for minimum wage to work around animals should care enough to answer and edjucate the less informed when they are asked these stupid questions if not for the person, for the betterment of the animals. If they are rude... well you are getting paid to service these individuals no matter their take on you, your store or the price of your equipment. If they are that bad that the store refuses service, that is their right but lashing out by mouth or hand doesn't belong in a work place. You'd think someone working there would either be numb to it or not be there right?

I work with car loans and deal with the same 600+ people a month. Every single time I speak to them I have to let someone know there isnt a grace period and about interest and blah blah blah blah blah. Its the same talk every call and it gets redundant. Should people know what they are getting into when they buy a car worth 10k+? YES... Do they? RARELY... same goes with pet ownership. If you want to physically hurt someone or feel the need to be rude to an unedjucated person asking questions to better understand what they dont know, I hear Taco Bell is hiring... and they pay above min wage.

DISCLAIMER: :14: :14: :14: Jacko this is not an attack at you in any way but being as you have the contrarian side of this I am using your examples as backing for my statements.

[Jacko]

Perhaps retail / customer service is not your true calling? Wanting to bash someones head in for asking a question is a sign that maybe you should look for another job, one where you don't deal with people as much.
Yeah, maybe... but you deal with the creepy dude that follows you around the store every monday for 3 hours, rubs you wierd and asks stupid questions and we'll see how you put up with it? If you don't feel the urge to curb stomp the guy then hallelujah for you man, you must be a saint.

I like how you skirted around the rest of what I said and just attacked me personally Scrup. Real good of you man.

[CassieLEO]

I couldnt agree more with you Jacko. People just dont listen and it is so exhausting to deal with people day in and day out and deal with all the bull. I really love this site for all the info on it, which is the only reason I stay on it, not for some peoples lovely attitudes that they give other people....

[m1aman]

Having worked briefly in sales many years ago I must say I understand to urge tell some customers what you think of them...


But, there is no excuse for sales staff giving out the wrong info on purpose. If you don't know something, just say so. No shame in that. No need to make something up.

[Lab_Rat]

I have to say, I don't understand the point of this thread. Chain stores such as Petsmart have made leaps and bounds in improving fish care, quality of fish, and variety of fish they carry in the past decade. Is it perfect? No. Are they improving? Most definitely.

What I see in this thread is a lot of ignorance and a lot of holier-than-thou attitudes. I doubt many have been in this hobby long enough to see the vast improvements made. Petsmart needs to be commended for the efforts they have made; they have listened and made improvements.

Dropping a fish from 6" above water into a container will not kill it...I had a plec dropped from 6' (jumped out of the net when the LFS guy was trying to bag it up), landed on the ground, guy picked it up and it was fine. Now plecs are pretty bullet proof, but still, I've dropped fish into buckets of water from further than 6" and never had a death.

And Jacko, excellent post! I wish all LFS employees had your knowledge and experience.

[CassieLEO]

I agree with you about Petsmart. I go there over any other pet store any day. The one LFS near me has extremely young small fish and a lot of their fish tanks are on hold for illness. I like that while Petsmart doesn thave a huge selection, they are pretty healthy fish. Ive never had a bad fish from them, and the people there are very helpful. I am very impressed by them. thumbs2:

[Jacko]

Thank you Labby!
I have never, nor will ever lash out at a customer for not knowing something. Alot of times I'll want to and the customers I would like to lash out at are the ones that frequent all the time, at least on a weekly basis and ask the same questions every time expecting different answers and ignoring the answers they are given. It's not like I'm actually planning on bashing the guys head into a tank, but can't I think about doing it while answering the question politely for the 548th time?

I'm perfectly happy helping out people that haven't got a clue what they're doing, who ask stupid questions, who've killed off entired tankloads of fish because they cleaned everything with soap... it's when they don't learn, they don't listen and they don't care... that's when I stop trying, when I stop caring.

The guy who comes back the next week mad at me because I said not to use soap and his fish still died when he cleaned the tank again... why? Because he used an all purpose cleaner? that might be it. can I not think of the guy as a retard after I went through a speech on harmful chemicals to fish? The kid with a single fancy goldfish in his 46 gallon bowfront and a dozen assorted africans in a 10 gallon, who's mad cuz he keeps losing africans. Won't switch them around because Squishy is his favorite fish. Or the guy that keeps buying pacu at petco for 2.99 and bringing them into our store and wanting 10 bucks because he says it's a rare pirahna? He's been in 3 times in the last week trying to sell to different employees... The mother and daughter I told nemo couldn't live in a bowl? They said they understood and I walk by later and one of my coworkers is bagging up the smallest percula for them. I was nice when they were in 4 hours later, but after 30 minutes of talking to them telling me nobody told them he wouldn't live in a bowl you eventually just have to tell them no, and alot of people find that rude. They said I was rude to refuse to refund or swap the fish. Is that reasonable in the slightest?

FYI: I'm not trying to say I want to go on a killing rampage and iradicate the world of all clueless people! All I'm trying to get across is that alot of times the reasons that people get upset with a fish store employee it isn't the employees fault.

[Lab_Rat]

I was at our local wal-mart once and the guy was telling another shopper that ghost shrimp would eat her betta! He said they are called ghost shrimp because they are aggressive and will attack and kill your fish! I politely told him he was wrong and that her betta would probally love the shrimp for dinner! LOL

There are many species of shrimp referred to as ghost shrimp. Some are very aggressive, especially Macrobrachium species. Some are brackish reproduction only, others can reproduce in fw (all the ones I've encountered are brackish repro).

An example from my own tank of how aggressive a ghost shrimp can be is here:
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p316/ambell16/033108001.jpg

That ghost shrimp actually hunted down the other ghost shrimp, chased him through the tank to catch him and was eating him alive. I do not doubt that shrimp could and would eat a small fish.

Another example (from a thread long ago on another forum) of what was supposedly a ghost shrimp that hunted down and ate a tiger barb:
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/6155/shrimphelprx8.jpg

[CassieLEO]

Wow!!! I didnt know Ghost Shrimp could be agressive like that!!!

[Xavier]

Except for lazy employees, i.e. the ones that stand around for 20-30 mins talking to other employees while you stand waiting to ask a simple question, I rarely have any issues with them. Sure some are uninformed or a bit slapdash with the information they do have, but for the most part, this isn't my problem with the stores I frequent.

My issue is with the quality of their stock. Perhaps they hate it as much as I do that their supplier is screwing them over. At least once a week I visit a pet store, whether it is a specialist store or a big chain, and never do I find quality fish. When the fish looks to be of good stock, it is sick, making it a risk to my tank.

This is not to say that I don't have options, it is just that they are expensive options. I can order special breeds online, but this will be to the tune of 100$+, then shipping, plus a trip across the border to avoid massive customs fees and to avoid delays. This is for show quality grade fish, whereas all I really want are healthy fish...

Who is to blame? The store could pay more and charge more for quality fish, or it could continue to pay nearly nothing for underage culled fish and sell them for less, but at higher volume. At the moment the dozen or so stores I've visited have opted for the volume option, and since I don't plan on purchasing dozens and dozens of fish, there is no incentive for them to change.

So week in and week out I go into the stores and hope to find a nice ranchu or lionhead or even a decent oranda... I'm sure I can find it, but when I do, it is too late, and it is suffering from a bladder issue... did it arrive at the store that way, or did the stores employees fail to treat it with the care it required? I don't know, and I don't care... I just want my fish.

[Sursion]

Chain stores such as Petsmart have made leaps and bounds in improving fish care, quality of fish, and variety of fish they carry in the past decade.

Why are all the tanks at my Petsmart crammed with dead fish?

[Lab_Rat]

How am I supposed to know the answer to that? The Petsmarts around me are not, they are regularly maintained, it's rare to see a dead fish. Crammed with dead fish sounds like a total exaggeration. A dead fish here or there is not crammed.

[Trillianne]

Honestly I think the majority issue of people have with chain store employees is that they get information passed down to them and don't know much better. Unless they are assigned to the fish department and know how to care for every single type of fish they carry it can be whatever they heard from someone else.

Its like the inch per gallon rule... if that was all you had heard on fish stocking and someone asked how many 2" feeder comets went in a 20G tank you might think "oh well then up to 10." Obviously someone who has done some research will know that is not correct stocking, but that doesn't mean the rep is maliciously lying to you because they are just a big fat liar liar pants on fire type... they are just naive.

I'd rather have naive nice people that want to help me and do my OWN research for my OWN pet than deal with grouches that clearly don't want to help you.

[Ticklemekevin10]

Sorry I opened this thread! Did realize it would cause everyone to fight. Maybe I should think before I do every once in awhile haha.

I have notice that petsmart has gotten much better and I ready have no issue there. There are actually quite a few very helpful and knowledgable people there. Petco are the ones I'm a little disappointed with...atleast here

[Jacko]

Sorry I opened this thread! Did realize it would cause everyone to fight. Maybe I should think before I do every once in awhile haha.

We're not fighting, we're having a discussion. :hmm3grin2orange: There are people here who feel strongly about certain things is all.

[Michael Milligan]

Perhaps retail / customer service is not your true calling?

Not really many people's "true calling". Trust me! lol. I used to work in a garden centre.

Funny thing about hobbyist (gardeners, fish keepers, model ship builders, whatever) is that they seem to expect that everyone involved with the entire supply line is just as keen on whatever the hobby is as they are. Lots of people just working jobs. They're allowed to do that. Not everyone in the garment industry are aspiring designers. Not everyone in who sells TVs is an electrical engineer. And not everyone who who puts a $.99 fish in a bag is a marine biology.

"But wait!," I can hear people saying, "they should know what they are talking about if they are selling something!". Firstly, "should" is the realm of theology, not fish keeping. Secondly, it takes time to learn these things, and I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a bunch of minimum wage workers to put all their own time into researching OUR hobby, not theirs.

The single most common advice, and frankly the best advice too, is don't listen to people a the LFS. Then why a whole thread devoted to listening to people at the LFS?

Our scaly pets have all the thoughts and dreams of the all other critters we feed to them. None.

[Excellence]

To answer a couple people who asked what happened...

I just upgraded my tank from a local store I've patroned for years. I expressly asked brandnew tank and cabinet. He gave me a cabinet that was clearly second hand with rusted screws and fittings. When I went to the store he said he'd order new fittings. Returned next, they were the same, he just polished the door handle. Not putting hundreds of kilos on that despite his assurance.

I could have made an issue in front of the customers, and his blushed his face red. Am I that sort of person?

The swine gave me so much aggravation, it took nearly 3 months to find a store somewhere in the country to kindly order the parts for me. So many stores didn't even bother returning my inquiry. No wonder Aust has a business reputation in front of the world. The Simpsons "Aussie" episode made fun of us.

When I assembled the cabinet, the screw holes weren't aligned well. I splintered the beam trying to get them in. I had to spend $200 on a new cabinet, from another store. The kind lady not only got me it Road Runner fast, the screw holes were correctly made in the wooden planks. I could see why I had so much trouble first time.

I won't lose if I take the swine to Consumer Claims, if he made an issue of it. I simply didn't want to waste my time over this. So he stuffed me around, and I leave it to G-d to do my justice. Everyone accounts for their actions, one way or another.

My tank is now assembled, the fish are happy with the extra room, and now that I want my Rams the stores are not only out of stock, but took it off the ordering list. Irony.

But did the Thunderbirds give up when the going got hard? No. They moved their strings and walked forward. As human, can I do no less?

[Australian natives]

i went into my least favorite one recently and peered into one of the discus tanks and noticed that they all were swimming about awkwardly with bulging eyes and sores on their body. and it said "B grade discus" 30 bucks. so i asked, your not still selling those are you?

"yeah, why not?"
"well they look pretty raucous if u ask me, they are clearly sick"
"nah they have always been like that."
"riiiigggghhhht... good luck then."

also i think that if you are offended by this post then u deserve to be =P. i think it is targeting those employee's who do not know what they are doing. and fair enough they just work their, but it is not exactly hard to do your research. i work in a bar, and take the time to learn the names and ingredients in the drinks and what not, knowledge is part of their job.

that being said. lots of chain stores have greatly improved. all but one o the ones near me are great =]. one even has all their bettas in filtered tanks! =P. the one i noted in the post was good but they fired their knowledgeable employee and hired some clueless bloke. who has NO idea.

[MCools]

Excellence, I'm happy to hear you got your stand situation under control! I remember reading that thread when you were trying to fix that used one you got stuck with.

Good luck finding the fish you want, I'm sure you'll find them!

[Ticklemekevin10]

I bartended for years and that is pretty much your job... Knowledge and good customer. The knowledge isn't even as important as the customer service. Customer is always right and always have a smile. Even if you hate that person or know they don't tip worth a darn etc!

[Michael Milligan]

Customer is always right...

HELL NO! but they DO tend to get there way! lol

[Ticklemekevin10]

I know their not always right. About the opposite haha but you have to let them think they are right

[dragoonwoman]

can best be deescribed as a tap-dance on eggs. If you're careful, there's nothing to clean up afterwards.

If not....:14:

I have worked in retail as seasonal help and in a call center for a large health insurance company. There were days when I REALLY wanted to "reach out and touch someone" but I needed the money more than the temporary satisfaction of telling someone off.

Venting here is MUCH safer, and your boss will never know.

[Stlouisfish]

Now that I've read through everyone else's postings, I'll add my own about Petsmart. The 1 near my home has a guy who tried selling me a whole tank full of neon tetras because I guess I have a larger tank than most customers he deals with (46G bowed) - I politely told him I wanted more variety & took 6as well as 2 corys (which he recommended). The next week I went to another store close to where I work. I hadn't really done too much research at that point and just wanted more fish and grabbed 3 pairs of fish which I found out later 2 of them require schools.

I blame myself for not knowing this ahead of time because I would have taken more of one type and left the others behind, but the employee there didn't exactly tell me this (and she herself told me how much she likes zebra danios) and the sign "schooling fish" wasn't next to their tanks. So, while I can understand complaints about employee attitudes/lack of service, it's a fish owner's responsibility to do research on their own because you can't completely rely upon someone else's opinion unless they have personal experience with a fish. This also helps a person to be more assertive about what is recommended to them as well.

[Scrup]

And it is not the ignorant employees that irritate me, it is the ones who pretend to know what they are talking about. There is a difference between "I don't know" Which I view as an acceptable answer if you do not really know, and "Well, you see how the gourami and the oscar look similar? They will get along great, but beacuse they are so similar, they might breed and have lots of babies!"

A good method I started using is asking the person a question I know the answer to, like-
is there any way to treat ich without using medicine?
will this cichlid and that cichlid get along? (I usually use an african and either an angelfish or a discus)
And the classic - How does the filter work?

[Lady Hobbs]

I really see no point in a thread that continues to slam stores. Seeing their names ripped here, to me, leaves AC open to libel lawsuits especially now that names of stores are being mentioned.

We are all old enough that a store in your area that isn't so great may just be awesome at another location. You may mention a store, for instance, PetSmart. Some are cooperate owned and some are owned by private franchises. Each store is only as good as the management that runs it and they can not be lumped together.

You see often newbies will buy fish, get them home and they die in 2 days and the first thing they do is blame the store instead of considering their tank may not be cycled properly, fish were not acclimated properly or something else might be going on with the tank.

I simply think this thread is a bad idea and my first thought 3 days ago when I first saw it was to close it but I let it go. Now I can see it should have been closed from the beginning so am doing so now.

It serves no purpose and AC doesn't need to stick their head in a noose because someone is unhappy with where they shop.