sky.eyes.woman said:
I've just gotten an inside view as to WHY a lot of LFS's have clueless employees and all of the other bad things you guys have mentioned here time and again...a guy I worked with until yesterday is a good example. He is very knowledgable about all the animals we sold, did a good job keeping cages and tanks and the whole store clean, etc. He is a mature guy out of his teens, he had a good rapport with a lot of customers, indeed many of them would only want to be waited on by him. Why is he someone I used to work with? A member of management had a personal beef with him, so he got the bum's rush out of there. I know I'm next on the hit list myself. Now that's not to say that every LFS manager is firing people left and right for personal reasons, but I have seen firsthand how the big chain stores run things. Corporate says no matter what, the store has X number of hours for scheduling each department, no overtime is allowed at all, and if that means we have to leave without cleaning tanks or cages then so be it. Corporate also says taking care of animals takes a back seat to helping customers, so if the birds have gone 4 hours without water because we got busy, well that's too bad. Their bottom line and labor costs are far more important than making sure every animal is taken care of and no one's sick, dead or dying. People with a lot of knowledge about fish and other animals, like most of you on these boards, they don't want to work in an environment like that especially when they get paid next to nothing for it and receive no benefits, no holiday pay or vacation time. When you add personal politics into the mix, a lot of good people leave for greener pastures. So the next time you go into a pet store or LFS and see a clueless kid barely out of high school dishing out bad advice, 9 times out 10 it will be because the knowledgable adult that used to be in the position got downsized out of his job or left to find a place where he will get treated better. Soon I'll be one of them too.
i'm assuming we both work for the same company.
well, it depends on the store. i will say that probably 90% of the stores don't have a very knowledgeable staff, and probably 70% have live animal department managers who didnt know a thing about animals when they got to that position. i've had really bad experiences and really good ones, both with different stores. I'm going to have to disagree with
a little bit of your post. taking care of the animals is a huge deal at my store; while it is true that the customer comes first, we always make sure our cages and tanks are clean, all have clean food and water available (where applicable.) we do have time to clean and make sure everyone's healthy, a huge reason i believe that we can is because our openers come in at 5 or sometimes 4 in the morning, and we dont open until 9. i know for a fact most stores have their people come in at 7. i actually feel lucky working at my store and me enjoying it this much, everyone gets along great, the entire staff is fairly knowledgeable, our manager is great and doesnt drive away the more knowledegeable ones (i too have seen that happen with one of my other managers) I'm not saying that my store is perfect, far from it, but i think it's one of the better ones, i'll go as far as saying if you worked at my store, i think you would enjoy it 100 times more than your current situation.
i remember working for one of the managers you described, and those type are the kind that make you unmotivated to actually learn about animals. i went a long time without knowing much about fish, birds, and reptiles. when i transfered to this other store, i had a great manager who actually knew a ton about animals, and more important, he cared about them. i learned more from him in 3 months than I did in 1.5 years at the other store. He would actually take the time out of his day to show each employee how every filter worked, why each fish ate what it ate, how to properly care for birds, rodents, etc...
ok, i'm rambling now.
Note: i am not trying to say i support these large corporations.
Also, sorry if i came off a little arrogant and sorry for my incessant bragging, but i felt like sharing
