Who's Minding the Store?

[Dennis Hultman]

Well good luck finding anyone to run you store now that everyone knows what a bunch of jerks you are!!

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[Dennis Hultman]

Rich's six-gun was faster than mine...

 

[morphrancher]

I submit the possibility that perhaps some of the "intolerable" events you have suffered with the "community" may have been through your own doing. Certainly, as witnessed here, patience is not your strong point. The expectation that someone MUST attend to you wants when demanded, regardless of any other consideration, certainly is not very reasonable.

Good luck in your other pursuits in life. I do mean that sincerely.

Rich, that first paragraph is absolute hogwash. We have always run a customer service oriented business and we have never had a complaint or problem.

While winding things down I gave away thousands of dollars worth of equipment to good people I know will use and appreciate it. I just a gave female Mojave and my oldest, most reliable female breeder to a person I know only through the local reptile "community". Gratis, no strings. I trust them to take care of the animals I have invested so much time, energy, and money into. I didn't try to eke out every last dime. I'd rather leave the party gracefully then cussing and stomping around.

To expect customers to roll over for you is not reasonable either. I've been in business long enough to know the customer is not always right. However, unless they are a complete a-hole, or a sociopath, it's good business to look at it from their perspective and make things right on your side of the street. As a customer I need to be treated as valued and respected. I also want what I pay for. Does it matter at all to you that I was a contributor before it was required?

I'm assuming you are still doing SerpenCo. Do you ship animals at your convenience or the customers? Would you ship an animal without first being paid for it?

I made no disparaging remarks about you questioning your character. Re-read my posts. I think to a complete outsider you would come off as bitter and stand-offish based on your posts. Certainly not as professional.

Business, at all levels, is like a prairie dog colony. If you poke your head out at some point there's going to be someone waiting to take a shot at you. The farther you venture out, the bigger the target you are. Conversely, if you sit in your safe little den all the time eventually you will die from a lack of sustenance. You've got to be willing to risk taking that bullet. Thankfully most of the shooters are stupid and birdshot instead of varmint cartridges. It may sting and leave a welt when your hit, but you've got to deal with it and move on.

Like I said, if it's causing to much stress, move on! I am hoping the two applications I am working on now are the last ones I will ever do for a client. I'm burned out on IT and I'm taking steps to move away from it.

I'll call a spade a spade when I know it to be true, but I don't just randomly throw out crap about people I don't even know. That is one of the intolerable aspects for me about pets as a business. For some people it's all about the egos and not about the animals. I have worked at the higher distribution levels in the industry, manned the counter at a store, cleaned a lot of tubs, killed many thousands of mice, and even managed to make buck with the Ball Pythons on the side.

My "real" job is web development and I have been doing it since 1997 with a little aside when I got my CDL and drove a semi over the road for about two months (That was my reaction to midlife crisis. I should have bought a sports car instead.)

I've got three kids and they are all still alive and don't cower when I come near them, so yes, I have patience. But biz is biz, and no one was responding to my questions about my money. The PayPal dispute got your immediate attention so I am under the impression that it worked. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you have read about the resolution process and it does not in anyway affect your status or put any kind of "black mark" on your PayPal account. In fact PayPal does not receive dispute emails unless it is raised to a claim, which I didn't need to do. They are archived by PayPal but only for future reference in regards to that particular transaction. I have to call you on this one because your somewhat belligerent response would indicate a lack of patience on your part.

How would you handle this scenario: Let's say you order a $25 dollar item from Circuit City for pickup at the store. When you get to the store at 7PM you give them the printed order and pay cash for the item. They tell you it will be couple minutes while they pull it from stock. Being the gentleman you are, you step aside and wait while other customers conduct transactions at the counter. You wait five minutes. Then fifteen. At thirty minutes you inquire about why it is taking so long. No one can answer the question. You really need this gizmo to be the coolest kid on the block so you hang around for another hour and a half but still no product that you've already paid for. Finally the clerk lets you know that they can't find the product and it's now 9PM and the store is closing. But, they assure you they will call tomorrow when it's ready.

So you head home. You patiently wait for the call from the store informing you that the gizmo you paid for is ready to be picked up. The store opens at 9AM and around 3PM you haven't heard anything so you call and no one answers. You try again around 7PM and still no answer. So you figure that maybe there is a phone issue and drive to the store. You get there and even though the hours for that day are 9AM-9PM the parking lot is conspicuously empty and doors to the darkened store are locked. You get home and you are a little peeved as they have your money and you are still gizmoless.

The next morning still no call. At noon the you head to the store and the clerk recognizes you and pulls $25 from the drawer before you even make it to the counter. They hand you the 25 bucks and tell you that you aren't getting your gizmo because of a third party computer error they never had any in stock. You tell them you would have appreciated a call when they opened at 9AM and you would have picked up the gizmo at another location. They tell you that your invoice was one of many in a pile and they just didn't get around to it. You'd rather have the gizmo, it's limited edition model only they carry, so the clerks looks at inventory for other stores and it turns out the last gizmo available in the chain was sold 30 minutes before you arrived.

Now you are a bit more peeved because if they had called you in a timely manner you could have had your gizmo. Also, when you were at the store you asked why they were closed the day before. The clerk says the store manager decided to go golfing that day and he had the only key to the store. When you get home and go out to play all the other kids make fun of you and call you names because you told them you were getting a gizmo and you didn't.

Would that have been the proper way for them to handle the situation? What if the manger was discourteous to you in front of staff and other customers for bothering the company with inquiries about the gizmo you paid for and didn't receive? What if on your way out the door he points at you and yells, "Loser!" and kicks you in the arse just for good measure?

Maybe other people would tolerate that kind of treatment, but not me, and I gather, not you.

Oh, I forgot to mention, this same manager once cut you a real good deal on an expensive doohickey, saving you a few hundred dollars. To show your gratitude you gave him a $25 tip.

No, Rich, I don't get to take many vacations. I'm glad you are able to. When a client sends me something Friday afternoon at 5:30PM they generally expect me to act on it over the weekend. When I don't what is the first call I get Monday at 8AM? Yeah, it's the client wondering why I haven't done something.

I invite you to come to Denver and I will personally introduce you to people that have lied to me and stolen from me. I have no qualms about saying it in public or to their face because it is the truth. You can meet the "rescue" woman who kills green iguanas because she does not believe they should be pets. I have the records and one year they euthanized more animals then they took in by their own admission. We can take a trip down south (hopefully I'll be living there in a few months) and I will introduce you to the guy that got busted selling pot in fish food canisters out of his store. But before that we'll pay a visit to the fellow whom I trusted very much and then apparently dogged me hard at the KC show to a person who is a friend from Kansas. Obviously he's not smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut. But he will tell you the story about the guy down south hurling box turtles discus style into a field because they weren't selling. It's good to have that info before you meet him. Put's things in persepctive. When we come back north we will stop into the Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Animal Industry, Pet Animal Care Facilities Act administration offices. There we will meet the new director and she can show you the inconsistencies in applying the law and the cronyism she has introduced into the advisory board. While we're close by we can stop and see the mayor and animal control people of the town I live in to discuss why keeping a mantid, frog, or even a mealworm requires an exotic animal permit. Then we will go and see the people that used me, not once, but twice, to the tune of several hundred dollars. Yeah, shame on me for that one. But that's what happens sometimes when you expect people to abide by the same ethical standards as you do. The golden rule, karma, you know.

After a nice meal and good nights rest we can spend the next day meeting all the good folks. They outnumber the rotten ones considerably. We can pop in and see how the snakes I sold or gave to them are doing. We can visit the other rescue where they do what they say and actually rehabilitate and re-home animals. They introduced me to "Dr. Fitz" from the Emergency Vets and E-Vet Interns show. If we're lucky he will be doing stand up that night at a club in Denver. He's really quite funny. Then we can head up to Greeley and meet Dr. Klingenberg. He co-authored The Ball Python manual with the Barkers and that De Vosjoli guy along with at least ten other books. Great guy and we are lucky to have him here. So no, not everyone is a jerk and I'm not bitter. Life's too short.

Bring your favorite match AR15, I'll bring mine, and we can have a little prairie dog shoot on the way back. Just wait for the egoistical or stupid ones to come all the way out and stand their surveying their turf like Yurtle the Turtle.

------------

Well, that was cathartic getting all that out. I do think you owe me an apology for making baseless judgement statements about my character.

Anyway, the offer's legit if you ever make it to these parts.

Thanks for the best wishes and same to you.

This metaphorical graphic doesn't get used enough, but it sure applies here:

 

[WebSlave]

Sometimes just ignoring someone is the best path to take, fellas...

I think I will take my own advice here.........