Pet Store Employee Berated for Giving Good Advice

[Deleted member 149562]

When my firned and I had tour coaches, we worked for a large coach touring firm under contract doing 7 and 10 day UK touring.

Sometimes you can just see a person waiting to board and just get that pit of the stomach feeling from their body language.

One time we had a multiple south coast pick up tour to Weston-Super-Mare. Now personally I hate WSM, it is an awful place...sorry to those who live there but its just not a great place to go.

Anyway at one of the stops there was a lady standing a little bit away from the rest of our passengers, and the pit of the stomach feeling hit me. Well we started getting everyone boarded, I handled the suitcases and my colleague handled getting everyone on board. From the back of the coach a booming voice "oh...another old coach again" (our vehicle was 18 months old). I sat in the courier seat and the woman was sat behind me and she was chuntering all the way from Southampton to WSM and I could not escape lol

Got to the hotel, one of the best ones in WSM, got everyone off the coach and to their rooms. Went in the bar and she came down complaining her window did not overlook the sea. I went up with the receptionist and it was a seaview...the hotel's Victorian ornate railings were 6 inches too high according to the woman and ruined her view (the window was 6ft tall and 5ft wide).

Next morning another of my guests was in floods of tears. The woman had kept them up all night moving furniture in the room next door and had the TV on really loud all night. She had then had a go at the crying guest's hubby for flushing the loo at 11pm the night before.

I sorted the issues out, moved the couple away from the woman.

By halfway through the holiday most of my guests did not want to go on the included excursions if the woman was going too. She was causing so much trouble even the hotel staff were at their wits end.

I had no choice but to call the tour firm and explain what was happening. In many years of working with tour groups I had never offloaded anyone. The firm spoke to the hotel manager who confirmed the issues, the firm then instructed me to offload the passenger.

I took her to one side, right away from the rest of our group and explained that her behaviour had been too disruptive and too disrespectful and that I had the tour company's written backing (I gave her the letter from the firm) to remove her from the tour immediately. Oh and she went into full theatrical diva mode, called me everything under the sun and more besides. Next morning she left a message on my breakfast table to the effect that she would sue me and the firm and do a bad TripAdvisor review etc.

As she marched out of the hotel with her bags the rest of my guests actually clapped and cheered.

What she did not know is that the tour firm had investigated her and discovered that she had conned free holidays for years by posting acutely bad and untrue reviews. As a result of her behaviour she was banned for life from every single UK holiday and touring company. (There is a blacklist used by holiday firms, cruise lines and airlines that has names of those who like this woman have gone out of their way to behave badly)

The woman is what those of us in the business of dealing with the public call a "professional complainer" and there are loads of them out there....

 

[GaryE]

There was a young guy who wouldn't sell me a fish when I was new at this. He said I was overstocked. He was right. I was annoyed since like everyone I knew better, but I respected his approach and went back to the store when he was on shift. Within two months he'd been fired, basically for knowing too much.
The people who know better and get belligerent are awful, but we've seen enough of them marching around recently to know they're everywhere. People know what they want to hear, and if reality goes against that, they get mad and denounce reality. It must be weird to live like that, but they don't adapt to new info. In the years I've been on forums, I can't tell you how many times someone has asked a question, drawn thought out answers, ignored all that and simply waited for the answer they wanted to hear. Most buy the Oscar anyway.
We all do it to a degree, but some people really like to fight. I taught High School for years, and the drama creation lifestyle is a big thing for a subset of 13 to 15 year olds in hallways. They make everything small into something seemingly enormous, and then get mightily upset. Most grow out of it - some just keep the faith for all their lives.

 

[DoubleDutch]

Isn't this what our whole life is about?
Should anyone change her / his behaviour cause someone doesn't agree what (s)he believes in and tries to communicate.
To be honest I think this is why so many people nowadays have psychological issues constantly trying to adapt to others opinions and thoughts.
I think I'd even think it to be a succes if someone like this left the shop I'd work in and the next time I'd give exact the same advise.

 

[Rocky998]

When my firned and I had tour coaches, we worked for a large coach touring firm under contract doing 7 and 10 day UK touring.

Sometimes you can just see a person waiting to board and just get that pit of the stomach feeling from their body language.

One time we had a multiple south coast pick up tour to Weston-Super-Mare. Now personally I hate WSM, it is an awful place...sorry to those who live there but its just not a great place to go.

Anyway at one of the stops there was a lady standing a little bit away from the rest of our passengers, and the pit of the stomach feeling hit me. Well we started getting everyone boarded, I handled the suitcases and my colleague handled getting everyone on board. From the back of the coach a booming voice "oh...another old coach again" (our vehicle was 18 months old). I sat in the courier seat and the woman was sat behind me and she was chuntering all the way from Southampton to WSM and I could not escape lol

Got to the hotel, one of the best ones in WSM, got everyone off the coach and to their rooms. Went in the bar and she came down complaining her window did not overlook the sea. I went up with the receptionist and it was a seaview...the hotel's Victorian ornate railings were 6 inches too high according to the woman and ruined her view (the window was 6ft tall and 5ft wide).

Next morning another of my guests was in floods of tears. The woman had kept them up all night moving furniture in the room next door and had the TV on really loud all night. She had then had a go at the crying guest's hubby for flushing the loo at 11pm the night before.

I sorted the issues out, moved the couple away from the woman.

By halfway through the holiday most of my guests did not want to go on the included excursions if the woman was going too. She was causing so much trouble even the hotel staff were at their wits end.

I had no choice but to call the tour firm and explain what was happening. In many years of working with tour groups I had never offloaded anyone. The firm spoke to the hotel manager who confirmed the issues, the firm then instructed me to offload the passenger.

I took her to one side, right away from the rest of our group and explained that her behaviour had been too disruptive and too disrespectful and that I had the tour company's written backing (I gave her the letter from the firm) to remove her from the tour immediately. Oh and she went into full theatrical diva mode, called me everything under the sun and more besides. Next morning she left a message on my breakfast table to the effect that she would sue me and the firm and do a bad TripAdvisor review etc.

As she marched out of the hotel with her bags the rest of my guests actually clapped and cheered.

What she did not know is that the tour firm had investigated her and discovered that she had conned free holidays for years by posting acutely bad and untrue reviews. As a result of her behaviour she was banned for life from every single UK holiday and touring company. (There is a blacklist used by holiday firms, cruise lines and airlines that has names of those who like this woman have gone out of their way to behave badly)

The woman is what those of us in the business of dealing with the public call a "professional complainer" and there are loads of them out there....

This is the funniest bad vacation story... I feel bad for all the others on the trip but her actions are so bad their funny... Lol

 

[Deleted member 149562]

This is the funniest bad vacation story... I feel bad for all the others on the trip but her actions are so bad their funny... Lol

The reviews that the woman had left for her previous "bad holidays" were all worded exactly the same, only changed according to type of holiday such as flight, hotel, tour etc and she had used her real name too on all of them

She was an absolute nightmare. Every morning myself and my colleague dreaded going to breakfast cos she left us messages filled with complaints about the food, hotel, mattress too hard/soft, curtains not long enough to block out the sunshine in the mornings.....I wanted to throttle her but sadly I wasn't allowed to.

 

[Rocky998]

The reviews that the woman had left for her previous "bad holidays" were all worded exactly the same, only changed according to type of holiday such as flight, hotel, tour etc and she had used her real name too on all of them

She was an absolute nightmare. Every morning myself and my colleague dreaded going to breakfast cos she left us messages filled with complaints about the food, hotel, mattress too hard/soft, curtains not long enough to block out the sunshine in the mornings.....I wanted to throttle her but sadly I wasn't allowed to.

Her complaints are just soooo exact and dumb... Like with the railing being "SIX INCHES too high"... wth

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Her complaints are just soooo exact and dumb... Like with the railing being "SIX INCHES too high"... wth

Well she wanted to be able to lay in bed and see the sea from the comfort of the bed....but the railings were in her line of sight, so she complained about not having a sea view. First night she spend shifting the bed and the rest of the furniture to get a better view...despite the fact that either standing up or sat in an armchair, the sea view was perfect and totally unobstructed.

 

[Rocky998]

Well she wanted to be able to lay in bed and see the sea from the comfort of the bed....but the railings were in her line of sight, so she complained about not having a sea view. First night she spend shifting the bed and the rest of the furniture to get a better view...despite the fact that either standing up or sat in an armchair, the sea view was perfect and totally unobstructed.

There are not enough eye roll emojis to amount to the feeling I have right now

 

[Colin_T]

The reviews that the woman had left for her previous "bad holidays" were all worded exactly the same, only changed according to type of holiday such as flight, hotel, tour etc and she had used her real name too on all of them

She was an absolute nightmare. Every morning myself and my colleague dreaded going to breakfast cos she left us messages filled with complaints about the food, hotel, mattress too hard/soft, curtains not long enough to block out the sunshine in the mornings.....I wanted to throttle her but sadly I wasn't allowed to.

That's where you get the bus to take a slight detour off a country road and pull over. Let everyone out for a break and then push her off a cliff.
Did anybody see that?
See what?
Nope, didn't see a thing?
Oh you pushing her off a cliff, nope, didn't see anything.

 

[Slaphppy7]

That's where you get the bus to take a slight detour off a country road and pull over. Let everyone out for a break and then push her off a cliff.
Did anybody see that?
See what?
Nope, didn't see a thing?
Oh you pushing her off a cliff, nope, didn't see anything.

She'd probably live, and complain about the height not being tall enough.

 

[emeraldking]

Disrespect towards store employees happens more often than most people think. it doesn't have to be an lfs. This goes for every store possible. Wether employees have the correct knowledge or not, respect should always be in place.

But to go back to the story the OP has mentioned, it's pretty clear that his words that he's used, does make one think if he can really think logical. Of course, there are multiple sizes of tanks and fish. But for what reason? You don't put a labrador in a handbag that would be a perfect fit for a chihuahua...

 

[woyzeck]

Been following this with keen interest. For my mind, it is a perception thing. Yes the pet store guy was probably thinking in the interests of the pet owner and the fish for better satisfaction and quality of life but rather than saying Oscars have needs that not everyone can meet; and really, unless he has degree in ichthyology, who is he to say that ? Perhaps it was said with good intentions but read it again with an air of smugness. Fishing keeping is a very personal thing. I guarantee you, if you said that about someone's parenting skills it would be on like Donkey Kong. A better way would have been be to say I believe or I strongly urge you to consider ....

Others have followed up saying if they were in his place they would have no issue if a customer leaves empty handed on the same basis. On the surface i agree with the sentiments but guarantee you that customer and their money aint coming back, that's a sale you didnt make that day and future custom. Your KPI takes a hit and Head Office only crunch numbers on the money you brought in.

Ive seen it here - a young chap, who was dispensing advice which wasnt overly pragmatic, he got chewed out a few times and hasnt returned since. Is that quality assurance and customer satisfaction ? Then of course there are aggressive and belligerent types, but the better person knows when to walk away rather than antagonise.

 

[Lynnzer]

Been following this with keen interest. For my mind, it is a perception thing. Yes the pet store guy was probably thinking in the interests of the pet owner and the fish for better satisfaction and quality of life but rather than saying Oscars have needs that not everyone can meet; and really, unless he has degree in ichthyology, who is he to say that ? Perhaps it was said with good intentions but read it again with an air of smugness. Fishing keeping is a very personal thing. I guarantee you, if you said that about someone's parenting skills it would be on like Donkey Kong. A better way would have been be to say I believe or I strongly urge you to consider ....

Ive seen it here - a young chap, who was dispensing advice which wasnt overly pragmatic, he got chewed out a few times and hasnt returned since. Is that quality assurance and customer satisfaction ? Then of course there are aggressive and belligerent types, but the better person knows when to walk away rather than antagonise.

I was talking with an ice cream vendor a ouple of days ago. I know him from the number years his van has made its way down my street. I told him about my current fishkeeping hobby and he asked where I got my fish. I told him a couple of LFS's that I use and he told me had heard bad things about one of them. He says that other aquarists he speaks with on his ice cream rounds says they have complained that fish they bought died pretty soon afterwards. Now I know the shop involved, also know the people and I do know they always offer good advice as and when they can. Quite often though, people just roll up, look at the pretty fish and buy one or two to put in a goldfish bowl.
Despite the shop having a pretty good reputation, and in fact even won an award of some sort for the best aquarists, if such mealymouthed comments are made then it does have a detrimental effect.
The fact of the matter is that most fish deaths in the few days following a purchase is down to the buyer not having a suitably cycled tank, wrong water and perhaps even unprocessed tap water.

 

[GaryE]

This week, an acquaintance I trust in fish retail got a scathing review for his store, with really mean personal comments about his honesty. He was upset because he had no memory of the customer he had insulted and ripped off, so he checked the Facebook profile. The person who posted the review lives on another continent and seemed to like searching out retail sites (for aquariums) and stirring it up.
The story sounds far fetched, but other customers did a little 'creeping' and corraborated what my friend had found. There are some industriously weird and nasty people out there. That's a strange variation on the holiday begrudger - a person who doesn't even need to go on the holiday to pick a fight about what happened on it.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

This week, an acquaintance I trust in fish retail got a scathing review for his store, with really mean personal comments about his honesty. He was upset because he had no memory of the customer he had insulted and ripped off, so he checked the Facebook profile. The person who posted the review lives on another continent and seemed to like searching out retail sites (for aquariums) and stirring it up.
The story sounds far fetched, but other customers did a little 'creeping' and corraborated what my friend had found. There are some industriously weird and nasty people out there. That's a strange variation on the holiday begrudger - a person who doesn't even need to go on the holiday to pick a fight about what happened on it.

It has actually been proven many, many hundreds of times that reviews on Cruise Critic, TripAdvisor, FB, Amazon etc are fake.

A good percentage of the glowing ones are done by the business owners themselves or employees to boost the page ranking on search engines.

It has also been proven that business owners will falsify reviews that are damning towards their competition.

T'is why you should never ever take a review...good or bad...for granted as being the entire truth.