Petshop Workers - BUSTED!

[Gem]

Okay so I was just reading the thread on the myth that mealworms apparently eat through the inside of your gecko's stomach. The topic got pretty damn entertaining!

The fella in my petshop told me to chop the heads off my mealworms before I feed them too...

But Henry goes to town on those little worms! No way is a mealworm making it into her stomach in one piece!!!!!



Aaaanyways - Let's BUST those petshop people once and for all:

---> What crazy advice have you been given over the years?

---> Anything your petshop folks have told you that you're not sure is true???

 

[SDCowboy]

What are you talking about?

 

[Geck82]

Everyone has a different method of doing things, what makes you think that people that work in pet shops give crap advice? I work in a pet shop and I find the biggest problem is the number of ignorant customers that don't listen....... Chopping the head off a meal worm isn't going to hurt your gecko in any way, if one of my staff were not sure I would tell them to err on the side of caution and give the safest advice which is what it seems they have done, you should be happy with the service you have been given rather than trying to bag out people that work in Pet shops at any opportunity you have.

 

[blueappal]

How about instead of telling them to err on the side of caution... maybe tell them to simply say "I'm not sure" and tell the truth.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I've heard more 'crazy advise' given on forums than I've ever heard in a pet shop.

 

[M_surinamensis]

those petshop people

You mean petshop people like; Louie Porras, Ken and Kim Foose, RobRoy MacInnes, Bruce Delles, Owen Maercks, Joe Beraducci, Robyn Markland, Ron Tremper, Ben Siegel, Kevin McCurley and John Hollister? How about members here, like TokayKeeper and myself who've done a stint in a pet shop? Or the hundreds, even thousands of people that I haven't listed who have at one time or another worked in a pet shop?

You really want to push that, want to pick a fight with that group of herpetologists, herpetoculturalists, business owners, authors, activists, IHS board members, naturalists and scientists with your one week of owning a couple geckos and reading some websites?

What crazy advice have you been given over the years?

Years? Have you got years worth of stories? Because four hours prior to this thread you wrote:

I'm Gem - got two 6 month old Geckos last weekend and love them to pieces.

I've never kept any animal before and so I'm looking for all the help I can get.

So I'm really left wondering just who the hell you think you are, that you're in such an enlightened and knowledgeable position, where you can look down from your mighty ivory tower to damn pet shop employees as being beneath you. Who are you, to behave as if you are better than them?

I'm going to help you along here, let you in on some information that will help you out with your perspective as you write your apology and retraction. These pet store bashing threads, the nonspecific generalized circle jerks where people show up to try taking a swing at the retail pet industry... they are participated in by new keepers, ignorant keepers, the folks who have a few pets and maybe a couple years experience with no formalized education. They are not participated in by zoo keepers, by serious breeders, by scientists or by long term herpetoculturalists. This is because the pet industry is just another option in a group of fields jumped between as individuals see fit. The academic researcher today may want a change of career tomorrow and they find that in the private sector. Academia, public institutions such as zoos and the herpetocultural industry; the people at the very top of each, the pinnacle of success in each are all interconnected with one another, most of them having done more than one thing in their career. They recognize that what someone does has a lot less bearing on that person's value than how well they do it.

So again... what have you done that makes you so much better than someone working in a pet shop?

I'm guessing absolutely nothing.

 

[TokayKeeper]

Lmao....there's a name that one wouldn't expect to see on GF...hollister.

I'd type a rant but I'm on an ipad and typing longwinded replies on it suck. Besides, I think seamus already said enough. I'd like to see this turn into a thread about idiot noobs that come into pet shops on a strict budget, wanting to keep five goldfish in a five gallon tank without filtration or think they can keep a beardie in a ten gallon all its life.

Here's what some pet shop knowledge can get ya...I haven't had much personal time since the last update to add some more to the site...

Herpetofauna of New Mexico

 

[Geck82]

How about instead of telling them to err on the side of caution... maybe tell them to simply say "I'm not sure" and tell the truth.

If they don't know then they say that they don't know, common sense really.......
If people are concerned that mealworms will "eat their way out" of their pet lizard then cut the head off or squash it, problem solved. But in my own personal opinion they are safe in small quantities, head or no head.
My point is, if your not going to listen to the advice of a pet shop employee, then don't ask their advice in the first place then have the hyde to forum bash them after the fact.

 

[TokayKeeper]

Some more food for thought as I sadly watch my braves currently losing to the mets-rosexuals....

Just because a pet shop employee doesn't know about reptiles doesn't rule them out on specializing some other species. There are 3 leads where I work, I being one of them. My specialty is reptiles, but I have general knowledge when it comes to other species. Our other 2 leads are more specialized in fish, mammals, and birds. The 3 pet care associates after us all specialize elsewhere too.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

If you don't like a particular pet shop, for whatever reasons, don't shop there.

 

[acpart]

Just my 2 cents on the general tone of some of the responses here. I do think there's a time for the "who the heck do you think you are" response, but it does seem to me that this kind of full blast response to one post with an unfortunate question is a little over the top. Maybe a round of "you really don't want to go there because . . ." would be a good idea before the blasting starts.

Aliza

 

[doublet74]

ANGRY MOB!!!!!!!! ATTACK !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Thorgecko707]

Seamus, you are my hero.

 

[blueappal]

If they don't know then they say that they don't know, common sense really.......
If people are concerned that mealworms will "eat their way out" of their pet lizard then cut the head off or squash it, problem solved. But in my own personal opinion they are safe in small quantities, head or no head.
My point is, if your not going to listen to the advice of a pet shop employee, then don't ask their advice in the first place then have the hyde to forum bash them after the fact.

I didn't mean to sound rude... that was the original poster. I'm just saying if someone asks me a question that I'm not sure the correct answer to, I simply say "I don't know, but I can maybe help you find the answer". This helps both parties involved... and I learn something in the process also.

 

[M_surinamensis]

I dunno Aliza, you may very well have a point but I see it as a bit more of a proportional response. I mean, just read this quote,

Let's BUST those petshop people once and for all:

Now, you're clearly a much more forgiving and patient person than I am, Aliza, so I recognize that you are far more inclined towards a moderate and affable response than I am, but that statement made by this person is an attack. It's an aggressive condemnation of an entire profession, with strong overtones of personal superiority. It devalues pet shop employees based on their occupation and encourages the public to form together to attack them.

The audacity of it is a common factor. It's something I see mostly from people who are in no way justified in thinking that their own knowledge and experience surpasses anyone else's.* It reflects a sense of completely unwarranted confidence; own two geckos for a week (a week!), read a couple websites and suddenly these amateur hour, know-nothing, inexperienced types feel it is appropriate to start ripping on pet stores and pet store employees.

Pet store employees can't really respond to defend themselves, either. Part of their job is always going to be related to customer service, which means that they are limited in their responses. They have to nod and smile and eat every @#$% sandwich that gets served up to them by any idiot off the street (or with a keyboard, such as the case may be), because their job imposes a social role. Affable and servile, giving the impression that they exist only to provide for the customer... or the potential customer.

I have friends, good friends, people who have my unmitigated respect and admiration for their capabilities as biologists, who work in or own pet shops. I don't hand out praise lightly, it genuinely means something when I arrive at a conclusion that a person is worthy of praise. There are experts, geniuses and some of my personal mentors and inspirations working (or who have at some times worked) in the pet industry. I think my anger at seeing them targeted by libelous statements or made the victim of public attack is fully justifiable.



*the tone and scope of the criticism is generally dramatically different from people who are actually qualified to issue such judgments.

 

[blueappal]

The employees where I buy my crickets are very helpful.

I also took a box of reptile magazines (about 4 years worth) and gave them to the guy working the evening shift. He now gives free crickets... been going on for a couple months now and I occasionally try to pay, but he insists I take them.

 

[M_surinamensis]

Seamus, you are my hero.

Cool of you to express the sentiment, but it's probably not that healthy if it's actually accurate. I've got a lot of less than admirable qualities.

Uncomfortable story time!

My bad attitude; my impatience, my intolerance, my tendency towards aggression and conflict is something that I developed when I was working in pet stores.

I've worked in three. Both big chain stores, because a friend of mine who I knew through the herp society was a manager (first at one, then the other) and they asked me to do so. I wasn't doing anything else with my time and they were a good enough friend to compel my participation. The third was a smaller place, reptile specialty store for a few months for similar reasons, owned by a friend who asked me to help out for awhile.

I never really took much issue with the work. My co-workers were generally pleasant to interact with, on the whole they were competent people who shared my interest in animals. Couple exceptions, but there were also exceptions in the other direction, with extreme over qualification making up just as many of the people involved as the ones who weren't very good. Interactions with the corporate structure were positive and beneficial, with credence given to my suggestions, leeway to make my own decisions and respect for my qualifications.

The customers however... they were a source of almost constant frustration for me. Most of them don't know anything, it's all impulse and desire. They often failed to follow basic instructions, ignored information and advice that they found inconvenient, rejected anything that they didn't want to hear, neglected and killed animals through sheer bloody minded incompetence and would then come back and insist that the store accept responsibility and correct things for them. They said and did stupid, ridiculous things on a daily basis and then dropped their problems on my shoulders. It was a minority who were problematic, but the sheer volume of them coming through the doors on a daily basis resulted in a feeling of constant exposure to that kind of interaction.

The very worst of them were the ones that were dismissive. Who were not only doing abusive things to their pets through ignorance, but that were actually resistant to the information that the pet store employees would try to provide. No matter how carefully worded or what sort of tactic was taken to explain things, no matter how accurate the advice or educated the person giving it; they would reject it. Oftentimes for reasons such as, "My cousin said different and you're just a pet shop employee." Something that would cause me to commit murder in my imagination on a regular basis.

Only in my imagination though, because the company (big or small) depended on its customer relations and on repeat business to experience success. A customer cannot be told off, no matter how richly deserved it might be or how accurate the catalog of their transgressions. The idea of grabbing them by the shoulders, shaking them violently back and forth and screaming a list of my credentials at them was fundamentally in conflict with the overriding dictates of good customer service. About the only release available to the employee is a retreat to passive aggression with very narrowly defined margins for how far it can be taken.

It took a definite toll on me. As a job every individual aspect of it, with one exception, was something I was very very good at; I knew the animals, I quickly grasped the fine points of retail operation, I'm well spoken and just benignly manipulative enough to be a good salesman and I excelled at responding to the variables presented to me by the different situations each customer was experiencing... I couldn't take the stupidity of the minority though. Not for very long at any rate. It messed with my sleeping patterns, it made me irritable with my family and friends, I lost weight and my appetite was erratic- stress indicators. I never managed to keep doing it for more than about four months in a row without taking a pretty significant break. Which was all well and good for me, since I wasn't depending on the job as my primary source of income. I can only imagine the additional pressures placed on people who cannot afford to simply walk away from it when it hits a breaking point. Some of which have been doing it for years, putting up with it for decades in some instances. Some of which far and away exceed my knowledge and experience, subjected to identical indignities.

So I get a little bit... cranky... when the subject crops up. Gem here has owned two leopard geckos for one week. I've been an avid biologist for most of my life; amateur, academic, professional and freelance for decades. How dare they try to come after me and mine in that fashion? I haven't got a business to keep me polite, I'll damn well hit back when someone takes a wild swing at my people. Line forms to the left, pack a lunch and bring your friends, it's going to be an all day event.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Without trying to BASH anyone, I think we must first take an objective look at this thread. First of all, most 'pet stores' we are familiar with are the big-box stores that really do not specialize in 'pets' at all. They specialize in pet food and pet supplies. They sell pets only so you will spend a LOT more money on all the neat habitat, decor, and furniture stuff. The pets they sell are inventory items, just like all the supplies and bags of dog food they sell. So why would anyone even expect pet store employees to know anything about the animals they sell? Why would anyone even BUY a pet from a store that specializes in pet food and supplies?

I dunno, it's a "no brainer" for me. Sorry if this offends anyone.

 

[OhioGecko]

Without trying to BASH anyone, I think we must first take an objective look at this thread. First of all, most 'pet stores' we are familiar with are the big-box stores that really do not specialize in 'pets' at all. They specialize in pet food and pet supplies. They sell pets only so you will spend a LOT more money on all the neat habitat, decor, and furniture stuff. The pets they sell are inventory items, just like all the supplies and bags of dog food they sell. So why would anyone even expect pet store employees to know anything about the animals they sell? Why would anyone even BUY a pet from a store that specializes in pet food and supplies?

I dunno, it's a "no brainer" for me. Sorry if this offends anyone.

:main_thumbsup:, you can simply critique some of the care sheets from some of these stores and it is obvious they are there to sell supplies.

I believe there are good and bad customers, good and bad pet stores, good and bad breeders, good and bad people. It is each persons own reponsibilty to find the the good ones and stick with them, and on the flip to stay away from the bad ones.

 

[Tony C]

I couldn't agree more Seamus, but what do I know? I'm just some jackass who ran a pet store for a few months.