What its like to work at PETCO! Just another day's work...

T

tyrantt23

AC Members
Mar 7, 2007
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Bay Area, CA
High school aged girl along with her b/f, crush, or whatever says she needs help picking out a fish. My internal alarm starts flashing, so I casually ask what size tank she has as we're walking toward the aquatics section...

girl:
Oh, a bowl about this big... (makes hand gestures mimicking a gallon-sized bowl)

me:
I'm sorry, all of the fish on this section (I pointed to all the aquariums) require a larger aquarium with a heater, filter, and all of that. If you really are looking for a fish, we have some bettas thatwould be able to live in a bowl like that.

girl makes a bad face, then asks:
How about these? (points to fancy goldfish)

me:
those also need a filter, and they actually get really big, so you can't put them on a vase.

girl:
but a friend of mine had it on a vase, and it stayed alive for............. 2 or 3 months....

me, completing her sentence:
and then it died?

girl:
yeah, but its because some people put stuff inside the bowl.

me:
well, those fish get really big, I'm sorry, I can't sell one to you if you only have a vase. It would die really quick.

girl makes an attitude-type face:
well, I still want one.

me:
uhh... no.




Seriously, some customers are such hard-heads. Sometimes I even avoid asking them how big their tank is, or if they have filter, cycled tank etc. Its a lot easier to just bag whatever they ask for then trying to figure out how little they know about fishes and then trying to convince then that they're retards. *sigh*

On the brighter side, a lady came in with her kids wanting a tropical fish. She had a 2 gallon plastic tank on hand, and knew nothing about aquatics, so introduced her to bettas, explained everything from feeding, to water changes, blah blah blah. Granted, the betta isn't gonna be living in a 10-gallon heated aquarium, but its bigger than a cup, he'll have some interaction, clean water, and good food. The lady and her kid got out of the store really happy with their new pet fish... its the little things that keep me sane! :)
 
I have certainly been asked by multiple sales people at Petco as to what size tank I have, what other fish are in my tank and other questions regarding proper fish care. In fact when I started this hobby I was refused the sale of fish due to a not yet cycled tank, so at least in the Petco I go to it seems to be protocol that the sales people are instructed to make the sale of live animals according to their own discretion. Correct me if I'm wrong Tyrantt, but I don't think the sales associates in Petco get in any kind of trouble not selling an animal to a potentially irresponsible customer.
 
It's such a touchy subject.
On one hand, it's a business and needs to make enough money to pay for your days work...

On the other..well..fishy moral decisions.
 
One could also argue that it's poor business sense to sell a customer a fish knowing that it, and possibly many more, will die. The result could be an unhappy customer. Since the customers that would experience this are likely those that are new and "uneducated" they may well be turned off of fish after a few bad experiences. Better off telling someone that you won't sell fish to them YET, and explain why (the most important part). Hopefully that will result in happy fish, a happy customer, and that leads to more and repeat customers.
 
necigrad said:
One could also argue that it's poor business sense to sell a customer a fish knowing that it, and possibly many more, will die. The result could be an unhappy customer. Since the customers that would experience this are likely those that are new and "uneducated" they may well be turned off of fish after a few bad experiences. Better off telling someone that you won't sell fish to them YET, and explain why (the most important part). Hopefully that will result in happy fish, a happy customer, and that leads to more and repeat customers.
Click to expand...

I see your point but on the other hand a lot of lfs count on your fish dying so as to sell you more. The death of a fish can be very easily blamed on the uneducated customers "mistakes" and will not ness. turn he/she off to the store
but might even possible motivate them to buy more.
 
boofish2 said:
I see your point but on the other hand a lot of lfs count on your fish dying so as to sell you more. The death of a fish can be very easily blamed on the uneducated customers "mistakes" and will not ness. turn he/she off to the store
but might even possible motivate them to buy more.
Click to expand...

you'd think theyd be motivated to learn a little and quit killing fish. :mad2:
 
boofish2 said:
I see your point but on the other hand a lot of lfs count on your fish dying so as to sell you more. The death of a fish can be very easily blamed on the uneducated customers "mistakes" and will not ness. turn he/she off to the store
but might even possible motivate them to buy more.
Click to expand...
exactly. and then they tell you to buy some cheap bacterial additive, aquarium salt (garbage), pH reducer/raiser/equalizer (more garbage), disease preventer, ammoina reducer, or some other type of uneccessary chemical or other additive to the tank.
 
When I worked in my LFS's fish department, I had quite the discussion with the owner about how to approach this type of situation. Basically what we agreed on is we are here to provide a service for the customer. We order a lot of fish and keep them alive until a customer wants to take them home. If someone came in like the first customer you described, I would politely explain to them the needs of the fish in question, and advise them against purchasing it until they have a proper setup, and explain it WILL die soon/eat your other fish/whatever. If they insisted they still wanted it, I'd sell it to them and stamp the recipt so we'd know not to give them a refund when it died. This seemed like a pretty decent strategy to me. You never **** off a customer so we got the sales and repeat visitors a business needs to survive, and it takes the moral responsibility off of our shoulders. The customer was educated and still wanted to kill a fish. But then a while after I started working there my paychecks started bouncing, so who knows:dance2:
 
ChicoRaton said:
When I worked in my LFS's fish department, I had quite the discussion with the owner about how to approach this type of situation. Basically what we agreed on is we are here to provide a service for the customer. We order a lot of fish and keep them alive until a customer wants to take them home. If someone came in like the first customer you described, I would politely explain to them the needs of the fish in question, and advise them against purchasing it until they have a proper setup, and explain it WILL die soon/eat your other fish/whatever. If they insisted they still wanted it, I'd sell it to them and stamp the recipt so we'd know not to give them a refund when it died. This seemed like a pretty decent strategy to me. You never **** off a customer so we got the sales and repeat visitors a business needs to survive, and it takes the moral responsibility off of our shoulders. The customer was educated and still wanted to kill a fish. But then a while after I started working there my paychecks started bouncing, so who knows:dance2:
Click to expand...

On the PETCO training, we were actually told to not sell animals to a customer if they didn't have the proper equipment to take care of it. Whether for fish, reptiles, etc. During training, they said its just in case there's an undercover PETA agent or something trying to get us in trouble for selling an animal to an irresponsible person, but I think it has more to do with that fact that if a person really wants that animal, they will buy the equipment, which means more pennies to PETCO's pocket. But anyway, I'm not worried about my manager getting onto me for refusing to sell a fish to someone because that's what they tell us to do on the training. The thing bothers me are hard-headed customers that just want a fish for the hell of it, even if it will live a miserable life... or those that don't know anything about fish, and once I start trying to explain them about the cycling, filter, etc, then start getting annoyed as if I was only trying to get them to spend money.

Anyway, at the end of the conversation with the girl, I was fed up, so I just said "no, I'm not selling you this fish because I know it will die soon... if you really want it, you can try to come another day, and another person working here in aquatics may not care if the fish dies." oh well.

I work again tomorrow, hopefully in the aquatics section. We get fishes in on Wednesdays, so I can't wait to see what new stuff we have in. :)
 
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