Favorite LFS "CUSTOMER" STORIES ...

[seds]

six inch tiger barbs?!??!?

Holy mackeral

I LOLOLd at the bacon bits story. There is no way it can be true. People can't be THAT stupid can they?

 

[Bottomfeeder]

I was told florida flags were tropical =/ they're subtropical same with channa bleheri but that shop is actually a very good shop..They have 6'' tiger barbs and 40 cm red belly pacu and about 30 10'' zebra loaches?

6'' Tig Barbs?
Sure about that Eo?

 

[andyjs]

At the petco I worked at a few years ago people would come in and request something like 50 bettas in a particular color for that same reason. The people never said anything about returning them, so I figured most would just end up dead

Someone came in to the shop I work at looking for the same thing. They came in like 3 months ahead of time and we told them to come in and order a week or two early. They came back a couple months later and got them. Their plans were to give them out as party favors for people to take home. A side note about this situation...the supplier we got the bettas from forgot we did a special order and just thought we sold like 60 bettas that week, so the next week, they sent us as many as we sold. We ended up with close to 75 bettas and hardly had a place for all of them

 

[Jeox]

My single best one was when a customer explained to me that his water is really green, and told me he needs a colostomy to eat all of it.

I had another customer a few weeks ago who points in the general direction of about 9 tanks, and says, "I need one of those."
Me: "Which ones are you looking at?"
Customer: "The tri-color. I want a tri-color."
The woman, her husband, and their two monstrous children (who both appeared to be borderline retarded) all four stand directly in front of the aquarium she's pointing at. All four stare at me, and I'm waiting for the son to start drooling any second. Finally one of the parents realises they're all standing directly in front of the aquarium they're asking me to scoop fish at, and they proceed to yell at their sprog and scream for them to get out of the way.

I proceed to open up the aquarium containing tri-color "sharks" and small plecos, and she starts telling me about how there's just so much algae in her tank that she doesn't know what to do about it. I don't even respond, and I proceed to scoop out a plecostomus, and don't even acknowledge her speaking. Then she says, "I used to have one before, but it was the other kind. You know what I mean?"
Me: "Ma'am, we have about 20 species of fish that eat algae in this store. You'll have to be more specific." (we don't have 20 species at a time, but we get in different types of plecostomus all the time)
Customer: "Oh, you know! The other ones!"
I stare blankly at her.
Customer: "You know!" and she holds up her thumb and forefinger estimating the size of the fish she used to have. "The OTHER ones!"
Me: "Oh. Yeah." Anything to get this lady to shut her mouth and leave my store.

At this point in the process I'm about 10 seconds away from vomiting because the entire clan reeks so bad of old cigarette smoke. I'm wondering if they lock themselves in the car and chain smoke with the windows up, or if they found "Stale Smoke" in the cologne aisle at White Trash Mart on sale 5 for $1, and decided they could skip showers if they applied that liberally. The group of them also all four resemble homeless people, based on the condition of their clothing. It appeared to actually be rotting off their bodies.

I bag the pleco and hand it to whichever one was closest to me and start to walk away. I didn't even ask if there was anything else I could do, I didn't even try to smile.
She yells at my back: "Do you have any guppies?"
D$%^. I have to wait on them some more.
Me: "Yes."
Customer: "Are they expensive?"
Me: "I believe they're $3.99."
Customer: "For feeders?!?"
Me: "Oh. Feeders are $0.20 each."
Customer: "Ok, I need some for my goldfish."
Me: "Well. Goldfish really shouldn't be eating guppies. They're vegetarians, not carnivores."
Customer: "Mine really like them."
Me: "It doesn't really matter if they like them, they're not good for them."
Customer: "Then why do they eat them if they're not good for them?" (This with a smart-alec 'I got you there!' look on her face.)
Me: "They're like children and candy. Just because they eat it doesn't make it good for them."

And I proceeded to walk away, abandoning them in the fish department all by themselves. My manager was standing an aisle over chuckling, trying not to laugh out loud. She said she's amazed at some of the people I can deal with.

I also had one person whose child kept trying to hit me in the crotch while I talked to her. I swear I almost smacked the brat. I'm speaking, and this 5 or 6 year old screams, "HEY! HEY! HEY!" and hits me in the crotch to get my attention.

I love how you tell stories.

 

[laxplaya8613]

Feeder mice are companion animals?

yea...i work at petco too...and according to the training video, people may want to buy a cricket or two, not to feed their lizards, but for pets.

 

[redchaser]

I stopped by the new Petco in town yesterday and asked the girl in the fish dept if they had any submersible pumps, I got a blank stare from her, so I proceeded to explain that it's a pump that actually sits in the water, and is generally used to run filters and for return flow..."Oh you can't put a pump underwater, their electric" was her response.

I left.

 

[Cichla dude]

Back when i was in high school, i used to have a job at my LFS. Worked for about 2 years and ended up as the store's arowana and stingray guy (all arowana and stingray sales and questions were supose to directed to me if boss was busy). We then had this new guy come in who I THOUGHT knew his stuff. He learned of all the policies and the store owner made it clear to direct anyone asking about arowanas to either himself or me and stingray questions towards me only as hes been stung countless times and is kinda scared of them now. He decides not to listen LOL. while i was feeding aros, i ran out of food and boss told me to go open a new bag. Since food was near the stingray isle, i had to walk over there. I then see this idiot bagging up a 8" motoro telling a customer about how 10" will be the max size of a motoro and that a 20 gallon tank will be no probs. I walk over there and start telling him off. He thinks im trying to steal his sale and we were almost at the point of exchanging blows, then bossman walks in and says hes fired LOL. Customer was no where to be seen. Must of slipped away while we were arguing. Fired on the first day of work LOL.

Ok that is one funny storie.

 

[laxplaya8613]

this story really doesnt pertain to fish, but its funny none the less.

every week, a customer and her 4 year old son come in to buy a feeder mouse for the snake at home, and every week the son is so happy to get a new mouse. after a couple weeks, i asked her how many mice her son has as pets, and she says none. she tells me that every week when they buy the mouse, he thinks it is for him to keep as a pet, so he has a hamster cage in his bed room for the mouse to play in. then, when he goes to sleep, she takes the mouse out of the cage, leaving the cage door open, and feeds it to the snake. then in the morning when her son asks where the mouse went, the mother tells him, "oh, well the cage door is open, it must have gotten out in the middle of the night. we can get another one later this week if you want."


pretty cruel to do to your child, but i couldnt help but laugh at the story.

 

[andyjs]

At this point in the process I'm about 10 seconds away from vomiting because the entire clan reeks so bad of old cigarette smoke. I'm wondering if they lock themselves in the car and chain smoke with the windows up, or if they found "Stale Smoke" in the cologne aisle at White Trash Mart on sale 5 for $1, and decided they could skip showers if they applied that liberally. The group of them also all four resemble homeless people, based on the condition of their clothing. It appeared to actually be rotting off their bodies.

This part really made me laugh as it reminds me of several families that frequent the store I work at.

While I was working over Christmas break, I got another great story, though not involving fish...and let me start off by saying I have nothing against pit bulls or responsible pit bull owners, but where I work, we do not get responsible pit bull owners. We get the ones who take "owning" a pit bull in its most literal sense. To them, it's not a pet. They use the stereotypical pit bull rep. of being a vicious monster to make themselves feel BA. While most people will tell us about their "dog", these people never say "dog." They make sure everyone within earshot knows they own a "full-blood pit bull." This is actually somewhat of a running joke among the staff of the store I work in. This little gem of a conversation happened over break:

A guy walks in-clearly with the attitude that he is the most BA dude any of us have ever seen-and comes up to the counter where the manager and I are standing. The very first thing out of his mouth? "I have a full-blood pit bull..."
at which point I'm thinking, "Of course you do." If the jokes we make about stereotypical bad pit bull owners were personified, they would be this guy...
and he continues "....and it's eating my furniture."
At this point, I'm REALLY glad he appeared to be addressing the manager and not me, because I faked a cough to cover up the beginnings of a laugh, and then turned away before he could see my eyes tearing up from trying so hard not to laugh. This guy is the epitome of all of the stereotypes of pit bull owners we joke about. He clearly keeps the dog as a status symbol and doesn't know the first thing about dogs, which in itself is very sad, but in this context, I couldn't help but laugh.

 

[Stump]

.... That's mean...