Reef Keeper or Reef Smoker? (1 Viewer)

[MarkieB]

I had a fun SAturday. Just thought I would share for grins! 8)

1. I am looking around a store. A group of 5 people come in and start looking around the marine area. A vat says live rock above it and is filled with rock and water. They all gather and stare at the rocks. I wondered why they were so facinated after about 4 minutes. 4 of them walked away and one stayed behind still facinated with looking at the live rocks. The others went looking elsewhere. Another minutes goes by and the one still looking at the rocks yells to the others. Hurry ones moving. They all run back and another in his party managed to see one of the rocks moving as well! 8O

2. I am in AW. Looking. A lady says I want an anemone. I dont know anything about them. The sales lady says they are great and easy. The lady says good. I need something easy. I need to find my receipt from my puffer, snow flake eel, and majestic angel I bought last week. They all died. the she walked away smiling with her anemone in hand. 8O

3. Same store off of 290. Aw. I found some mushrooms that were awesome. The sales lady gets them and tells me do I need some drops? I said drops? What do you mean. She says snow drops. You gotta have them. I laughed and explained no, I have many fish and feed heavily. My corals do find eating the fish left overs. She bags it up, starts walking, and says, are you sure you dont want drops. They are going to die without the drops. 8O

It was an amusing day for me!

 

[Wildfire]

Oh the fun and joyous laughter of the LFS... with clue-less Paris Hilton wannabe's working there....

it makes me long for the good old days of "sales reps that knew what they were selling".... If you REALLY want frustration, go to the hardware section of the Clear Lake Fry's and ask about a good "pairing of CPUs and Motherboards" for a linux server.... after a dozen of so employees pass you around, you get to read them jumper manuals to explain that No, a Pentium 4 won't work on a SocketA motherboard. Even if that IS the "Charlie Chip" combo that is posted for a really great price....

 

[MarkieB]

No doubt service has changed everywhere.
You gotta really do research on your own these days before a purchase.

Although the eel, anemone story was funny it was sad too.
I so wanted to say hey lady don't kill anything else until you edcuate yourself. When she told the sales lady i really dont know anything and I trust you guys to tell me what is ok and what to do, I told myself to bite my lip and get away.

 

[DonnieKim]

Would have been a good time to hand a MARSH card to them!?!?!?!

That is when we get the new cards or broucheres, (sp), with the new official emblem!

 

[Guest]

I would have so followed that lady out to the parking lot to warn her and tell her to return the anemone.

 

[MarkieB]

I feel you. In many occasions I have wanted to get into a conversation with an individual, but a lot people won't have it. The store told them it is ok. Do I own a store? Why would the store not know?

Plus people have gotten so defensive about their space and rights these days (Wimps) you gotta be really careful about approaching people about anything. AS much as I want to at time, I just say it's not my business.

It would be a great idea for the club to get information pamplets at each stores counter tops to promoted the club and education. There was a discussion a while back about what to do with extra funds. This seems to me like a great place to spend some of that.

 

[Guest]

I am hoping that once we get our business cards printed up that we can refer people to our site so they can ask questions from the hundreds of people here. If we get them printed up soon, we will have them available to everyone who have ever needed them in situations like this.

 

[Niko5]

I always see situations like this but as much as I want to i don’t think i could just go up and tell them the problems with what they were told but I wouldn’t have any problem handing them a marsh card and telling them to check it out... I bet the club would get a great boost out of new members like that.

 

[Guest]

Even if you don't feel comfortable telling them they have made a huge mistake, you could always just let them know that there is a hobbyist club out there with hundreds of web members and so many club members that would be willing to help out if they have any questions abou their tank and livestock. Give them the card and be done with it. They can either throw it away or log on.

 

[MarkieB]

.. I bet the club would get a great boost out of new members like that.

I think you are right there. A welcome committed at meetings would not be bad either. Me and three friends went to a meeting about 2 years ago at AD. WE all left saying never again.
We all felt like unwanted outsiders.

Although the meeting itself was a wondeful thing, not one person said hello. We were asked to fill out a new intersted party sheet. We did and never heard anything from that either. If member ship increase is a goal a welcome committee would help. I would have liked to have someone come up and say hello, I am XYZ the clubs member director. Do you mind if I bring you around and introduce you to some people.

Granted I could have done the same thing myself but I am shy!
It took about 3 months for me to even get some other SHY friends to go with me.

Just a thought.

 

[Niko5]

Yea the meetings are unwelcoming until you get to know people and they really shouldn’t be like that. I wish we could at least get name tags for the meetings. I have a good idea how to make this a simple task and i hope to being up once the new board is in place hopefully ill be up there with them.

 

[BrianPlankis]

I second the welcome committee, I suggested this sometime back as I had to seek out someone to say hello to at the first meeting. I consider myself somewhat shy, but not too much, so shy people would feel unwelcome.

We could also ask at the beginning of the meeting if there is anyone new and ask them to briefly introduce themselves and what kind of tanks they keep. It would make everyone feel more welcome and when people feel part of a group, they are more likely to JOIN that group.(increased membership)

B.

 

[Guest]

Markieb, I had the same experience at the only club meeting I went too, and now the AD is closed, the meetings are too far for me.

 

[MarkieB]

We could also ask at the beginning of the meeting if there is anyone new and ask them to briefly introduce themselves and what kind of tanks they keep. .

Yes you could, But I am shy! and you going to force me to stand up and talk to a group of strangers... say it aint so...

I like the one on one approach better. Give me a chance to know people one on one, and then the second meeting I can share if I choose to. Give me the option.

 

[Guest]

Markieb, welcome to the club. We can be new members together. : )

When I read about aksing people to speak up I thought that some might be to shy, but for those who aren't they might find it welcoming and it would be a constant reminder to memebers to look for new faces at the meetings.

 

[djreef]

That's a problem with this group - we don't go out of our way to be rude, but we are a timid lot, just by our nature (personal observation). I've often wondered why such an introverted/personal hobby draws so many quiet types .

Anyway, we had some beautiful brochures printed a couple of years ago, and were placing them in stores all over town, but never had anymore re-printed after we ran out. I don't know why, because it was my understanding that they were effective in drawing folks in to the club.

DJ
= 8-->{I>

 

[BrianPlankis]

Markieb,

Welcome! You have a point, one-on-one could be better for shy people. Maybe we could have an announcement at the beginning of the meeting pointing out the officers and letting anyone speak who wants to speak and encourage all new people to come up and talk to the officers after the meeting is over? That a good compromise?

I would be willing to volunteer to talk to new people at the meetings that I can attend, I could even do the little speech at the meeting if I was allowed

B.

 

[Guest]

What I observed at the only meeting I have been to was that pretty much as soon as the meeting was over people tended to form into small inward pointing circles with other people that they already knew.

That's not to say that people were not friendly, a number of people introduced themselves to me before and after the meeting, but it all happened so fast that after the meeting I had trouble remembering who it was, so then I am embarrassed that I dont remember their names, so I said nothing. I can really see where a shy person might wander around for a minute then just leave cause they feel like an outsider. I'm a lil more outspoken (bet you hadn't noticed )

Someone I didnt even know and dont think I had ever even PM's just came up and just gave me a frag that was very nice. It wasn't so much the gift itself as it was the fact that someone had treated me the same as he would have treated someone he had know for years. was like, 'Hey I saw you wanted one of these and I had an extra so here ya go'. Makes a body feel welcome.

Name tags are a pretty good idea maybe we could replace membership cards with a name tag and get dual use for our money
For temp badges at work we have a small plastic sleeve with a clip on it that holds a drivers license, slip it in, clip it on and at the end of the day just take out the d/l and put it back in the wallet. You can even black out where the address is if you like

 

[Guest]

Dean... we are about to reprint the brochures again, Sherri is in the process of editing it slightly and the business cards are being designed as we speak. Both of which will be off to the printers very very soon....

 

[Guest]

Highestbid... I will ask for some brainstorming from our membership group to see what they come up with on the name tag issue. I think we will eventually need to get a few people who are the greeters of the club at meetings... I am guilty of not being sociable to all the new faces, but I try.

Let's collectively work on our social skills.