Petsmart caring too much????

[kydsexy]

haha i used to work at Petco and I was exactly like the salesman who said no. when i first started working, i would come in and clean out 40-50 dead fish every morning M-F. After about a month there, you'd be lucky to find any fish dead throughout the week. i completely remodeled the fw and sw sump systems and after a while, my fish became my babies. while i was working, if your tank didn't meet standards, then no fish for you!

why was i able to do that? i didnt really care about Petco, i cared about the fish. and on top of that, i didnt really care about Petco!

 

[matt123]

haha i used to work at Petco and I was exactly like the salesman who said no. when i first started working, i would come in and clean out 40-50 dead fish every morning M-F. After about a month there, you'd be lucky to find any fish dead throughout the week. i completely remodeled the fw and sw sump systems and after a while, my fish became my babies. while i was working, if your tank didn't meet standards, then no fish for you!

why was i able to do that? i didnt really care about Petco, i cared about the fish. and on top of that, i didnt really care about Petco!

good on ya, nicely done ! you dont want to work at the local store here do you ??
i normally see at least 1 dead fish in each tank !

 

[Toodleypops]

I work at petsmart and while i know i dont know much about fish we have to automatically be put on the defense with new customers because we got a LOT of not smart people who seriously lack common sense. Now i dont know what the petco's petsmart's or pet at home's you guys going to are like but i like to think that mine is pretty good. out of 140 is tanks we usually only get about 10 dead a day (including feeder fish) and any fish that we see have ick gets taken out and put in a treatment tank. And i know we have bad tags labeling our fish (just cuz we have to) be i know that my coworkers and i are all willing to do whatever you want as long as you say you know what you're doing. or if you're a regular lol. and plus when youu have Miles as your boss (the stingray guy) we all know the basics of fish care and combatibility. ... yeah so i'm not really sure where i am going with this lol i just wanted to add in my 2 cents after reading this whole forum. if you had been at my store i would've made the sale. as much as we like to sell things we like to make sure that fish WILL live first. as far as caring i will warn people if i (me and my limited knowledge) think that there could be a problem. and if they still want it i will get it for them.

 

[zennzzo]

I work at petsmart and while i know i dont know much about fish we have to automatically be put on the defense with new customers because we got a LOT of not smart people who seriously lack common sense. Now i dont know what the petco's petsmart's or pet at home's you guys going to are like but i like to think that mine is pretty good. out of 140 is tanks we usually only get about 10 dead a day (including feeder fish) and any fish that we see have ick gets taken out and put in a treatment tank. And i know we have bad tags labeling our fish (just cuz we have to) be i know that my coworkers and i are all willing to do whatever you want as long as you say you know what you're doing. or if you're a regular lol. and plus when youu have Miles as your boss (the stingray guy) we all know the basics of fish care and combatibility. ... yeah so i'm not really sure where i am going with this lol i just wanted to add in my 2 cents after reading this whole forum. if you had been at my store i would've made the sale. as much as we like to sell things we like to make sure that fish WILL live first. as far as caring i will warn people if i (me and my limited knowledge) think that there could be a problem. and if they still want it i will get it for them.

This is the same attitude that the caring people at my local PetSmart have...Courteous and professional. Like I said in earlier post....It's all in how you carry yourself. Bottom line is, they have to sell the stock to keep the doors open. If you know what you want and what you're doing, they are more than happy to serve you...

 

[CathyGo]

I'm also a former PetSmart employee. I was hired because I had the basic knowledge of how to set up a small animal habitat. As far as fish went all I knew was bettas. I was educated by the other employees and my manager. Lucky for me they were fish geeks. My manager had a 150g with mostly bottom feeders. After scrubbing tanks all day he didn't want to go home to scrub his own. Our cichlid geek has tons of tanks and can tell you the scientific name and home lake of most every cichlid we got in the assorted. Then the last guy dabbled in a little bit of everything. My first day they just taught me the basic community, semi-aggresive, cichlid, goldfish categories and the whole nitrogen cycle thing. I got my own 10g after awhile and really got into the hobby. Most of the time I knew about every fish on the wall and their compatibility with various other species. Cichlids were referred to the cichlid guy. I STILL can't keep what cichlid goes with what cichlid straight. Ponds I was pretty clueless about to. It just wasn't my specialty. Ask me about breeding bettas or killies.

Our PetSmart was great then because it was hobbyist getting hired. They've switched managers a few times since then and now the focus is on doing things the way corporate wants them done. The employees are still better educated then most PetSmart's but they aren't experts and you shouldn't expect them to be. I would have questioned the bala and cichlid combo too. With your size tank I would have had no problem selling it to you though. A good salesperson should almost never have to refuse a sale. They should be able to give you an alternate choice and make it just as attractive as the original one. I refused one sale the entire time I worked there. These idiots thought it would be cool to have a betta fight their oscar. I made sure the cashier wouldn't sell them the betta.

 

[SonsOfLeda]

1) Exactly how many PetSmarts do you have in England?

1) not sure exactly but somewhere around 250

Just a point of clarification for everyone on here, not that it really matters discussion-wise (and what I think dragonfish was trying to get at originally): PetSmart =/= Pets At Home

PetSmart originally purchased a 50 store chain called Pet City back in 1996, but then sold its UK stores in 2000 to Pets At Home Ltd. Currently, there are only PetSmart stores in the United States and Canada. To correlate the two as far as practices, policies and procedures would be incorrect, as they are two completely independent corporations.

Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3092/is_1_39/ai_58587158

 

[BushFishRox]

Well since I have been inactive on this forum for like a month I missed this but dont want to waste my time catching up through 12 pages of this...

I will instead add my 2 cents, something like this happened when I first started out. I went all over the place looking for an oscar but the only place that had them and other fish I wanted was pet smart. I asked for an Oscar and a JD for my 150 they said no because the oscar eats fish since they feed oscars their nasty feeders...

so I ended up going to another store which pet smart recently bought out and they gave me what I wanted and even recommend some other fish that would suit.

 

[CathyGo]

Weird. We NEVER fed the oscars live feeders. It wasn't allowed. Not even if a customer bought a feeder and wanted to put it in. The reason I was given is that they didn't want movement=food with so many oscars in such a small space.

 

[Will Hayward]

Weird. We NEVER fed the oscars live feeders. It wasn't allowed. Not even if a customer bought a feeder and wanted to put it in. The reason I was given is that they didn't want movement=food with so many oscars in such a small space.

If you look at the Petsmart BRAND PROMISE book, that every store has (this is essentially a manual that keeps every store worldwide, operating on the same instructions) it will show that adult oscars as per the instuctions should be fed feeder fish on a daily basis. If a petsmart store is not doing this, then it's in violation of the Brand Promise, and some do have written exemptions from the higher Management. But the stores that do not have people who will write to their higher management to question these instructions, have to continue to follow them.

The book is riddled with ridiculous instructions. A 5" Bearded dragon will only receive 5 crickets as a meal, one for each inch. When you tie a Fishbag, you must spin the top of the bag, and not allow the bag to rotate, that's one of the some 30 steps that are listed to tie a bag of fish up. Etc. Etc.

 

[CathyGo]

I'll have to ask to look at the book the next time I'm in there but I don't think you're correct. The PetSmart I used to work at is VERY close to corporate headquarters and they have watched us feed the fish the usual way without saying anything. And believe me they won't hesitate to say something if they think the employees aren't doing something according to how they want it done. I've read through that book and some of the directions were pretty ridiculous. I hate corporate. They don't care about the proper habitat for the animals. All they care about is selling stuff. The hermit crab habitats are never done right. They are done to encourage people to buy the expensive substrates(calci-sand) even though they are bad for the crabs. But the managers can't try to fix it without risking their jobs.