Poor LFS folks

[Sinuhe]

I visited a new LFS for the first time today, and was quite impressed with the quality of their aquarium section and the knowledgeable workers.

However, I was listening to another customer, a middle-aged woman, asking for advice on her aquarium. From what I gathered, she's got some tiny aquarium with 2 angel fish and one guppy. Apparently she had an algae problem in the tank, and also had the angel fish beat on the lonely guppy. She didn't have a filter in the tank, and said she did a partial water change (more than half of the water at once) like once every 2 months, and then totally emptied and cleaned out the tank every 6 months. The LFS worker tried suggesting that she get a filter (but she was appalled at the prices ) and also that maybe she should change like one third of the water every week. She asked if the customer has ever tested her water, and she was like "No, I'm not that kind of a fish keeper". She also said she was considering flushing the angel fish, since they were being so hard on the guppy, and get some small fish instead. The worker tried suggesting maybe she could give them to someone else with a bigger tank. Overall, the customer's attitude was odd, she wanted advice, but didn't accept any suggestions, and sounded very set on her ways, and "the kind of fish keeper" she was. Also, she'd never vacuumed the gravel. Basically, she was making nearly all the mistakes I could imagine, but wasn't even trying to learn to get better at it.

After listening to her for about 10 minutes, I was about to go nuts. I felt sorry for the worker who has to deal with people like her. Altho, on the other hand, it made me feel quite good about my level of knowledge, even if it's still quite poor compared to people with years of experience.

 

[snapcrackler]

That's frustrating. I know what you mean....I waited patiently, with my wife and 2 sons, for about 30 minutes at my LFS while a babbling person and his girlfriend effectively tied up the shop owner with opinions and questions, most of which seemed to be insane. Every time the LFS guy would answer, this guy would interrupt. I was thinking about bonking him on the head with a big piece of live rock by the time he left. I'm sorry but these people need to be respecful of not only the fish and creatures but of other people too. I guess it takes all kinds....

 

[Terry]

It is nice to read two people who can understand what us store owners/Employees actually go through from day to day.
I wish all my customers were as good as the guys and girls i have met on Aquarium Advice, my job would be so much easier. You would not believe some of the questions i get asked.

Here are some Kudos and thankyou on behalf of all lfs owners and employees.

 

[Sinuhe]

Thank you, Terry I never really thought about it before, until recently, how working at a pet store and dealing with the mostly ignorant general public daily must be quite frustrating. I've had similar experiences about the ignorance and rudeness of people through my own occupation, but not so much in my current job as the previous one. I think it's a universal phenomenon .

 

[Scottw68TN]

Terry, lets get a list of the top 10 questions youve gotten asked!

 

[Terry]

I could probably put together a few more than that, You do get some really interesting people in the store thay want to learn as much as they can. Then you get the people, that no matter what you say to them they are not going to listen.

Here is an example of what i got ask this morning. " does the light go above or below the water line" say no more. Do you think that should be No1 on my top 10.

Scottw68TN
Leave it to me and tomorrow i will put together my top 10 questions. And i will leave it up to you to put them in order.

 

[Scottw68TN]

Thats a good one.

 

[Sinuhe]

I'm interested in seeing that list, too

 

[webmoose]

I have a really really good LFS and they have a quarantine time for newly aquired fish to the store and everything. I was there a few time where there was a customer with dead fish in a baggy all mad that the fish died but unable to answer any questions about water testing or anything placing all the blame on the store.

I look forward to seeing Terry's list as well!

 

[grimlock3000]

My father is a prime example of an ignorant fishkeeper, I feel bad for not only the people at the LFS, but the fish in his tank. He recently spent $800+ on a 55g setup that looks amazing and is all top of the line stuff. I was happy to see he was taking it seriously. Then he proceeded to start the tank off with six Cory Cats and eight Sharks (pairs of Bala, Columbian, Red Tail, and Albinos). LFS did try to talk him out of this combination of fish and he did it anyway. I am fairly certain over half those fish died relatively soon afterwards. He now has one bottle of just about every water additive you can think of, and ONLY has a PH test kit. He keeps going to the LFS and buying more fish and more chemicals so much they certainly think he is crazy. In his mind, if you keep the PH at 7 everythign will be OK. If a fish dies, it is because it was sick when he got it. He has never done a water change in about three months, and could care less about it so he tops off the tank with treated water when needed. He keeps trying to grow plants in his tank but only has two standard bulbs and no soil base. No matter what someone in the LFS says to him, he doesn't listen. It must suck to sit there and just keep selling fish to someone when you know they are not going to be treated right. I try to explain stuff to him myself, and he just does not care to listen to me either. He used to breed fish 20 years ago or so, so he still thinks he knows everything now. It pisses me off so much I stopped going over to visit my parents.

I would say he has purchased 65 to 70 fish for the tank, and about 35-45 are still alive according to my mother. He likes to buy two of one type of fish at a time regardless of what else is in the tank or if the fish should be in a school. Most of the fish in his tank always look pokey but never show blatant signs of infection. All of the smaller fish have nipped fins. The water in his tank was cloudy for so long he gave up trying to use crystal clear water drops and bought a Diatom filter, making him possibly the only person in the hobby with a Diatom filter, $800 tank, and no gravel vac or even ammonia test kit. The next time my parents go away for the weekend, I am going to bring a gravel vac and do a few small ater changes in a row to save some fish...

 

[cdawson]

Thank you, Terry I never really thought about it before, until recently, how working at a pet store and dealing with the mostly ignorant general public daily must be quite frustrating. I've had similar experiences about the ignorance and rudeness of people through my own occupation, but not so much in my current job as the previous one. I think it's a universal phenomenon .

god... I second that. There's about 3-4 customers at my work that come in to pick up toners and printer cartridges (we usually ship out through purolator) and we've got a two hour limit on how long it takes to go through the system and print. EVERYDAY these idiots come in 15 minutes after they make thier orders and get uptight and rude when I tell them they have to wait 2 hours after making their order before picking it up (keep in mind this happens EVERYDAY!). WE also close at 4:00pm for customer pickups and they show up every now and then around 4:45pm. They also become irate when I tell them we're closed. The ignorance of some customers boggles my mind.

 

[grimlock3000]

The stupidity continues... My parents have been without power for nine hours today, their fish tank two Penguin 330s filter, and my father refuses to keep the Bio Wheels wet... or put any new water in so the fish can have oxygen

 

[ostrichkiller]

working for a company whose phrase is "you've got questions, we've got answers" i know exactlly how you guys feel. everytime you think you have herd the dumbest thing in the world another person comes in even dumber. have actuualy had a person threaten me because her cellular phone wouldn't make outgoing calls or ring. come to find out she didn't have it on and got mad at me for not telling her how to turn it on when she bought it. isn't there a certain amount of knowledge about a product be it fish or anything you should have to have before you go out and buy it???
come on poeple
-Jim

 

[Mr502go]

I can relate, heck, I think we all can. I took a little hiatus from automotive and worked retail for a year. People will sit there and quiz you all day long, half-a$$ listen to your well thought-out advice, and then come back and say. . . welll, it didn't work. When you ask exactly how everything went down, they take a bit of advice here, a bit there, and discard things they don't think are important, some people I tell ya.

In the automotive world, I've had people come to me and ask how much I'd charge to make whatever modification to their car (Performance technician / parts counterperson by day) I'll suggest combination a b or c based on budget constraints/bang per $. Then I get "Weellll, I wanted these heads, and this cam. . . yada yada yada" That's when I think, well, if you know enough to put your own combination together. . . if you know that much about the product you're buying, why are you here asking me questions, save yourself some money, put it together yourself. I just don't understand sometimes. Then you don't wanna turn business away, put the stuff they want on, then they're upset when their hotrod gets outrun by grandma in her walker!!!

Ohhh the humanity!!

 

[ferret]

The only thing that annoys me more is when the customer knows more than the sales rep, and the sales rep refuses to listen or continues to say stuff the customer and anyone 'expert' in whatever field it is knows is wrong. There's someone at the lfs. I think I hear other employees and hobbists correcting them everytime I'm there. They just turn around and act like no one said a word. "Yes, that oscar will be fine in the 5 gallon"

 

[captainGregor]

We could continue this forever, guys. Long time ago I worked at your large local electronic retail store and have heard it all. One thing I realized that sounds kind of strange, but it is true: "People do not want to hear what they do not want to hear." Just think about it.
I had a customer that bought a cordless phone and 30 minutes later she calls me and just goes berserk that the phone does not work and she wants to return it. I tried to calm her down and went step by step. When I got to the point whether she plugged the telephone cord to the wall socket she says: "This is crazy, the phone is supposed to be cordless!"
I am surprised that some people that keep fish decide to put some water in the tank, and that is only if fish behaves. Then they complain to LFS that fish died. What a pity.

 

[Scottw68TN]

Best Buy?

 

[captainGregor]

Circuit City

 

[SoCal]

When I worked at compUSA a guy came in and was screaming at the customer service person because a floppy disk got stuck in the floppy drive and he wanted the entire computer replaced because he had to use butter to get the floppy out and now the drive didn't work anymore.
True Story.

 

[Scottw68TN]

I worked at Best Buy as there lead tech for awhile (never again) every day was like that.