Another Customer Rant

So...this just happened maybe 3 min ago.

For those of you unaware, i work the small animal section at petsmart. This covers all the animals in cages there that arent cats.

A man came up to me, asking about a BP. He said that he had bought it here a year ago, and that it had only grown about 3-4 in in that time. This of course was a red flag and i managed to get him to buy a larger rodent size for it, but this isnt the thing that ticked me off.

He started talking about how he used to have a 9ft burmese when he lived out in florida, what he fed it, etc etc. Was a sort of interesting conversation, though I had the feeling this guy wasnt up to keeping one properly. Of course, everything was fine until the end when he said "Eventually, around 10ft i couldnt keep it anymore, so we released it into the wild so it could live with the other pythons out there."

Hes already out the door, but it took a LOT of control not to tell this man about how bad of an idea that was. Im starting to think he thought that they were native to the wild like that. My boss almost apparently went off on him as well.

Needless to say, people like that are why I feel reptile keepers like us get a bad rap.

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Well since you're at work & they probably want you to be nice to customers so they come back, it would have been terribly difficult to let him know what
a jerk he was without getting in trouble...but I really hope someone enlightens him. I think Fish & Game would have no trouble 'splaining things to him. :mad:

Yeah I had a guy singing the praises of power feeding to me the other day. It isn't worth it to argue with those types, if they cared to be informed properly they could take 30 seconds to google something.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Well since you're at work & they probably want you to be nice to customers so they come back, it would have been terribly difficult to let him know what
a jerk he was without getting in trouble...but I really hope someone enlightens him. I think Fish & Game would have no trouble 'splaining things to him. :mad:

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That was sadly the problem. I was glad that i was able to at least give him advice on his current BP.

Kind of ironic that i heard that story now. Just a few days ago I was at my local fish/reptile shop, and they had a large burmese, probably around 12ft. Guy apparently came in with it in a suitcase because he "didnt realise it would get so big" when he bought it as a baby.

If theres one thing i wished more people would to with their animals before purchase, its research. Ive had people get mad when i wouldnt sell them a koi for their fishbowl.

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Well hang in there...you're serving us well on the battlefront between sane & stupid...we need you, & the snakes need you too. :gj:
Even if you can't save them all...

Glad to hear there are some knowledgeable sales people out there in the big boxes. Carry on.

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Originally Posted by MR Snakes

Glad to hear there are some knowledgeable sales people out there in the big boxes. Carry on.

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Yes, a couple of our members are in that category...brave & wonderful souls! It's a very hard line to walk between "corporate" & what you KNOW is right.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Yes, a couple of our members are in that category...brave & wonderful souls! It's a very hard line to walk between "corporate" & what you KNOW is right.

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Good to know. I had a person in a Petco tell me that all snakes need is a 72 degree room. Wow, never knew it was going to be so easy!