"SELL THOSE FISH!" *true short story*
- Thread starter Corvina
- Start date
You guys are being kinda one-sided... 'the customer is always right' was the slogan that brought many businesses to fruition. And questioning someone's judgement and having them buy less (aka produce less money for the company) then they'd be fired for being counter-productive to the company.
And, in some cases questioning the customer can mean a talk with management, which means even more trouble. Not everyone appreciates someone know knows better than them or who makes them look uneducated in public. And if I had to choose between keeping my job, which pays my bills and feeds and houses me.... or choosing to tell someone off for being an imbecile and buying too many fish for a tank he bought yesterday.... I'm gonna keep my mouth SHUT.
Because as much as we love them... if it cost us our job and livelihood, we'd probably just think they're 'just fish', too and just hope for the best.
And, in some cases questioning the customer can mean a talk with management, which means even more trouble. Not everyone appreciates someone know knows better than them or who makes them look uneducated in public. And if I had to choose between keeping my job, which pays my bills and feeds and houses me.... or choosing to tell someone off for being an imbecile and buying too many fish for a tank he bought yesterday.... I'm gonna keep my mouth SHUT.
Because as much as we love them... if it cost us our job and livelihood, we'd probably just think they're 'just fish', too and just hope for the best.
BINGO....
oddly I set up tanks and the same day add fish..should the 'sales' person question me on my methods??
some of them don't realize that I have several tanks and can easily seed the tank and have it cycled in 3-5 days.
don't jump to conclusions without all the facts.
remember there is a difference in mind set and cultures.
we don't all think alike... how boring would it be if we did
True, which is why, as always, it's management's fault, not the employee's. They should be trained not to let such things happen.
Now maybe if the employee knows better, you can put some fault on them for choosing to work there. As you can on yourself, for choosing to patronize such an establishment.
I don't worry about seeing such things, as the places I now choose to do business with have business practices that are more ethical than that.
But this is the case less than 5% of the time...most of these people are completely new to aquaria and have no clue about cycling.
Que
I wish I was a fish I wish.
And most are young kids living at home. I don't think most of them care much about the job.
Listen... I have run into on the job incompetence in just about every retail store I have had to deal with in the past 7 years living here. I think it's an across the board issue. There just isn't enough caring, trained individuals who want to hold down a low paying job. Around here a fish store employee is gonna need a few room mates to make it away from home and with all the retail stores around here if he/she loses one job he just gets in line for the opening across the street.
Q
Listen... I have run into on the job incompetence in just about every retail store I have had to deal with in the past 7 years living here. I think it's an across the board issue. There just isn't enough caring, trained individuals who want to hold down a low paying job. Around here a fish store employee is gonna need a few room mates to make it away from home and with all the retail stores around here if he/she loses one job he just gets in line for the opening across the street.
Q
The majority of people that buy fish, and places that sell them...are full of ignorant morons that think you just fill a tank with water and plop fish in. It's sad...I especially get burned when I hear people make comments "fish are stupid pets, they only lasts a few months anyways". Chokeslams are in store for those people!
But consider common business ethic for a moment. The whole point of opening a business is to make the best profit possible. Not only so you can grow as a store, but so you can meet the needs of all your customers... afford larger and better varieties of animals and equipment... offer better payment plans to your employees or possibly even offer a retirement package or other benefits to them. In order to do this, management has to make tough decisions about hiring/paying/training employees.
You are correct. Most of the workforce places like that deal with are younger people because younger people are more willing to make less money and work 'menial' job positions than older people generally are. The draw-back is that they generally treat their work like anyone treats their first jobs... just something to pay the bills and get them by. Nothing more, nothing less. I doubt there are people working in McDonald's who stress the importance of you washing your hands before they pass you your meal so you don't get sick... or caution you to check your wardrobe to make sure that pair of shoes will actually go with one or two outfits in your closet. In most cases, they don't care about how you spend your money, on what, or what will happen after they make the transaction. Ignorance is bliss.
But getting back to the whole rant about public fish stores... you guys should really give these people a break. Because how many people say their ultimate dream is to work minimum wage for the rest of their life, fishing tetras out of tanks for snub-nosed children or (no offense to ANYONE) obnoxious know-it-all fish keepers?
In most cases, they are responsible for many more aspects of the store other than just the fish (in generic pet stores like PetCo and PetSmart) Or maybe the employee before them was slacking and didn't clean the tanks or the betta cups or forgot to fish out the floaters. Just because that person is standing there in front of a wall of dirty tanks doesn't mean they don't care or weren't doing THEIR job. Perhaps they came on their shift with that mess. Perhaps management already had a talk with the slacker... or fired them... or they are bad management and don't care.
If you complain to anyone, take it to the top. That person can then take it upon themselves (if they care to) to talk to everyone who was on shift the last few days, find out who and where the problem is, and address ALL the staff about remedying the situation... whereas throwing cutting glances or angry remarks to employees usually just ruins their day and if you're lucky, they remember to pass the information on up the line.... which is asking them to tattle on themselves or their co-worker buddies.
Now lets get back to these people being educated and trained better... if they are just going to quit in 6 months or so, why invest the time, money, and effort into educating them better? Whom do you benefit? Once they are better educated, they will make consumers buy less fish, question their purchases (and therefor their competence, which many people dislike and take offense to) and take more time explaining things to one customer, therefor making others wait when they should be making those purchases instead of thinking about if it's a good idea or not. This is why they have that 14-day no question return policy. Buy now, think about it later.
All businesses work that way nowadays. Every customer wants what they ask for now yesterday and no later than that. Everyone wants to buy a gold nugget for a nickel. Everyone wants to get in, buy stuff, and get out. We forced our economy to become this way.
The pet market will always be a business of sacrifice for profit. Unlike selling a pair of shoes, a sandwich meal, or a bag of oranges, you're selling and profiting from lives. Live dogs, cats, fish, birds, and rodents for other people to enjoy and ruin at their own perogatives.It's the nature of the beast. Without pet stores, we'd have no pets. If they don't make practical business decisions, they lose money. If they can't make money, they go out of business. They go out of business and the people have nowhere to go to meet their pet's needs or buy new pets.
So yeah, big corporations are evil... but in their humble beginnings they did something right... right enough that they developed a following large enough to allow them to become a branched-out franchise instead of being a dinky little corner store. But with bigger corporations comes bigger responsibility... but the basis of their origins is still there. They probably provided the best variety of consumer products for ALL pet-types at the lowest prices. This is typically how it works. Because people love convenience and value. And often even if the living conditions of their livestock are poorly, it plays on the sympathies of the consumer. They can say they 'rescued' the animal from he store and it's much happier with THEM now. Which still works in the store's favor if they operate in such a fashion.
Regardless, if, say, you were planning a 3-week excursion into the Canadian wilderness. You want to buy a quality long-lasting camping tent made of the best components for size, construction, and weather-resistance... do you buy a family tent set for $85 at Wal-Mart, a $250 tent at Bass Pro Shop, or do you buy a brand known for quality and excellence, designed for that kind of wear and tear, for $450? Well, that depends on how much you want to pay and what you expect to get for your money.
So you can go to PetCo, you can go online, or you can go to a specialty store. What you get out of said store is generally gonna roughly be worth the money you put into it. A small personally-owned store with educated/trained personnel, medicated and treated fish, and a good variety of supplies will be more expensive than a large chain that can buy masses of fish and supplies for bulk prices, hire cheap expendable student workers, and the drop the price well below what any private owner could sell for at case, dozen, or single-prices.
I only know all of this because I worked at a small mom-n-pop store and had to run every aspect of it by myself 80% of the time because the guy who owned it also worked full-time as a police officer. And even when he hired me an assistant, I ended up having to do a lot of the training and did a lot of the work myself. I know how pricing works, how employees work, what most customers expect, and other various aspects about business ownership. I've also worked for a number of larger businesses and known people from different branches of management, accounting, and so on enough to learn how larger companies work. I am not college educated in business or finances, though... so I won't pretend that I have all the answers.
I just know how it worked when I was working it... and if anything, I sympathize with the people who work in those places who have to deal with people being rude or indignant to them for things that are beyond their control... that goes for everyone from the stock boys to the management. Because I know how that feels.
You are correct. Most of the workforce places like that deal with are younger people because younger people are more willing to make less money and work 'menial' job positions than older people generally are. The draw-back is that they generally treat their work like anyone treats their first jobs... just something to pay the bills and get them by. Nothing more, nothing less. I doubt there are people working in McDonald's who stress the importance of you washing your hands before they pass you your meal so you don't get sick... or caution you to check your wardrobe to make sure that pair of shoes will actually go with one or two outfits in your closet. In most cases, they don't care about how you spend your money, on what, or what will happen after they make the transaction. Ignorance is bliss.
But getting back to the whole rant about public fish stores... you guys should really give these people a break. Because how many people say their ultimate dream is to work minimum wage for the rest of their life, fishing tetras out of tanks for snub-nosed children or (no offense to ANYONE) obnoxious know-it-all fish keepers?
In most cases, they are responsible for many more aspects of the store other than just the fish (in generic pet stores like PetCo and PetSmart) Or maybe the employee before them was slacking and didn't clean the tanks or the betta cups or forgot to fish out the floaters. Just because that person is standing there in front of a wall of dirty tanks doesn't mean they don't care or weren't doing THEIR job. Perhaps they came on their shift with that mess. Perhaps management already had a talk with the slacker... or fired them... or they are bad management and don't care.
If you complain to anyone, take it to the top. That person can then take it upon themselves (if they care to) to talk to everyone who was on shift the last few days, find out who and where the problem is, and address ALL the staff about remedying the situation... whereas throwing cutting glances or angry remarks to employees usually just ruins their day and if you're lucky, they remember to pass the information on up the line.... which is asking them to tattle on themselves or their co-worker buddies.
Now lets get back to these people being educated and trained better... if they are just going to quit in 6 months or so, why invest the time, money, and effort into educating them better? Whom do you benefit? Once they are better educated, they will make consumers buy less fish, question their purchases (and therefor their competence, which many people dislike and take offense to) and take more time explaining things to one customer, therefor making others wait when they should be making those purchases instead of thinking about if it's a good idea or not. This is why they have that 14-day no question return policy. Buy now, think about it later.
All businesses work that way nowadays. Every customer wants what they ask for now yesterday and no later than that. Everyone wants to buy a gold nugget for a nickel. Everyone wants to get in, buy stuff, and get out. We forced our economy to become this way.
The pet market will always be a business of sacrifice for profit. Unlike selling a pair of shoes, a sandwich meal, or a bag of oranges, you're selling and profiting from lives. Live dogs, cats, fish, birds, and rodents for other people to enjoy and ruin at their own perogatives.It's the nature of the beast. Without pet stores, we'd have no pets. If they don't make practical business decisions, they lose money. If they can't make money, they go out of business. They go out of business and the people have nowhere to go to meet their pet's needs or buy new pets.
So yeah, big corporations are evil... but in their humble beginnings they did something right... right enough that they developed a following large enough to allow them to become a branched-out franchise instead of being a dinky little corner store. But with bigger corporations comes bigger responsibility... but the basis of their origins is still there. They probably provided the best variety of consumer products for ALL pet-types at the lowest prices. This is typically how it works. Because people love convenience and value. And often even if the living conditions of their livestock are poorly, it plays on the sympathies of the consumer. They can say they 'rescued' the animal from he store and it's much happier with THEM now. Which still works in the store's favor if they operate in such a fashion.
Regardless, if, say, you were planning a 3-week excursion into the Canadian wilderness. You want to buy a quality long-lasting camping tent made of the best components for size, construction, and weather-resistance... do you buy a family tent set for $85 at Wal-Mart, a $250 tent at Bass Pro Shop, or do you buy a brand known for quality and excellence, designed for that kind of wear and tear, for $450? Well, that depends on how much you want to pay and what you expect to get for your money.
So you can go to PetCo, you can go online, or you can go to a specialty store. What you get out of said store is generally gonna roughly be worth the money you put into it. A small personally-owned store with educated/trained personnel, medicated and treated fish, and a good variety of supplies will be more expensive than a large chain that can buy masses of fish and supplies for bulk prices, hire cheap expendable student workers, and the drop the price well below what any private owner could sell for at case, dozen, or single-prices.
I only know all of this because I worked at a small mom-n-pop store and had to run every aspect of it by myself 80% of the time because the guy who owned it also worked full-time as a police officer. And even when he hired me an assistant, I ended up having to do a lot of the training and did a lot of the work myself. I know how pricing works, how employees work, what most customers expect, and other various aspects about business ownership. I've also worked for a number of larger businesses and known people from different branches of management, accounting, and so on enough to learn how larger companies work. I am not college educated in business or finances, though... so I won't pretend that I have all the answers.
I just know how it worked when I was working it... and if anything, I sympathize with the people who work in those places who have to deal with people being rude or indignant to them for things that are beyond their control... that goes for everyone from the stock boys to the management. Because I know how that feels.
