Very well said... and it's sad but true. If an animal at petsmart or petco dies, they just write it off and order another one (or three) regardless of available room. I remember once, we had about three spare 10gal equivalent cages open and my B**** manager ordered a TON of frogs, geckos, and skinks! I had to do some fancy footwork rearranging everyone and hated cramming so many animals together...but had no choice. The one thing I did insist on, and got, was that the Schneider's Skink we got had his own 20L tank.

No, even the associates who know what to do have no choice or say in how the animals are housed overall, but at least we could try to make their lives tolerable while they were in those conditions. And sometimes, some of us succeed.