Hi, everyone.
 
Well, I'm not sure where to start.  Nor do I know in what order I should
put things, so if this wanders, please excuse me.
 
We gave our "lecture" to PetCo on Wednesday evening.  On Monday, I called
the store Manager to make sure we were still scheduled.  We were.  I asked
him about the number of employees that would be attending as we wanted
to provide information packets for every employee as well as a set of
"originals" that the Manager could Xerox as needed.  After originally
telling me that all employees from both stores, whether scheduled to work
or not, would be attending, he told me on Monday that 5 would be attending.
Well, I was quite disappointed, to say the least.  They are selling these
ferrets like hotcakes yet they could only round up *5* employees to get
trained??
 
Rather than getting upset, I decided that this could be a positive
experience for the 5 employees and after all, educating 5 is better than
none at all, right?
 
Donna Niehaus and I planned our lecture, went to Kinko's about 45 minutes
before our lecture was to start and make packets for everyone.  We arrived
at the store about 5 minutes after closing.  The guy that let us in did not
know there was a lecture scheduled.  The Manager wasn't there.  There were
only *3* employees there (two of whom were working, the other was not
scheduled to be there) and one Assistant Manager.  As the Assistant Manager
was counting down her drawer, the non-scheduled employee decided he would
not stick around.  So, long story short, we ended up not lecturing, but
informally talking to the Assistant Manager and the *2* employees as we
stood around a Plexiglas bin with about 15 ferrets in it.
 
My emotions kept switching between extreme disappointment to happiness.  I
was obviously disappointed that the Manager did not force the issue and
make this mandatory, but I was happy that the 2 employees stayed.  They and
the Assistant Manager were actually interested in learning about ferrets,
and were really concerned that PetCo sees ferrets as nothing but
merchandise.
 
We talked for 2 hours and it was pleasant.
 
I called the Manager on Friday and told him that I was unhappy that only 2
employees showed up for the lecture.  He seemed a little concerned also,
but did not apologize.  Instead of pressing the issue and telling him that
I felt it would be very beneficial for the rest of his employees to be
trained, I asked him about scheduling the "Ferret Day" he promised me,
which is a day each month that Cloud Nine Ferrets would be allowed to set
up a booth at the store and hand out flyers, answer questions, etc.  We
have tentatively decided on early January.  This is a little late as far as
I'm concerned, since many people will be purchasing ferrets as Christmas
presents, but there isn't much I can do about that, I suppose.  He is a
very nice person, but I haven't quite figured him out.  I think he is of
the "retail mentality", but am not quite sure.  If he were actually
concerned, however, I think he would have insisted that more employees
attend.
 
Our plan right now is to "get in good" with the store management and then
gently persuade them to allow us to give another lecture.  We will then
try to also persuade the management to somehow get more employees to the
lecture.  If getting all of the employees together at one time is too
difficult, we may need to lecture one day a week for a couple of weeks.
We'll see.
 
Overall, I guess the lecture was a success for the 3 who attended.  They
had many questions and we feel that these people will definitely pass on
the information to customers.
 
I'll keep you posted.
 
-Mark Zmyewski
 Cloud Nine Ferrets
 Huntsville, Alabama
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[Posted in FML issue 2524]