A Confrontation

My coworker had been at the fish wall for a bit.
Helping customers with their questions and catching fish for them.

Which was great for me so I could finish the opening tasks I'd been struggling to get done in between helping customers.
Though as I walked behind the fishwall, I was focused on isolating a couple of hamsters -one that had been returned, the other from the floor because there was odd furloss on its neck that we wanted to observe and such. 

And that was when I heard over the radio my coworker requesting my manager to come over to the fishwall.

Which usually means there's a problem with either a fish or the customer.
My guess was the customer.

And I knew that manager wasn't currently in the store as they'd gone to pick up a couple of animals from the vet. 

So I went to investigate to see what the problem was just to see if I could solve it without needing to get a manager involved.

The problem was more of a ….differing of opinions. 

This particular coworker is a bit more....stubborn when it comes to selling fish to customers. Usually if the customer doesn't meet the requirements of the recommended tank size for certain fish...they refuse to sell the fish to the customer.

Which was halfway the case here.
I'm not quite sure how it all started.

But basically the customer had a 20 gallon tank he'd just set up and had...maybe one or two fish already in there?
As he'd had a 10 gallon tank, but apparently gave the fish away to someone else, and bought the 20 gallon and such so he could have more fish.

And from what I could gather, the customer had come in looking to grab like 20 fish to put in his 20 gallon tank.

As he'd had 10 fish in his 10 gallon tank and 'hadn't had any issues in three years.' 

I'm pretty sure my coworker was working to convince him to not buy 20 fish right then.
Because you don't want to add in a ton of fish at once into a new tank because that can stress out your tank and cause the fish to die. 

So she was trying to talk him into buying only a few fish. 

Which we usually recommend. 
You don't want to buy more than 'half of your inches' when it comes to adding in fish.

So 20 gallon tank. 20 inches of fish. 
You only want to buy 10 inches at the most when it comes to adding in fish the first time.

Which depending on the size the fish get when they'll be full grown.
Is usually 3-6 fish. 

But I think the dude was taking it to mean that he could only have like 3-6 fish in his tank and 'no more' 

Which is why he got frustrated and went on his "I had 10 fish in a 10 gallon and it was fine!" rant.

Proceeding to accuse my coworker of being a 'tree-hugger' -which my coworker took offense to. 

And stating that "I guarantee your CEO doesn't care about how many fish I buy because he doesn't care how he gets the money, and if he did care the fish wouldn't be $2 each they'd be $20!" 
Which...doesn't compute. (my coworker was like "I guarantee he does care" etc) 
Because the cost of the fish doesn't = how much we care about them. Nor does it correlate with what the CEO thinks about the customers. 

He was also like "That thing about fish growing is a total like because I had those fish for 3 years and they never grow so it takes YEARS for them to grow" 
And my coworker was like "Well it's because the nitrates were probably high in your first tank because too much nitrates can stunt their growth which is why the didn't grow."
"But it will still take years for them to get that big!" 

*exhales*

In any case.

I ended up mediating a bit between the two of them to defuse the situation because the guy was like "I JUST WANT TO BUY MY FISH LET ME BUY MY FISH!" 

And my coworker is like "I can get you fish but not ALL the fish you want TODAY."

To which he was like "So I can only buy like 5 fish here because of your 'tree hugger ways' and then I'll have to go to another pet store and LIE about the size of my tank to them there and say I have like a 50 so I can then buy all the fish I wanted to buy here!" 

*exhales* 

Dude. Chill out.

*shakes head*

In any case. I think I managed to clarify the situation.
To explain to him that it's fine to have more fish in the tank.
But to help keep the fish healthier and be less likely to die from stress, we recommend that he only buy 5-6 fish today, wait a week or so and then come get 5-6 more fish.
Basically that it's fine to have more fish in the tank he can get more fish.
We just don't want him getting them all today.
Patience is the key.
Buy some fish. Wait. Buy some more fish. Just to help the fish live.

We kinda had to reiterate that concept a couple more times.

Where I was like "yes it's fine you want five tiger barbs and this catfish, but you don't want to add any more fish in today. You want to wait another week and then come grab the rainbow shark and other fish you want. You can get more fish, just you don't want to get them all today."

And I think me trying to keep a calmer tone and sympathizing with him helped to calm him down a bit. As he became much more willing to listen after that. 

So yah.
In the end he ended up with 5 tiger barbs, a shark and a catfish. 

And I had to talk him out of getting a couple plecos because it was a brand new tank. Barely 24 hours set up. Therefore....there would be nothing for the pleco to eat so he just needed to wait a while before getting those.

Hopefully he left happy.
Hopefully he didn't go straight to another pet store to buy more fish. 

*exhales*
But I suppose if he did that and a bunch of fish end up dying...he'll realize that we were right to caution him to not buy a ton of fish at once. 

Guess we'll see....

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi