This twenty-two-year-old has worked at a large chain pet store for three years now and totally loves her job.
She is very passionate about animals and has a lot of expertise in reptile and fish care– since she mainly works in those two pet sections.
“I take the welfare of our animals very seriously and always do my best to ensure they go to good homes by educating customers about proper care,” she said.
In fact, she cares about the animals’ well-being so much that she has even approached her management team about policy changes that make the pet store a better pet environment.
For example, she suggested they no longer use sand in the gecko enclosures, invest in better fish food, and more.
But, every now and then, she also has to deal with some customers who are unfit to take home a pet. And just last week, she ran into one of those instances.
It all began when a woman and her ten-year-old daughter entered the pet store and wanted to buy a fish.
The woman was apparently carrying a 0.25-gallon bowl and hoped to specifically buy a goldfish.
“But, for those that don’t know, goldfish are actually way more maintenance than you would think, and you need at least twenty gallons of space plus a filter at minimum,” she explained.
JackF – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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In fact, goldfish actually suffer when kept in small bowls and will usually die soon after. But, if they are properly cared for in the appropriate tank, the fish can live for numerous years.
So, she decided to politely strike up a conversation with the woman and explain that the small bowls were not suitable for goldfish. She also recommended the twenty-gallon starter kit, which was on sale at the store.
However, the woman was a bit combative and claimed to “know what she was doing.”
Her daughter, though, became upset by her mom’s response– and the girl said she did not want her fish to be sad.
“Then, they started arguing, and the daughter kept trying to insist on upgrading to a bigger size. I even showed them a cheaper ten-gallon starter kit, but the woman said no,” she recalled.
So, she was ultimately forced to reiterate that the 0.25-gallon bowl was not a suitable tank for any animal.
Afterward, though, the woman became seriously pissed off. In fact, the woman even started demanding she just hand over “the damn goldfish.”
But, at this point, she felt extremely uncomfortable with the situation and told the woman that, unfortunately, she did not feel comfortable selling her a goldfish that day.
This prompted the woman to completely blow up on her and demand to speak to her manager. The woman’s daughter also began to cry hysterically.
Thankfully, though, after the woman reported her to her manager and pledged never to go back to the store, her manager did say she was within her rights to deny the sale.
Nonetheless, her manager also said that she should “just give them the fish” next time and that it was a jerky move to deny the sale.
So now, she is not sure if refusing to sell the goldfish was the wrong thing to do or if saving the goldfish from an unhappy life was worth pissing the woman off.
If you were in her shoes, what would you have done? Do you think she had a right to deny the sale?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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