stupid chain stores

[J double R]

Why is the clerk not to blame? He obviously doesn't know what a Danio is and if that's the case he should have asked someone in the store with more experience. Imagine that you have to drive another 100km to correct one of their dumb mistakes…



Not in this case. Of course if you explicitly ask for a salt water fish and wonder why he didn't survive in your fresh water tank, yeah...ok.

but that's like going to a car dealership, and asking for a sports car, and having them give you a family sedan.. and you not notice that it wasnt the one you asked for till you get the car home..

if you wanna be specific, you gotta know THE specific, not just the name. spend some extra time going over it with your wife so she knows what to look for next time

 

[wataugachicken]

definitely - maybe your wife looked at the fish, thought it looked like a danio, and said "i'll take that one". no reason for the employee to know if a mistake was being made. maybe you should have just done it yourself instead of sending your wife, who you know doesn't have a lot of fish ID experience.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

It was a mistake pure and simple...

The Pet shop employee might not have been one of the people trained to work in the aquatics department and thus wasn't familiar...I've had the store dog trainer catch fish for me before (she had previous experience though). Someone may have switched the labels on the tank and an employee hadn't caught it yet.

Pet stores have a responsability to train employees and label things properly, but they can't prevent everything. Shoppers have the responsability of knowing what they are looking for. Maybe next time when you want your wife to shop for you, you could print out a picture of the fish to take with her.

 

[spirals]

While we do try to make sure employees are trained, there are some things in our way. Among them is pay ( I make 10.75 as a supervisor, and that's just because I'm 23 with a college degree), stress (customer service fluctuates depending on how many customers there are or if there was a particularly difficult customer recently), and experience. While it would be nice to have every employee know everything, there is a thing called learning and people can't be expected to instantly know everything about fish upon walking into a new job. I mean, when you first began your job (your being respective to all ppl in the world) did you instantly know everything about everything? I bet not. For that case, do those of you who have been keeping fish know everything about fish keeping?
I have had many the customer who comes in going "my husband wants me to pick up the fish, but i forget the name..um...its...its small...and long...i think its that one...). Not saying this is what she did, but I also don't think the employee is attempting to sell you the wrong fish or deceive your wife on purpose.
I also find it hard to believe that these errors only occur at chain stores, as is so often implied by threads like these.
You could always try taking the fish back, explaining that it was the wrong one. Normally people are pretty nice about it.

 

[Ruben Tolon]

The big stores usually have little ID labels on each tank with a picture of the fish (at least Petco does), so either the customer or the sales associate should've had the wisdom to just take a quick glance at it.

 

[spirals]

eh, i know if my bf ever tried to go get a fish for me he would be completely lost. I could see it now, I'd send him for a neon tetra, he'd come home with a cardinal, my sunset coral dwarf platy's would be replaced by some other random orange fish...lol (but it looked like the picture!)
What I do now is have write out's about my animals (including the cat and the rats). For fish its just a card that says "10G tank, Sunset Coral Dwarf, Male guppy, Neon Tetra, Molly Hybrid, Oto" so that if he ever has to make an emergency run he can grab that and point to it in the store (lol)

 

[johnlarson66]

Who sends their wife out for fish? It is not like a gallon of milk. "Hey Hun, while you are out, pick me up a loaf of bread and some danios".

I am glad there are big chain stores. If you do not like them, don't shop at them. I even once in a while buy fish from them. Every yellow lab I have was bought at petsmart. A good place to get light bulbs also.

 

[Hooked Newbie]

I just started working at a local pet store chain in the aquaria section, and while I possess knowledge of some fish, it's been a few years since I've managed my own freshwater tank. Never before have I dealt with saltwater tanks either. Hence why I'm on here learning what I can from others that know a lot more on this topic. Hopefully over time I can prove to be a better resource to my customers.

And Grins is right...the job doesn't pay much (try $8/hr.). But I'm a relatively broke college student that loves animals, so it suits me.

~A

Good for you (and your customers and store)!

I agree with most of the posts here. I used to blame the store, until I took the responsibility on myself to learn. Since then, I've found that even in the "evil" chain stores, there are some very knowledgeable people and the others seem to generally want to know more. There are always going to be "slackers", but that's true everywhere. "Buyer beware" always applies.

 

[looksrshady]

now i know why i dont post that often.I just came to share a story and get flamed,typical forum.If you work in the fish section you should know about fish! end of discussion

 

[Rbishop]

While the employee should know better, let the buyer beware.

If you went into a car dealer to purchase a Cadillac and he brout you out a Kia and you accepted it, it is your fault.