Here are a few related videos you might find interesting as well: I bought a corn snake off Craigslist and it ended terribly ruclips.net/video/bhpom6wJ-vI/видео.html This snake almost escaped while being shipped ruclips.net/video/2ObAojZ7kNk/видео.html I shipped the wrong crested gecko to a buyer ruclips.net/video/c7MExaZPWfA/видео.html
Hey man, I'm local and a hobbyist crested/gargoyle gecko breeder, sucks to hear what happened but if you are looking for help I know it's an odd place to offer it but you can hit me up.
Hired a horse trainer, seemed great , told me she'd been going out and training my horse, was giving me updates via text, etc. I noticed my gear, saddle etc was never moved, always looked EXACTLY the same. Busted her lying, she'd just been taking my money and doing nothing. Fired her. Hired a new horse trainer, told her what had happened with the first one. New one seemed great. Same exact thing happened almost immediately. It can be VERY hard to tell the quality of people.
Fellow equestrian here - and that's shocking. Actually *dangerous* too. If you think that horse is supposed to be less green in a particular area because of its training and you get on and challenge it...
How horrible!! There are shockingly so many awful horse people out there. I hired a trainer for my rescued mustang, and felt like a weirdo for sitting in on the training sessions and watching. Now, I'm glad I did that... though I know it's not an option for everyone.
Have you uh ever thought of asking them to send video proof of the training and just explain that because of bad experiences you now require video proof. It would save you from stressing so much and it would keep your trainer accountable. I’d also ask for video proof of progression ie if your horse won’t walk through water and then in a month she sends you a video of that same horse now calmly and walking through water proving that there is actual progress happening cause that’s total bs to lie to someone about training there horse and talking their money
Also it wasn’t just one mistake… it wasn’t forgetting to fill one water bowl once, it was a HUGE mistake. Not even a mistake she straight up didn’t do her job.
I’ve worked for two separate animal boarding facilities and watched people see just how far they can go with slacking off whilst seeing the negative effects it takes on the animals just because they wanted to go home earlier. They also utilized check lists and people would just mark off everything without making sure they had done it. People lose compassion when caring for animals and don’t realize it’s their actions directly causing harm or neglect just to make their own day easier.
I used to work with cats. Sometimes I would take breaks, and they were admittedly longer than they should have been. But I always made sure each animal was fed, watered, and clean. It was my damn job, if I wasn't doing that then why was I there?
Ive also worked in pet care businesses, my own pet sitting business primarily, but also for a big box store, rescues and dog daycares. IME, when animal care suffered it was most often because the employee was given too many tasks and not enough time, or they were dissatisfied with the job for some reason and then slacked off. The businesses I've seen give the best care were ones where theyre either run exclusively by the owner (and even then, its not always perfect or ideal) or where employees are happy and satisfied with workload, wages and their treatment.
@@BeckyS these businesses definitely threw way too much onto employees and bordered on hostile during interactions. Ultimately, they are still unable to keep employees more than two months and refuse to take any responsibility. The owners are burnt out and taking it out on employees which causes an endless cycle of people leaving the business and them resenting new hires because they hate the training process.
I had a crested gecko that somehow got mold on her food dish and I have simply never put that same dish in ever since. I have NO IDEA how this person missed it. Also, if you’re worried about homes I can try sending your information to my cousin Vic. She breeds reptiles and is getting her degree in zoology as we speak. She even has Black mambas the last time I checked- Over all, one of the most responsible People I know
I've only ever had mold in my leopard geckos humidity hides. They used them as toilets too. So I got different hides that are easier to clean and use moss instead of paper towels and check them more often. There's no excuse. Especially since the mold here was out in the open and ON THE GECKOS?? Like thats insane.
I've had mold like this in my American Banded Geckos food, never elsewhere, and in my hermit crabs food, never elsewhere. I just don't get how it would be SO bad it got ON THE GECKOS?? I have no idea. Horrible.
I've had a little bit of mold on some blueberries my rats stashed that I didn't find until cage cleaning day. I do not understand how something can get so out of control!!
@@stinkyrattie4478 Unchecked mold, or and unknown strain can spread fast, especially in a humidified environment a crested gecko usually has. its unfortunate but it can and does happen
I’m a fishkeeper. In my first year I made so many mistakes and lost a handful of very low maintenance tropical fish. I did not make those mistakes again. Now I rehab sick, young and dying fish so I’ve lost many fish and I handle it well. But those first few losses - the ones that were absolutely my fault - rocked me. We all make mistakes but refusing to even look at an animal...yikes.
Cleaning old food is a BASIC step for pets that require daily fresh food. It's one of the first fricken rules you learn about keeping things like cresties, beardies, etc. - every single guide I have ever read reminds you to remove uneaten food by the next day. This isn't just one mistake, this was laziness. that person was clearly just trying to manipulate you for their own mistake by claiming it was something you did that caused their negligence. That kind of aggressive mold growth and resulting death takes days of negligence. Whether you work at a pet store or a zoo or a vet (i've done all of the above), you are assumed to have some semblance of competence when it comes to daily cleaning and care...
Exactly. Makes me wonder if they really left their job just to do irresponsible work at emerald scales or were they really fired. Dont know how they thought they would get away with being lazy an endangering the animals at a place where the owner cares.
Exactly, it's the same for *all* pets, you give them clean dishes to eat out of. There's no way someone shouldn't know this. I'm yet to own a reptile but I can say with confidence I'd not need to be *told* to clean a food dish between meals.
Depends on which form of numbness being felt in my mind. The apathy kind, where you lose any care or concern for the well-being of the living. And another where you care but move on quicker from loss to keep focus on the remaining animals.
@@allared9008 As someone who has worked a lot in a similar atmosphere, you never stop caring about the animals you just fall numb to the loss it's self.
Wow, the task couldn’t have been more clearly stated. Even if it wasn’t how can you see mold in an enclosure and think it’s ok. It sucks that people suck.
@@GoHerping I know at the vet clinic we have a chart on each kennel where you mark when you feed, water, give meds, clean, and then spots for other notes. For the meds we have to put our initials by each med on the chart to prove that we did it.
From the pics I wonder if the employee was taking shortcuts. Like she emptied this mushy food out but didnt wash and dry the dish before putting it back in. Cuz how else can you say you cleaned when there was obviously something the mold was feeding and growing on there? A not responsible person could say taking the food out or even rinsing it a bit was cleaning and then say a miscommunication happened cuz they didnt realize they had to actually wash and dry the bowl. If the person cared then like someone else said...they'd have checked and seen the mold early on and think I should remove this and clean it again and/or let me report this to the boss and ask what I did wrong and what to do.
As someone working in management, it sounds to me like the key issue with your new hires is training. People can appear knowledgeable, however when delegating to new employees you truly have to be almost condescendingly specific with what each job entails. A bullet point list would be fine for a more experienced employee who already has the good habits and goes into auto-pilot, but for a new hire it is very easy to let a new workload become overwhelming and let simple jobs slip your mind. Good luck :)
Hiring is hard. I think first and foremost you should have a probation period. For animals, I would say between 1-3 months. The first few weeks should be training of course, but afterwards check up on them periodically. If you're already doing the work, checking on someone won't change much, but once probation is over then you have the free time. It will take time, the key is to find someone good with the variety. Save hospital stuff for yourself in the meantime. Once you find someone who proves themselves (long term, personally a year +) you can deligate them to have others as you expand. (A manager so to speak.) Never be 100% uninvolved, but you can step away more the more good people you find. Maybe even have part timers. Instead of someone who does everything, hire someone who comes in x time for cresteds, and another for beardies. They may only get 5-10 hours a week, which will keep them from relying on you, and as they prove themselves slowly give them more hours and more species. Good luck, love the channel and love your attitude. Keep up the work, and don't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch. *Edited for typos.
Like many others, I'm sorry for your loss. I know you love all animals and have no doubt this weighs heavily on you. Hopefully we all learn from it to make other critters happier in life
It's not your fault. People are great liars in interviews, people oversell themselves and it's difficult for the interviewer to decipher the truth from the fiction. Out of those 30 people you interviewed, some of them would have probably been incredible employees, but lack the same interview skills. I am really against the whole interview process.
This is pretty sad. From a vet assistant in training, this looks like something that could have easily been avoided if there was just honesty and communication lmao. In the reptile room at my vet assistant class, we take the food and water bowls out everyday to clean, refill and put back in lol. We also have smaller servings because we change it out everyday
I agree! Im a vet tech in training, and while we dont study with reptiles much, its like common sense to clean there food? When i worked at a pet shop, i was the only one who ever did which made me quite mad, but i think it just comes down to who the person is helping out and if they have a passion for it! And good luck getting your assistant degree!!
The dishonesty and lack of communication is on her and her alone, so I am glad she was terminated. When you have clear outlines of what to do and fail to do them - even to the point of lying about having them done - you shouldn't be in that position anymore.
Yes and the one that died from no water!? Surely anybody knows an animal needs access to fresh water daily?! It’s crazy. She didn’t know what “ deep clean crested geckos” meant I reckon and just ticked she’d done rather than asking! But still doesn’t explain why the lack of water for them?! Surely anyone knows they need water?!
As someone that works in pet care. This is frustrating as neglect of basic care. For any animal, you make sure they are fed, watered, and have a clean environment. It’s really hard to find good people that genuinely care to take proper care of animals.
My ex best friend (key word ex) was someone who claimed to love animals and that they are great animal parents. I am good with training cats and dogs but I am better with cats. I have been around cats my whole life and when I was six I was introduced to being around newborn kittens from the barn where we leased our horse from. I have a lot of experience with cats. All of my cats are indoor cats. But my friend on the other hand had indoor outdoor cats who did jot get proper vet care. One summer he manipulated me and my mom into taking in his pregnant cat assuring us that she was fully vaccinated. We had five cats at this point (that was the maximum amount of cats we ever had), two where mine, two where my sisters, and one was my moms. Due to the five cats we wanted to make sure that the foster cat was not going to risk any of ours. She was never vaccinated and I could not let her free roam the house because she could be dangerous to our cats. The other incident was when my friend told me he was going to put his other cat down because she was peeing outside the litter box. I was horrified and I told him that he needed to give the cat to me so I could surrender her to my local no kill shelter. Turns out that the reason why she was peeing outside the litter box was because it was not cleaned in a MONTH. Some people should not have the privilege of owning animals and he is one of them.
For real though. I used to work at a commercial pet store, thinking it would be a fun job. Ya know get to take care of animals all day, talk to people about animals. But oh boy was a wrong. There were a few good employees who genuinely cared about the animals. But I had to quit after telling my manger and 5 other coworkers that a panther chameleon we got in had mouth rot. Like super visible mouth rot. No one listened to me or did anything about it till the poor dude was nearly dead. It took a whole month just for them to listen to me and take the chameleon to the vet.
Moving forward, it could be helpful to designate a separate employee to do an end of day check-in on all the animals. It'd be mostly a redundancy, but it'd prevent something like this from happening so severely in the future. If you had somebody designated to just check every enclosure to make sure it looked clean and the animals were active, and mark down any behaviors that seem unusual, then something like mold would be caught much sooner. It'd also make the cleaning/feeding employees feel that they'd definitely be held accountable if they slipped up. It may also help you feel more confident in the hiring process moving forward if you organize to have redundancies in place. If your selection is small enough, it could even be you or your girlfriend who takes on checking each enclosure around closing time, since you can be confident neither of you would miss something. You'd still save time from not doing the actual routine maintenance, but would have a safety net in case of error or neglect. I don't know what your ex employee was thinking, but they probably thought they could get away with it one way or another. The only way I can think of for this to be a genuine mistake is if they somehow got confused over which enclosures housed crested geckos and had been checking a completely different section and ignoring the actual cresteds-- but if they were very knowledgeable about reptiles, that also seems very unlikely.
I think it would be good to have either you or your partner do the checks initially, and still occasionally after that. That way you can feel more confident that any newbies know what your expectation is. Additional documentation might be useful. I know that’s another ‘thing’ to do, but it could help with the communication element. These could act as a reference sheet for the person and a way to absorb the information. It also would be a good perpetual resource that would go beyond any individual employee. Like for ‘deep clean’, it would itemize the process step by step, specify what materials are needed (and where they could be found), cautions (things to be careful of for safety of animal and staff, and observations (“Is the animal eating/drinking? Is the temp/humidity ___?” As well as assuring them that they can always ask questions and get a second opinion from either you or your partner. While this might be a silly-seeming excess, I think it could genuinely help. You could even get help outsourcing the process. Many folks can assist with assembling this kind of documentation (I do process documentation in my work so I know many have this experience). You could have an initial meeting about what your needs are, and then perhaps provide them with a video of you narrating the process. They can then break that down for you into documentation you can review for correctness and completeness. If happy, the same process could be repeated for other species. Another option might be hiring someone in the reptile community to use their own experience to generate an initial care guide itemized and suitable for an employee. They could then review it with you and make needed changes to have it better reflect your business, preferences, and supplies. I’m sorry this happened - both for the loss of the innocent animals, and the managerial frustration of having a new hire process end so frustratingly. Best of luck in finding solutions moving forward.
Not to blame you, but it's kinda weird that no one else, or you, had known the enclosures were in that state. Which means that no one bothered to spare the geckos a passing glance for however long it took the enclosures to get like that. Yes, it was her task to check on them, and you should be able to trust your employees. But all it would have taken is a simple glance at those tanks to see they hadn't been cleaned.
Checklists need to be signed off on by a second party, always. It is a quick redundancy that prevents mistakes and can in some circumstances save lives. So sorry all of you experienced such a traumatic event, especially the geckos
With a week of training and a week of working solo no business would leave a brand new hire to run the business without supervision or checking in to make sure the new hire is productive. It’s really heartbreaking that one of the cresties starved and dehydrated _to death_ ! That poor baby was hungry and thirsty and left to die with nobody to help it while it slowly passed away 😭😭😭 NEVER put blind trust into anyone you just met especially when the health and well-being of 100 animals depends solely on their competence.
@@Anavirable what does that matter? A work week is five days which is still enough time for one to die. They live in a humid climate they heavily rely on their environment to keep them hydrated. For humans it only takes 3 days of dehydration to kill us imagine an animal thats always surrounded by humidity and water they aren't built to be without it long they had no reason to evolve that way
Welcome to self employment struggles. Keep in mind, getting along with you (interview wise) and caring for animals are two completely different qualities. My best worker ever was autistic and interned for me, via the college with a biology major. It was her goal to be a vet or own an animal rescue. She wasnt wonderful relating to people (introverted, quiet, and shy) but she kicked ass at animal care, playing, and cleaning! Animals made her bloom! Perhaps a Q & A sheet of common animal issues, temps, foods would help you screen better. It also help if they have a history of shelter or science center volunteering as well as a few critters of their own at home. Ask how long their childhood dog lived? LOL Dont give up!
Also, yes we have all lost a pet due to something we have done wrong, it’s a learning curve sometimes. We feel terrible, do better and move on. This was not the case with this employee, she was told how to care for the animals and didn’t do it. Like… it’s not even hard.
@@анархия-х9у Okay not ALL of us, my point was sometime things happen. Even when we provide what we think is the best care. Thing happen…. What happened here was not okay. Don’t take everything so literal.
What you really need is, before you hire ANYONE, write a manual. Write down exactly how things are to be done. Every single step. It's an investment of time, but having a reference for employees to turn to when you're unavailable is key. Also consider if you're going to hire, putting cameras in your reptile care areas that are wi-fi accessible. Cameras help keep people honest as well as give you an impartial view if something goes on, and a way to quick check on employees during the day without taking too much time or focus away from your main projects.
Liars excel at convincing you they're great people. Sometimes you just get unlucky and get a bad apple. You proved you clearly communicated work tasks. That mold was so out of control anyone could tell this employee was not doing her work and lying by marking it off. You did the right thing.
Entirely different fields, but same general idea here. I’ve trained many many people for different jobs; some were operating heavy machinery, and others were just on day to day tasks. I’m in no way a trainer either, I just realized as I was going along that people are way different than each other. I would write out instructions on how to execute tasks, and would break them down so that there were no questions as to what to do. It works. Maybe setting aside a few hours for writing out tasks can help for any future hires? It’s helped me.
You may be able to sue for negligence. It’s wasn’t a mistake she just didn’t do her job at all, she marked it off as done and this affected your business.
@Reptile Innovations hmmm all true. She was new and not being checked after. I know it’s usually the employers responsibility but I was thinking with something this scale he could recoup costs. Maybe if she had been there longer without issues, then suddenly quit caring for the animals?
I would recommend maybe next to the board, have employees write the times and initials next to the completed task. Also I would invest in security cameras, and check them when employees are new to make sure tasks are being done. Or just check after they leave to make sure take are done!
Props to you for being so calm in this video, I would have been so upset even after all this time. Sorry you had to go through that. I've never owned a reptile (nor do I want to), but I am obsessed with this channel
I think that the only wrong that you did with the 2 week hire was not having someone check on her work within her probational period. If someone were to check behind her, they would had noticed the mold sooner and that one of the geckos was looking a lil parched and then it wouldn't had gotten so bad that she was fired over it. With that being said, if she was so serious about her job that she quit her previous one, then she would had shown how serious she was by how she took care of the animals. Leaving one without water or food for it to die and the others to be covered with mold to where half died or was in critical condition isn't serious. I worked for a place that had plants around and even though I didn't know much about plants, trust me when I say that if I saw something wrong with them, I told that boss about it. If I worked in a reptile place without knowledge of them, I would ask if there should be mold around the animals. Plus, she didn't even finish all her duties? It's one thing if you could only hire her for like 3 hours to do 10 hours worth of work and her not finishing and half assing it, but I don't think you would hire someone for just a few hours and they quit their previous for it. Don't feel bad that she only had one pay check, if she wanted more she wouldn't let the geckos get moldy. I personally feel bad for her animals at home, she must be even worse at husbandry there.
Its possible there weren't labels on those tubs so maybe she cleaned some and didn't know about the others or didn't have the right animal ID. Who knows.
I don't know honestly. I get it, she was the direct cause of their death, she was negligent with their care and her lack of husbandry caused the geckos to get sick and eventually die. HOWEVER, all these animals are ultimately under your care and responsibility. Even when other people are getting paid to do the maintenance, you should never go a whole week without inspecting your animals. It doesn't take a lot of time, you would only be doing it every other day, and if you detected some issue, you could tell the person the very next day, a crested gecko will not die in 2 days. At the stage you're at, that can never be a hands off job. Even big breeders that produce animals by the thousands will have designated people to make sure that the animals are being taken care of, if they're good, responsible breeders. And the rest of the cresties were lucky because you had that order to fulfill so you discovered the horror scene. If that order hadn't been placed, I wonder when you would find out. From a reptile breeder/keeper to another, she was highly irresponsible and negligent, but you also failed your own animals, that are under your responsibility.
I adore this channel, but I have to agree with you. I work at a grocery store, in a deli. If I was negligent about my job and the food spoiled, and it just stayed that way for quite a while...and the food never gets replaced, subsequently destroying it, sure. I'm gonna get fired eventually. But that's why there's a manager to me and a boss to the manager, to ensure that everything is done correctly. My continued failures are also THEIR continued failures. Fortunately, this is an experience he will likely learn from and be able to do better in the future. Although I'm certain he realize all of both of our points on this.
unforgivable. i wouldn't have paid her at all, and i would have certainly blacklisted her from the entire local reptile community with warnings on facebook groups.
@@jaystergator the lawyer fees for all that aren’t worth it. Honestly i wouldn’t be surprised is she was being fired from her other job and just lied about the whole leaving thing.
I completely disagree with all of you. He hired this person to take care of living things, he trained this person, and then he never checked to see if they were properly following through. He didn’t hire this person to stock shelves, they were hired to care for animals that could not care for themselves. I have 35 reptiles and I own 2 businesses. I have never let anyone care for my animals without checking to make sure they were properly feeding and watering them because I care about my animals. That gecko did not starve to death in 4 days this had to have happened over a longe period of time. This entire thing was completely avoidable.
then she should ask 😰 i had to ask about a billion questions at my first job but it meant i did everything exactly as it had to be done which was important, it prevented animal surgical infections. even if your boss doesn't communicate well it's very easy to ask clarifying questions to make sure it's done right.
It doesn’t say to feed them, only to clean them-on a list that specifies “spot clean” and “deep clean” for other species. From the perspective possible failure points, I can see how that might confuse someone. The biggest failing is not specifying feeding-even with a great work ethic something like that can fall through the cracks if you aren’t told/reminded to do it. A daily spot check by another employee or dividing cleaning and feeding tasks between two employees could have completely prevented this.
@@willowashe no offense but i don't know if you can tell that that's the problem from just the perspective of a viewer. it's certainly possible but being trained for the job and qualified for it should make something to this level Always unacceptable.
Are you giving new employees a training and trial period? Most jobs will have at least a week where they're being mentored by someone just so they are 100% clear on understanding how you run your business and the ins and outs. And then will be on probation for a set period of time and won't officially get the job unless they can show they are competent by the end of that probation period.
He said he went through with them and showed them how to clean everything and ultimately they were doing a good job at the start so he left them to it.
@@SohiHien sure but a run through of what to do and just feeling they knew what to do really isn't thorough. I'm not giving an excuse to the person he hired, but learning a new job can be an overwhelming amount of new information that you may remember one day and slip your mind on exactly how things are done before you build a solid routine. He's also upset he interviewed a lot of new people and this person lasted about 2 weeks before firing them. Working in vet clinics, and other managerial roles training staff over my life the easiest and best way to truly find good workers and build a solid team is how I mentioned and I know Alex has said before he's never really worked any other job over than emerald scales so he may find this suggestion helpful. People can be great on paper, and people can be genuinely enthused for the job but no one will walk into your business knowing the small ins and outs of how you like it done. A week working alongside someone will give you an opportunity to see if the person has holes in their training or if they are cutting corners and what their work ethic is ,are they absorbing what you're teaching and also you need to ask is there holes in your training methods. Do you say "clean the gecko food bowls" , which leaves a lot of room for error. Will they grab the closest cloth that has harmful chemicals on it and use dirty water to clean them because they're not sure exactly how to do it and what they can and can't use? Or do you show them "it's important we clean the geckos food bowl with a reptile safe disinfectant found in this bottle, a small brush to get into crevices, or steam clean them as well as any bedding that could grow mould" and show them step by step. A new person in a role no matter how much they say they know what they're doing needs to know not just how but the importance of why you clean things a certain way you do. A week gives you a good gauge to see they're paying attention, you clean a cage while they clean a cage so you can see they are building the correct work habits. And if after that week of training you feel confident then put them on trial. A trial they are operating by themselves but you should still inspect they've done everything correctly daily when unsupervised. A person's true work ethic shows when they are in a probation period and good workers with a strong work ethic are hard to come by. The probation period alievates Alex of the guilt that he's upset the person quit their other job for him. If you're on probation and it's not guaranteed that you sign a contract that you have the job until you successfully finish your probation period you're not going to quit your other job just yet. And the worker has time to decide "is this what I want to do as a job, is it all I thought it would be". It gives both parties a chance to find out the position is correct for them. This will make hiring easier and less messy. And always before an interview in person have done a background check and know the person's legal details because you're allowing strangers to come into your home. If anything ever goes pear shaped and you have a messy termination with an employee you want to know how to provide information to the authorities if you have to about who this person is and their address. Etc.
Holy moly. This is wild, so sorry about your crested geckos. I've had coworkers like this and I always wonder what's going on in their heads. I'm also horrible at communication which makes me ask the same questions repeatedly, and I can't imagine ever doing anything like this. Aaah. So weird
What was the "communication" issue? Did she confuse crested gecko with another animal? Did she think wiping down the outside would keep the animals alive? Like how the hell did that happen?
I used to work at/volunteer for a zoo, I would hope that someone who has had professional work experience in similar settings would be capable of realizing enclosures shouldn’t be moldy or at least check each enclosure once before ending their day.
I'm so sorry you lost so many crested geckos! I take care of many animals that one of our science professors at college own, from snakes to chickens to fish, and we have lost some of them through the years for various reasons. It is always upsetting, especially if it could have been prevented
Knowing that Emerald Scales was coming to an end and what that'd do to your life, it's pretty inspirational. I'm terrible at stopping work that's hurting me mentally and physically, so to see you had the strength to end it and pursue your health and happiness is a great role model for me. Thanks for all your videos; the happiness, the sadness, the life lessons, they're all appreciated.
As a hiring manager, you can never truly know a person until they’re on your payroll. I have learned you have to check check CHECK behind your teams when you’re worried about getting stuff done properly. Checking after someone seems like it takes up time but it’s the only way to be sure you know what’s fully going on. You’re also thinking, “why have the help of you have to check behind someone?” It’s the name of the game.
We had all the same issues over here. The first person I hired was supposed to be good. They owned several crested geckos and even had a facebook page for her breeding business with over 7000 followers. Turns out she really sucked at taking care of them but was great at putting interesting content on her page. I realized that our best hires were people with no real experience but who were really at ease at holding and interacting with geckos. We would fully train them in the way that WE wanted things done. I wish you luck and look forward to watching more of your videos.
It was more than one mistake. It was repeated, and then another mistake was her defending it. But like. Lack of feeding and mold? Even someone without experience knows better.
Dang people are weird…. Wonder why someone would go through all that trouble just to slack off. I don’t know how a miscommunication could have led to such poor care of animals?
@@Anavirable I don't know what she could say that would explain why she thought she didn't have to give the animals fresh food and water every day, and why she didn't see a problem with the animals having literal mold growing on them. You'd think that'd be something that would make you go "Hmmm, that's not supposed to happen."
@@Anavirable there doesn’t need to be one cause it probably would’ve been bs. The evidence speaks for itself. This is clear negligence and just her thinking sje could get away with being lazy
@@zamiaramirez1390 But was she negligent in her other tasks? How well did she care for the other animals? Does Alex even know? Or did he not bother to check on any of the animals his brand new employee was caring for until he stumbled across the crested geckos? Alex keeps saying she tricked him with her amazing interview. But after she was hired, he trained and presumably monitored her. She was there for what, 2 weeks? Was she just deceitfully competent for her training period? Enough so that Alex gave her *complete* responsibility over his animals? Or was she genuinely trying her best, and there really was a miscommunication? Either way, it’s not a great look on Alex.
My favorite snake was killed by mold. No idea why his cage and only his cage was affected but within a week it exploded with a strange mold and killed him. I still not figured out why it happened to only him.
This has happened to me once when my snake was in a plastic tub and I spilled some water when I put the water dish down on the fibre. The water got beneath the bowl and after a day or two the whole underside of it was thicccc with mold
If you were using a dry substrate and water got on it, sometimes it can mold. Not saying that's what happened, just the only thing I can think of. I'm sorry about your snake :(
It’s inexcusable for the employee to let that happen, and then to blame it on miscommunication, even if she didn’t know how to do it you should see and know that mild growing all over the tubs and geckos should be reported.
I would never let anything like this happen. I have 10 animals and I'm proud of how healthy they all are and I love them all to pieces. I wish I could apply but I don't live near you.
I think volunteers can be more reliable than actual employees, mostly because employees have to be there.. Volunteers want to be there, it's not just a pay check for them.. Its a way for them to get involved with things they are passionate about.
I'm sorry that happened. I'm not saying this to blame you, but you're running a business that involves many types of animals and their lives. 1 week of training is not enough. That's why businesses have probation periods. You should hire new people, but put together a detailed training program for Emerald Scales. And yes you will have to check behind and evaluate people. You're the boss. This is growing pains.
The training program is a good idea, it will help long-term when hiring a manager as well. That means the manager can ensure everyone is trained the same way, and properly, as per Alex's standards.
Thats rough and really sad :( just a tip for the future because it can be super easy. You are busy yes but even having 100 animals going back and checking up on them takes 10 minutes. So why not check in daily. Or chalk marker each cage. When each cage is done require employee to write the exact time. Meaning they would have to take the time to look at their watch and write it down. You can go further to require them to write what flavor foods, how many bugs or what size feeders are fed. You can easily read and erase with a wet wipe. They are getting paid for a job so you make the intent clear from day one. Then you simply go in read and call it a day. Baby monitors are cheap. You can have one set up while you do youtube or other things and watch what they are doing.
that’s horrible!! i’m so sorry for your loss, but i also can’t imagine how stressful it must be right now, with your difficulties with Emerald Scales unintentionally becoming dependant on your youtube channel, no being able to send those geckos to the people that wanted them, the work, the money lost… i’m sorry.
WHAT edit: Alex please don't blame yourself for someone else's mistakes. You say you don't trust yourself in hiring someone but even you said, human error: everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes big ones, but don't blame yourself. This was her problem and I think you did the correct thing firing her. IF ANYTHING this should encourage you to know that your actually a great Employer because you have boundaries and know when something is more than a mistake. This was negelct.
She didn't know what deep cleaning was okay but she didn't just not deep clean she neglected them long enough for one to die of dehydration and almost all the enclosures getting mold bc she didn't take out the food. I fucking cant wtf
Aw I'm so sorry! I don't own any Cresties at the moment- but I completely understand how it feels to loose an animal/pet. Sorry for your loss Alex! Then again thats the pet trade in a nutshell....
Perspective from someone in management: First, regarding interviews - Your gf has been working with you for a few years now, right? Can she sit in on interviews? My senior manager and I always do interviews together so we can compare notes on people and fill in where the other might miss things. Secondly, delegating is hard, but it’s easier if you have a thorough task description for each responsibility. If you or your gf can take the time to thoroughly describe each task, it removes any possibility of “communication issues” which are usually a result of trainers not going through each step in detail or trainees who don’t remember/don’t follow their notes. Thirdly, a week is way too short a time for training, especially when lives are on the line. It sucks to have double the workload for a long time, but I usually supervise common tasks for at least a month (full time employees) and uncommon ones for 3-6 months. Even if your trainee possesses the knowledge on how to perform their tasks, it’s crucial to nail down the fine details of how YOU want them performed.
hired someone to take care of my cresties for a week whilst on vacation… came back and most of the baby cages had maggots crawling in all the food bowl and mold in most adult cages.. One of my poor babies had it the worst and I am so lucky he survived ♥️ The lady said she had her own cresties and beardies at home and I’m seriously praying that they are in a better home soon
I am a small business owner and I totally understand the difficulty in hiring! The reality is, its never clear. Someone may seem perfect and end up terrible. BUT, the reality is hiring is STILL worth it. Its worth the pain and discomfort and stress, and trial and error. My suggestion to you would be to conduct more interviews, but give a trial period where you really make sure that you, or someone you trust can check their work. over time you can develop trust with a person if they have good worth ethic and do a good job - but I would make sure to check their work once they leave, every day for a week in the beginning. Then switch to every other day. Then once a week. It may be difficult, but its worth it to put in the effort to find a good employee.
Oh, Alex i'm so sorry. Trusting someone with the lives of your animals is so hard and for something like this to happened is insane. I hope she realizes that this was awful and never does this to any of her own animals...
It's an understatement to say I would have been ENRAGED. There is no excuse her to have simply neglected those geckos. You rescued them to give them a better life and she essentially robbed them of the opportunity you gave them. I dont know how anyone can be on her defending her or upset with you. Those poor babies I'm so sorry
Agreed. Those innocent babies died because of her negligence and stupidity. She should be blacklisted from ever working professionally with reptiles ever again. Imagine sending your baby somewhere to have a better life, and instead they die in a horrible way. I have no sympathy for her, and I grieve for the geckos and their parents.
As an animal care technician it is vital to make sure that people understand the gravity of their job. This story is terrible but it does a great job highlighting the importance of good work. My suggestion for next time (if there is a next time) is to make more detailed daily checklists for each animal. Its a lot of work at first but having that daily log to look back on is important. Again sorry to hear this happened but dont lose hope there are good people out there.
Anyone with common sense would ask why he didn't have someone helping or checking her work since she was working with live animals. This was his responsibility. Makes no sense to sue for something that should not have been able to happen in the first place.
Perhaps be a bit more hands on with management? You can delegate but still keep an eye on it. Checking in on the animals every other day with a new higher should be standard practice, mistakes that are less dramatic but still deadly can be made easily. If things go well, check in only every week but keep checking. Being the boss means keeping up with what is going on, even if you have just one or two employees. At my internship I had another some supervision over another intern, it sounds and honestly was a bit silly but a great learning experience. If you delegate, you got to keep checking. People can follow instructions perfectly and still do wrong because your instruction was inperfect. This person was not doing a great job for sure and should not have checked but after two weeks you should not have been so hands of.
@@bugskgk626 I am not blaming him, but a new hire needs managing and Alex seems to also be managing Emerald Scales. People make mistakes or are just lazy, the boss is there to make sure the work gets done. A friendly startup vibe with trust and mutual respect is nice but a lot of people need some time to shift into a position and require some work to get them on the right track. I needed to be put on that track and put people on it, its not bad but normal.
This isn’t a mistake, this employee intentionally lied to you that they were taking care of your animals when in reality she was starving them. Especially if she had to check the task off every day.
I own a business in 2 states and I spent 25 years in management. I also was at one time a vet tech. I would never trust a new hire after 2 weeks, particularly with living beings. The rule of management is you are responsible for the employees that are under you. Since you are the owner, and the person who trained the new employee, then left this new employee to their own devices without checking to make sure they were doing their job properly, this falls on you. For that crested gecko to have died from starvation and lack of water it is clear that you never checked to make sure this person was competently doing their job. This is not a mistake, this is utter negligence on your part.
I'm sorry that this happened but I feel like there's maybe more that isn't being said. To be clear, I think she did wrong by not doing the cleaning and checking it off and does deserve to be let go for that as it resulted in the death of several animals but was she the *only* one who ever checked in on these animals? I don't know what your set up is like, but surely you can arrange a check in with all animals by another person even if it is to just check in on movement/activity once a week. It seems a little much to have her in as mostly a cleaner and leave absolutely all care of animals with her to the point where you didn't realise the animal deaths until two and a half weeks later. Personal opinion here now, but the whole 'I've lost faith in my ability to hire people' is a valid feeling but you make it come across in such a pitiable way. I know it is tough, but this is the time to learn from your mistakes not commiserate on them. Yes, you hired someone who turned out to be untrustworthy but now you've learnt where the weaknesses in your business model was, it was dangerous to leave animal wellbeing to just the one person, you can now install measures to never allow this to happen again. i.e. every X amount of days you can do an all round check and make notes on any issues you find that can be addressed in the following week etc. You can arrange a better line of communication wherein that new employee can contact you for direct questions. You can learn to give more opportunities where you ask your employee if they have had any issues or any suggestions they have to promote a more communicative work environment. I am not trying to put the blame on you. Something tragic happened and it sucks and you can feel sad about it. However, instead of focusing on how you can't trust yourself anymore, try to figure out where things went wrong and find solutions for it. I believe you can do it.
I’m sorry about your loss. I would hate for that to happen to anyone. But I think if you’re working with new people you should keep an eye on them for a few weeks. I know you might be busy but at least you could’ve glanced at the geckos a few times a week. But obviously We don’t know the full details. Just try to be more diligent next time. Hope it works out for you
This was NOT one mistake GH... This was multiple mistakes Every. Single. Day. 1. No feeding? 2. No water? 3. You don't smell the mold? 4. You don't check up on your boss to see if you have done it right? 5. You mark off things on a massive whiteboard when you KNOW you have totally ignored it. 6. In a picture that is showing the mold it also shows that the place had not been cleaned since 1866.. Now I see at minimum 6 mistakes.. That was done multiple times.. Not sure why you keep downgrading this as to it being ONE mistake.. A tip for anyone who tries to hire someone to care for living animals... CHECK UP on them.. First.. daily. Just ask how it goes, make points, have conversations. Then later on maybe every two days.. and so on. Don't just leave a new "trained" person with your animals without checking up on them when YOU KNOW that there is even the smallest of chances that something might go bad.
It seems like it was negligence all around. The employee obviously did not do her job, but I don’t understand why neither you nor your girlfriend checked on the animals. I get being busy and not having time to clean 100+ enclosures, but why couldn’t either of you do a quick glance into the enclosures to make sure the employee is actually doing their job?
Unpopulated opinion; if I have an employee for only 2.5 weeks I wouldn’t consider that a fully trained employee or trust that their work is perfect. Double check new people man.
Biggest mistake was effectively only having a one week training period… typical probationary period at jobs is 1-3 months. I think a new employee would need a lot more oversight and someone double checking them for at least a month. No one checking up on the work of a brand new employee was definitely a big mistake and hopefully one that can be avoided in the future for the sake of the animals :( I feel bad for all involved, including the girl that fucked up, as I feel she was likely given too much responsibility and freedom without oversight way too early on
I think it may be good to have itemized checklists for each animal! We had that at one of my jobs and it was SUPER helpful for training and making sure nothing was forgotten (and also seeing if someone else skipped stuff for accountability)
it's so hard to tell if someone will be able to take good care of a pet. my sister is one of the most serious, dedicated, hardworking people i know, and she loves animals. she loves her crestie so much--does research, enjoys learning--but her husbandry is just...bad. honestly, it's a miracle to me her gecko has lived as long as he has, cause when she first got him he'd go without food for way too long (unbeknownst to me at the time) and his tank still doesn't get cleaned nearly as much as it should. so, i think it's possible that you're not just bad at finding the right person for the job. this was a horror story though; thankfully my sister's never had a problem with mold in her crestie's tank. im glad lessons were learned here , at least by some. also, im really glad you're so open about all of this. dont forget you're still really young! whatever has to happen, you'll make it work.
100% relate in feeling unable to delegate work to others. The exact same thing happened with mould in an animals food that no one noticed somehow yet I noticed immediately because I bothered to actually look. Thankfully no animal death though.
A lot of people tend to put things off and go its not my problem or someone else can take care of it. At my job i was the only one who bothered to put out the careful wet floor sign and door mat and the day i wasn’t there to do it someone slipped. Its sad how often people just wont take things upon themselves.
So no one checked her work at all in 2 weeks? i fell like maybe there might be a problem in leadership, if i had ppl to care for my animals, i would deffendly check those animals every day still to see if they did their job correctly? are they not at home at your house as i understand? i feel that you might have missed the part of being a boss for your emplyees. maybe thats whats bothering the other one you let go'? (i dont know)
Her work was checked daily for the first 2 weeks, and then trusted with basic and repetitive cleanings, while still being there for more difficult tasks. this happened right into week 3
Really disheartening that the employee decided to completely neglect the animals instead of just asking. New employees are supposed to ask questions, I don't understand how they could leave the animals in that condition for a prolonged amount of time and still not know that they were fucking up. No matter how socially awkward asking your boss questions might feel you should be prioritizing animal life over temporary social anxiety. I have chronic anxiety and I'm unable to do most work because of it but I'd literally rather be set on fire than be personally responsible for the death of multiple animals that were completely preventable. I hope the ex employee feels guilty and that guilt causes them to make better decisions in the future because this is unacceptable
How can things get this bad? Reptiles are probably the easiest pets u own, you literally just check the food, water, Temps, and cleanliness of the enclosure. She surely must have a good explanation for this situation I'm really sorry Alex, I kind of know what this feels like I've had a person petsit while I went on holiday and I came back and none of my pets were fed. I had someone reccomend her to me that's why we allowed her I constantly checked up with her and she would assure me that everything was alright My cats were so skinny, my dogs were lethargic, my birds were droopy, some of my fish were dead, and my snake was emaciated I don't trust anyone anymore, I've just decided to stay at home for the holidays which really sucks, but I won't put my animals through that again.
That's awful. That's how my birds died. My cousin was supposed to take care of them, but when we came back, one of them was "missing." We all suspected that she just didn't care for that one and it died and she threw it away. The other bird looked sick and malnourished, but we were able to recover them.
I worked with an animal shelter for ages, people came and went, it was very hard to get good people. I think when an employee is new, even though it takes a bit of time to do, and it feels weird to do, you have to check their work to make sure they are keeping up. It will take a while to get into a flow, and people get faster at the tasks as they get used to it, but it is definitely worth doing the extra diligence when there are animals at risk in the situation. I hope you find a nice solution soon.
Hm, this happened within one week? It must be very humid in your area - or the enclosures are kept too wet (which is a very common thing). But it is definitely not normal that it molds to the point where the animals die - within one week. Just because the food was not cleaned out. At least in my experience(13+ animals). Your ex employee should have spotted this in any case, no doubt about that.
If she didn't understand and was too embarrassed to ask, she could've at least googled it. And anyone qualified to care for other animals would know that mold all over a vivarium, water, food bowl, and the actual crested geckos is pretty bad.
Honestly you made a few mistakes too. For you to write deep clean so and so. you would have to train her on what deep cleaning means. You should also train someone longer. After the training check in what they are doing every 2-3 days. She is new so you have to make sure what she is doing is okay. That’s why many places have probation. I’m not saying that she was right either. If she didn’t understand what you wrote she could text you. I recommend doing some research on how to train someone and orientating them to the job.
Sounds like she was either afraid of them or confused them for another animal and they got ignored all together. Either way thats so sad those poor guys and gals i know that had to hurt you. Youre very good to your animals. Sorry this happened but proud of you for being so young and able to still be hugely responsible. Keep it up!
Here are a few related videos you might find interesting as well:
I bought a corn snake off Craigslist and it ended terribly
ruclips.net/video/bhpom6wJ-vI/видео.html
This snake almost escaped while being shipped
ruclips.net/video/2ObAojZ7kNk/видео.html
I shipped the wrong crested gecko to a buyer
ruclips.net/video/c7MExaZPWfA/видео.html
:(
Why did you not clean it out for them
Hey man, I'm local and a hobbyist crested/gargoyle gecko breeder, sucks to hear what happened but if you are looking for help I know it's an odd place to offer it but you can hit me up.
Does you're hair grow?
It's been years and never seems to change.
Your*
@@pimplyface64 wtf
Hired a horse trainer, seemed great , told me she'd been going out and training my horse, was giving me updates via text, etc. I noticed my gear, saddle etc was never moved, always looked EXACTLY the same. Busted her lying, she'd just been taking my money and doing nothing. Fired her. Hired a new horse trainer, told her what had happened with the first one. New one seemed great. Same exact thing happened almost immediately. It can be VERY hard to tell the quality of people.
Fellow equestrian here - and that's shocking. Actually *dangerous* too. If you think that horse is supposed to be less green in a particular area because of its training and you get on and challenge it...
How horrible!! There are shockingly so many awful horse people out there. I hired a trainer for my rescued mustang, and felt like a weirdo for sitting in on the training sessions and watching. Now, I'm glad I did that... though I know it's not an option for everyone.
What the hell I'm so sorry
Have you uh ever thought of asking them to send video proof of the training and just explain that because of bad experiences you now require video proof. It would save you from stressing so much and it would keep your trainer accountable. I’d also ask for video proof of progression ie if your horse won’t walk through water and then in a month she sends you a video of that same horse now calmly and walking through water proving that there is actual progress happening cause that’s total bs to lie to someone about training there horse and talking their money
Also it wasn’t just one mistake… it wasn’t forgetting to fill one water bowl once, it was a HUGE mistake. Not even a mistake she straight up didn’t do her job.
One of them straight up starver/died of dehydration, completely unacceptable imo
I wouldn't even call it a mistake, with how bad it got
That's not a mistake the lazy cow straight up committed murder!!!
I’ve worked for two separate animal boarding facilities and watched people see just how far they can go with slacking off whilst seeing the negative effects it takes on the animals just because they wanted to go home earlier. They also utilized check lists and people would just mark off everything without making sure they had done it. People lose compassion when caring for animals and don’t realize it’s their actions directly causing harm or neglect just to make their own day easier.
I used to work with cats. Sometimes I would take breaks, and they were admittedly longer than they should have been. But I always made sure each animal was fed, watered, and clean. It was my damn job, if I wasn't doing that then why was I there?
Ive also worked in pet care businesses, my own pet sitting business primarily, but also for a big box store, rescues and dog daycares.
IME, when animal care suffered it was most often because the employee was given too many tasks and not enough time, or they were dissatisfied with the job for some reason and then slacked off.
The businesses I've seen give the best care were ones where theyre either run exclusively by the owner (and even then, its not always perfect or ideal) or where employees are happy and satisfied with workload, wages and their treatment.
animals are a commodity & source of income. u can't expect people to work overtime with no pay.
@@BeckyS these businesses definitely threw way too much onto employees and bordered on hostile during interactions. Ultimately, they are still unable to keep employees more than two months and refuse to take any responsibility. The owners are burnt out and taking it out on employees which causes an endless cycle of people leaving the business and them resenting new hires because they hate the training process.
@@zeezoo9391 agreed, it’s ridiculous to expect anyone to work long and often tedious and laborious hours and then not pay them properly if at all
Love how the first comment on this video was "Good" like... What is wrong with people?
Some people are just miserable
Good
People see the internet as a free ticket to be nasty. 😑
It’s funny
Now your comment is the first
I had a crested gecko that somehow got mold on her food dish and I have simply never put that same dish in ever since. I have NO IDEA how this person missed it. Also, if you’re worried about homes I can try sending your information to my cousin Vic. She breeds reptiles and is getting her degree in zoology as we speak. She even has Black mambas the last time I checked-
Over all, one of the most responsible People I know
I've only ever had mold in my leopard geckos humidity hides. They used them as toilets too. So I got different hides that are easier to clean and use moss instead of paper towels and check them more often. There's no excuse. Especially since the mold here was out in the open and ON THE GECKOS?? Like thats insane.
I've had mold like this in my American Banded Geckos food, never elsewhere, and in my hermit crabs food, never elsewhere. I just don't get how it would be SO bad it got ON THE GECKOS?? I have no idea. Horrible.
I've had a little bit of mold on some blueberries my rats stashed that I didn't find until cage cleaning day. I do not understand how something can get so out of control!!
I have bio active tank where these tiny bugs eat the mold
@@stinkyrattie4478 Unchecked mold, or and unknown strain can spread fast, especially in a humidified environment a crested gecko usually has. its unfortunate but it can and does happen
I’m a fishkeeper. In my first year I made so many mistakes and lost a handful of very low maintenance tropical fish. I did not make those mistakes again. Now I rehab sick, young and dying fish so I’ve lost many fish and I handle it well. But those first few losses - the ones that were absolutely my fault - rocked me. We all make mistakes but refusing to even look at an animal...yikes.
I would be so furious if I were you. I’m so sorry that this happened, it’s truly awful
Cleaning old food is a BASIC step for pets that require daily fresh food. It's one of the first fricken rules you learn about keeping things like cresties, beardies, etc. - every single guide I have ever read reminds you to remove uneaten food by the next day. This isn't just one mistake, this was laziness. that person was clearly just trying to manipulate you for their own mistake by claiming it was something you did that caused their negligence. That kind of aggressive mold growth and resulting death takes days of negligence. Whether you work at a pet store or a zoo or a vet (i've done all of the above), you are assumed to have some semblance of competence when it comes to daily cleaning and care...
Exactly. Makes me wonder if they really left their job just to do irresponsible work at emerald scales or were they really fired. Dont know how they thought they would get away with being lazy an endangering the animals at a place where the owner cares.
More than days. At least weeks
@@chazdellwalker6912 she prob thought it would be a breeze and a job she wouldn’t have to work hard for or anything and be lazy
Exactly, it's the same for *all* pets, you give them clean dishes to eat out of. There's no way someone shouldn't know this. I'm yet to own a reptile but I can say with confidence I'd not need to be *told* to clean a food dish between meals.
@@chazdellwalker6912 good point. They were probably fired and lied about that too. Smh
I would end up crying if that happened to my animals. Sorry for your loss Mr. Alex.
Honestly most people go numb after enough incidents
@@GoHerping that's even sadder :(
@@GoHerping I still would've cried 😢
Depends on which form of numbness being felt in my mind. The apathy kind, where you lose any care or concern for the well-being of the living. And another where you care but move on quicker from loss to keep focus on the remaining animals.
@@allared9008 As someone who has worked a lot in a similar atmosphere, you never stop caring about the animals you just fall numb to the loss it's self.
Wow, the task couldn’t have been more clearly stated. Even if it wasn’t how can you see mold in an enclosure and think it’s ok. It sucks that people suck.
Ive had understandable mistakes where ppl just miss a task, but the fact it was marked as complete was the most confusing part
@@GoHerping I know at the vet clinic we have a chart on each kennel where you mark when you feed, water, give meds, clean, and then spots for other notes. For the meds we have to put our initials by each med on the chart to prove that we did it.
@@GoHerping This person can't have checked the enclosures right?, i mean the alarm bells should ring when you see snow forming in there.
@@GoHerping I agree, if I looked in and saw that mold…. Well it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that’s not acceptable or healthy 🥴.
From the pics I wonder if the employee was taking shortcuts. Like she emptied this mushy food out but didnt wash and dry the dish before putting it back in. Cuz how else can you say you cleaned when there was obviously something the mold was feeding and growing on there? A not responsible person could say taking the food out or even rinsing it a bit was cleaning and then say a miscommunication happened cuz they didnt realize they had to actually wash and dry the bowl. If the person cared then like someone else said...they'd have checked and seen the mold early on and think I should remove this and clean it again and/or let me report this to the boss and ask what I did wrong and what to do.
you are so much calmer than I would be in your situation.
This was in 2020 so I've had a couple years to chill lol
@@GoHerping I was gonna say.. I would be in jail if this happened to me .. you’re composure is amazing ..
As someone working in management, it sounds to me like the key issue with your new hires is training. People can appear knowledgeable, however when delegating to new employees you truly have to be almost condescendingly specific with what each job entails. A bullet point list would be fine for a more experienced employee who already has the good habits and goes into auto-pilot, but for a new hire it is very easy to let a new workload become overwhelming and let simple jobs slip your mind. Good luck :)
thanks!
Hiring is hard. I think first and foremost you should have a probation period. For animals, I would say between 1-3 months. The first few weeks should be training of course, but afterwards check up on them periodically. If you're already doing the work, checking on someone won't change much, but once probation is over then you have the free time.
It will take time, the key is to find someone good with the variety. Save hospital stuff for yourself in the meantime. Once you find someone who proves themselves (long term, personally a year +) you can deligate them to have others as you expand. (A manager so to speak.)
Never be 100% uninvolved, but you can step away more the more good people you find. Maybe even have part timers. Instead of someone who does everything, hire someone who comes in x time for cresteds, and another for beardies. They may only get 5-10 hours a week, which will keep them from relying on you, and as they prove themselves slowly give them more hours and more species.
Good luck, love the channel and love your attitude. Keep up the work, and don't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch.
*Edited for typos.
Agreed! I just posted something similar as a business owner myself.
Like many others, I'm sorry for your loss. I know you love all animals and have no doubt this weighs heavily on you. Hopefully we all learn from it to make other critters happier in life
It's not your fault. People are great liars in interviews, people oversell themselves and it's difficult for the interviewer to decipher the truth from the fiction. Out of those 30 people you interviewed, some of them would have probably been incredible employees, but lack the same interview skills. I am really against the whole interview process.
This is a good point
I'd honestly just quiz them on different reptiles.
This! How can you determine by the interview who will be a good employee? It's impossible.
This is pretty sad. From a vet assistant in training, this looks like something that could have easily been avoided if there was just honesty and communication lmao. In the reptile room at my vet assistant class, we take the food and water bowls out everyday to clean, refill and put back in lol. We also have smaller servings because we change it out everyday
I agree! Im a vet tech in training, and while we dont study with reptiles much, its like common sense to clean there food? When i worked at a pet shop, i was the only one who ever did which made me quite mad, but i think it just comes down to who the person is helping out and if they have a passion for it!
And good luck getting your assistant degree!!
That’s exactly what they do, but the employee failed to do so
There’s no teaching common sense. She lied about tasks she was doing, that’s simply it.
The dishonesty and lack of communication is on her and her alone, so I am glad she was terminated. When you have clear outlines of what to do and fail to do them - even to the point of lying about having them done - you shouldn't be in that position anymore.
Yes and the one that died from no water!? Surely anybody knows an animal needs access to fresh water daily?! It’s crazy.
She didn’t know what “ deep clean crested geckos” meant I reckon and just ticked she’d done rather than asking! But still doesn’t explain why the lack of water for them?! Surely anyone knows they need water?!
As someone that works in pet care.
This is frustrating as neglect of basic care. For any animal, you make sure they are fed, watered, and have a clean environment.
It’s really hard to find good people that genuinely care to take proper care of animals.
My ex best friend (key word ex) was someone who claimed to love animals and that they are great animal parents. I am good with training cats and dogs but I am better with cats. I have been around cats my whole life and when I was six I was introduced to being around newborn kittens from the barn where we leased our horse from. I have a lot of experience with cats.
All of my cats are indoor cats. But my friend on the other hand had indoor outdoor cats who did jot get proper vet care. One summer he manipulated me and my mom into taking in his pregnant cat assuring us that she was fully vaccinated. We had five cats at this point (that was the maximum amount of cats we ever had), two where mine, two where my sisters, and one was my moms. Due to the five cats we wanted to make sure that the foster cat was not going to risk any of ours. She was never vaccinated and I could not let her free roam the house because she could be dangerous to our cats.
The other incident was when my friend told me he was going to put his other cat down because she was peeing outside the litter box. I was horrified and I told him that he needed to give the cat to me so I could surrender her to my local no kill shelter. Turns out that the reason why she was peeing outside the litter box was because it was not cleaned in a MONTH.
Some people should not have the privilege of owning animals and he is one of them.
For real though. I used to work at a commercial pet store, thinking it would be a fun job. Ya know get to take care of animals all day, talk to people about animals. But oh boy was a wrong. There were a few good employees who genuinely cared about the animals. But I had to quit after telling my manger and 5 other coworkers that a panther chameleon we got in had mouth rot. Like super visible mouth rot. No one listened to me or did anything about it till the poor dude was nearly dead. It took a whole month just for them to listen to me and take the chameleon to the vet.
Moving forward, it could be helpful to designate a separate employee to do an end of day check-in on all the animals. It'd be mostly a redundancy, but it'd prevent something like this from happening so severely in the future. If you had somebody designated to just check every enclosure to make sure it looked clean and the animals were active, and mark down any behaviors that seem unusual, then something like mold would be caught much sooner. It'd also make the cleaning/feeding employees feel that they'd definitely be held accountable if they slipped up. It may also help you feel more confident in the hiring process moving forward if you organize to have redundancies in place. If your selection is small enough, it could even be you or your girlfriend who takes on checking each enclosure around closing time, since you can be confident neither of you would miss something.
You'd still save time from not doing the actual routine maintenance, but would have a safety net in case of error or neglect.
I don't know what your ex employee was thinking, but they probably thought they could get away with it one way or another. The only way I can think of for this to be a genuine mistake is if they somehow got confused over which enclosures housed crested geckos and had been checking a completely different section and ignoring the actual cresteds-- but if they were very knowledgeable about reptiles, that also seems very unlikely.
I do think if I ever end up with 2 employees again for the same work, have them cycle through and check each other's work
I think it would be good to have either you or your partner do the checks initially, and still occasionally after that. That way you can feel more confident that any newbies know what your expectation is. Additional documentation might be useful. I know that’s another ‘thing’ to do, but it could help with the communication element. These could act as a reference sheet for the person and a way to absorb the information. It also would be a good perpetual resource that would go beyond any individual employee. Like for ‘deep clean’, it would itemize the process step by step, specify what materials are needed (and where they could be found), cautions (things to be careful of for safety of animal and staff, and observations (“Is the animal eating/drinking? Is the temp/humidity ___?” As well as assuring them that they can always ask questions and get a second opinion from either you or your partner. While this might be a silly-seeming excess, I think it could genuinely help. You could even get help outsourcing the process. Many folks can assist with assembling this kind of documentation (I do process documentation in my work so I know many have this experience).
You could have an initial meeting about what your needs are, and then perhaps provide them with a video of you narrating the process. They can then break that down for you into documentation you can review for correctness and completeness. If happy, the same process could be repeated for other species.
Another option might be hiring someone in the reptile community to use their own experience to generate an initial care guide itemized and suitable for an employee. They could then review it with you and make needed changes to have it better reflect your business, preferences, and supplies.
I’m sorry this happened - both for the loss of the innocent animals, and the managerial frustration of having a new hire process end so frustratingly. Best of luck in finding solutions moving forward.
@@GoHerping __
Not to blame you, but it's kinda weird that no one else, or you, had known the enclosures were in that state.
Which means that no one bothered to spare the geckos a passing glance for however long it took the enclosures to get like that.
Yes, it was her task to check on them, and you should be able to trust your employees. But all it would have taken is a simple glance at those tanks to see they hadn't been cleaned.
he has so many reptiles he can’t check in on all of them 24/7 that’s why he has employees
Checklists need to be signed off on by a second party, always. It is a quick redundancy that prevents mistakes and can in some circumstances save lives. So sorry all of you experienced such a traumatic event, especially the geckos
With a week of training and a week of working solo no business would leave a brand new hire to run the business without supervision or checking in to make sure the new hire is productive. It’s really heartbreaking that one of the cresties starved and dehydrated _to death_ ! That poor baby was hungry and thirsty and left to die with nobody to help it while it slowly passed away 😭😭😭 NEVER put blind trust into anyone you just met especially when the health and well-being of 100 animals depends solely on their competence.
Bruh crested geckos need care daily how tf could she get upset about getting fired when she didnt take care of that many for an entire week
Bruh she didn’t work 7 days a week, who was supposed to be giving them their daily care when she wasn’t there?
@@Anavirable what does that matter? A work week is five days which is still enough time for one to die. They live in a humid climate they heavily rely on their environment to keep them hydrated. For humans it only takes 3 days of dehydration to kill us imagine an animal thats always surrounded by humidity and water they aren't built to be without it long they had no reason to evolve that way
Welcome to self employment struggles. Keep in mind, getting along with you (interview wise) and caring for animals are two completely different qualities. My best worker ever was autistic and interned for me, via the college with a biology major. It was her goal to be a vet or own an animal rescue. She wasnt wonderful relating to people (introverted, quiet, and shy) but she kicked ass at animal care, playing, and cleaning! Animals made her bloom!
Perhaps a Q & A sheet of common animal issues, temps, foods would help you screen better. It also help if they have a history of shelter or science center volunteering as well as a few critters of their own at home. Ask how long their childhood dog lived? LOL Dont give up!
Wow, what a terrible week that must have been, I'm so sorry Alex :/ poor babies.
I am so sorry for your loss.
Sending comforting hug.
Also, yes we have all lost a pet due to something we have done wrong, it’s a learning curve sometimes. We feel terrible, do better and move on. This was not the case with this employee, she was told how to care for the animals and didn’t do it. Like… it’s not even hard.
That’s the wrong curb
we haven’t all lost pets because of wrong doings and that certainly shouldn’t be the expectation…😬
@Birdman69 lol you are correct. I'll fix.
@@анархия-х9у Okay not ALL of us, my point was sometime things happen. Even when we provide what we think is the best care. Thing happen…. What happened here was not okay. Don’t take everything so literal.
@@анархия-х9у this comment could just make someone feel worse :/
What you really need is, before you hire ANYONE, write a manual. Write down exactly how things are to be done. Every single step. It's an investment of time, but having a reference for employees to turn to when you're unavailable is key. Also consider if you're going to hire, putting cameras in your reptile care areas that are wi-fi accessible. Cameras help keep people honest as well as give you an impartial view if something goes on, and a way to quick check on employees during the day without taking too much time or focus away from your main projects.
Liars excel at convincing you they're great people. Sometimes you just get unlucky and get a bad apple. You proved you clearly communicated work tasks. That mold was so out of control anyone could tell this employee was not doing her work and lying by marking it off. You did the right thing.
Entirely different fields, but same general idea here. I’ve trained many many people for different jobs; some were operating heavy machinery, and others were just on day to day tasks. I’m in no way a trainer either, I just realized as I was going along that people are way different than each other. I would write out instructions on how to execute tasks, and would break them down so that there were no questions as to what to do. It works.
Maybe setting aside a few hours for writing out tasks can help for any future hires? It’s helped me.
You may be able to sue for negligence. It’s wasn’t a mistake she just didn’t do her job at all, she marked it off as done and this affected your business.
Probably, but the time and money investment is always higher in small court cases
@@GoHerping small claims might be a good option
@@GoHerping small claims for sure. Animals died. Animals worth money.
@Reptile Innovations hmmm all true. She was new and not being checked after. I know it’s usually the employers responsibility but I was thinking with something this scale he could recoup costs. Maybe if she had been there longer without issues, then suddenly quit caring for the animals?
stop with the pitchforks people make mistakes, if you could sue employees for making one mistake in the first 2 weeks nobody would work lmao
so sorry for your loss :((( ignore the negative comments, we’ll always support you and we know it wasn’t intentional
theres no negative coments.
@@logand9190 there's a few actually
and there will be more, it’s the internet
@@goldensenshi4828 not really towards him that I’ve seen
I would recommend maybe next to the board, have employees write the times and initials next to the completed task.
Also I would invest in security cameras, and check them when employees are new to make sure tasks are being done. Or just check after they leave to make sure take are done!
Props to you for being so calm in this video, I would have been so upset even after all this time. Sorry you had to go through that. I've never owned a reptile (nor do I want to), but I am obsessed with this channel
I think that the only wrong that you did with the 2 week hire was not having someone check on her work within her probational period. If someone were to check behind her, they would had noticed the mold sooner and that one of the geckos was looking a lil parched and then it wouldn't had gotten so bad that she was fired over it.
With that being said, if she was so serious about her job that she quit her previous one, then she would had shown how serious she was by how she took care of the animals. Leaving one without water or food for it to die and the others to be covered with mold to where half died or was in critical condition isn't serious. I worked for a place that had plants around and even though I didn't know much about plants, trust me when I say that if I saw something wrong with them, I told that boss about it. If I worked in a reptile place without knowledge of them, I would ask if there should be mold around the animals. Plus, she didn't even finish all her duties? It's one thing if you could only hire her for like 3 hours to do 10 hours worth of work and her not finishing and half assing it, but I don't think you would hire someone for just a few hours and they quit their previous for it. Don't feel bad that she only had one pay check, if she wanted more she wouldn't let the geckos get moldy. I personally feel bad for her animals at home, she must be even worse at husbandry there.
Its possible there weren't labels on those tubs so maybe she cleaned some and didn't know about the others or didn't have the right animal ID. Who knows.
So she was there for 2 weeks, 1 week of training and 1 week of her working. So your saying those geckos got that bad with mold in 1 week? 🤔
Mold is crazy bro
I don't know honestly. I get it, she was the direct cause of their death, she was negligent with their care and her lack of husbandry caused the geckos to get sick and eventually die. HOWEVER, all these animals are ultimately under your care and responsibility. Even when other people are getting paid to do the maintenance, you should never go a whole week without inspecting your animals. It doesn't take a lot of time, you would only be doing it every other day, and if you detected some issue, you could tell the person the very next day, a crested gecko will not die in 2 days. At the stage you're at, that can never be a hands off job. Even big breeders that produce animals by the thousands will have designated people to make sure that the animals are being taken care of, if they're good, responsible breeders. And the rest of the cresties were lucky because you had that order to fulfill so you discovered the horror scene. If that order hadn't been placed, I wonder when you would find out. From a reptile breeder/keeper to another, she was highly irresponsible and negligent, but you also failed your own animals, that are under your responsibility.
I adore this channel, but I have to agree with you. I work at a grocery store, in a deli. If I was negligent about my job and the food spoiled, and it just stayed that way for quite a while...and the food never gets replaced, subsequently destroying it, sure. I'm gonna get fired eventually. But that's why there's a manager to me and a boss to the manager, to ensure that everything is done correctly. My continued failures are also THEIR continued failures.
Fortunately, this is an experience he will likely learn from and be able to do better in the future.
Although I'm certain he realize all of both of our points on this.
unforgivable. i wouldn't have paid her at all, and i would have certainly blacklisted her from the entire local reptile community with warnings on facebook groups.
@@jaystergator the lawyer fees for all that aren’t worth it. Honestly i wouldn’t be surprised is she was being fired from her other job and just lied about the whole leaving thing.
I completely disagree with all of you. He hired this person to take care of living things, he trained this person, and then he never checked to see if they were properly following through. He didn’t hire this person to stock shelves, they were hired to care for animals that could not care for themselves. I have 35 reptiles and I own 2 businesses. I have never let anyone care for my animals without checking to make sure they were properly feeding and watering them because I care about my animals. That gecko did not starve to death in 4 days this had to have happened over a longe period of time. This entire thing was completely avoidable.
I don't see how it could be a miscommunication, if it says deep clean and feed. But maybe she didn't know what a crested gecko was?
then she should ask 😰 i had to ask about a billion questions at my first job but it meant i did everything exactly as it had to be done which was important, it prevented animal surgical infections. even if your boss doesn't communicate well it's very easy to ask clarifying questions to make sure it's done right.
@@hnktbt I'm like that too. But not everyone has the same work ethics sadly
He did say that for the first several days, he showed her how the job was done. She definitely was educated as to the scope of her job!
Edit: spelling
It doesn’t say to feed them, only to clean them-on a list that specifies “spot clean” and “deep clean” for other species. From the perspective possible failure points, I can see how that might confuse someone. The biggest failing is not specifying feeding-even with a great work ethic something like that can fall through the cracks if you aren’t told/reminded to do it. A daily spot check by another employee or dividing cleaning and feeding tasks between two employees could have completely prevented this.
@@willowashe no offense but i don't know if you can tell that that's the problem from just the perspective of a viewer. it's certainly possible but being trained for the job and qualified for it should make something to this level Always unacceptable.
Are you giving new employees a training and trial period? Most jobs will have at least a week where they're being mentored by someone just so they are 100% clear on understanding how you run your business and the ins and outs. And then will be on probation for a set period of time and won't officially get the job unless they can show they are competent by the end of that probation period.
He said he went through with them and showed them how to clean everything and ultimately they were doing a good job at the start so he left them to it.
@@SohiHien sure but a run through of what to do and just feeling they knew what to do really isn't thorough.
I'm not giving an excuse to the person he hired, but learning a new job can be an overwhelming amount of new information that you may remember one day and slip your mind on exactly how things are done before you build a solid routine.
He's also upset he interviewed a lot of new people and this person lasted about 2 weeks before firing them.
Working in vet clinics, and other managerial roles training staff over my life the easiest and best way to truly find good workers and build a solid team is how I mentioned and I know Alex has said before he's never really worked any other job over than emerald scales so he may find this suggestion helpful.
People can be great on paper, and people can be genuinely enthused for the job but no one will walk into your business knowing the small ins and outs of how you like it done.
A week working alongside someone will give you an opportunity to see if the person has holes in their training or if they are cutting corners and what their work ethic is ,are they absorbing what you're teaching and also you need to ask is there holes in your training methods.
Do you say "clean the gecko food bowls" , which leaves a lot of room for error. Will they grab the closest cloth that has harmful chemicals on it and use dirty water to clean them because they're not sure exactly how to do it and what they can and can't use?
Or do you show them "it's important we clean the geckos food bowl with a reptile safe disinfectant found in this bottle, a small brush to get into crevices, or steam clean them as well as any bedding that could grow mould" and show them step by step.
A new person in a role no matter how much they say they know what they're doing needs to know not just how but the importance of why you clean things a certain way you do.
A week gives you a good gauge to see they're paying attention, you clean a cage while they clean a cage so you can see they are building the correct work habits. And if after that week of training you feel confident then put them on trial.
A trial they are operating by themselves but you should still inspect they've done everything correctly daily when unsupervised.
A person's true work ethic shows when they are in a probation period and good workers with a strong work ethic are hard to come by.
The probation period alievates Alex of the guilt that he's upset the person quit their other job for him.
If you're on probation and it's not guaranteed that you sign a contract that you have the job until you successfully finish your probation period you're not going to quit your other job just yet. And the worker has time to decide "is this what I want to do as a job, is it all I thought it would be". It gives both parties a chance to find out the position is correct for them.
This will make hiring easier and less messy. And always before an interview in person have done a background check and know the person's legal details because you're allowing strangers to come into your home. If anything ever goes pear shaped and you have a messy termination with an employee you want to know how to provide information to the authorities if you have to about who this person is and their address. Etc.
Those poor babies!!! 😢 Sorry you've had to deal with this. I would be wary of trusting anyone in the future too!
Holy moly. This is wild, so sorry about your crested geckos. I've had coworkers like this and I always wonder what's going on in their heads. I'm also horrible at communication which makes me ask the same questions repeatedly, and I can't imagine ever doing anything like this. Aaah. So weird
What was the "communication" issue? Did she confuse crested gecko with another animal? Did she think wiping down the outside would keep the animals alive? Like how the hell did that happen?
I used to work at/volunteer for a zoo, I would hope that someone who has had professional work experience in similar settings would be capable of realizing enclosures shouldn’t be moldy or at least check each enclosure once before ending their day.
I'm so sorry you lost so many crested geckos! I take care of many animals that one of our science professors at college own, from snakes to chickens to fish, and we have lost some of them through the years for various reasons. It is always upsetting, especially if it could have been prevented
You need to put security cameras. You’ll be able to see what work is actually being done
Knowing that Emerald Scales was coming to an end and what that'd do to your life, it's pretty inspirational. I'm terrible at stopping work that's hurting me mentally and physically, so to see you had the strength to end it and pursue your health and happiness is a great role model for me. Thanks for all your videos; the happiness, the sadness, the life lessons, they're all appreciated.
As a hiring manager, you can never truly know a person until they’re on your payroll. I have learned you have to check check CHECK behind your teams when you’re worried about getting stuff done properly. Checking after someone seems like it takes up time but it’s the only way to be sure you know what’s fully going on. You’re also thinking, “why have the help of you have to check behind someone?” It’s the name of the game.
We had all the same issues over here. The first person I hired was supposed to be good. They owned several crested geckos and even had a facebook page for her breeding business with over 7000 followers. Turns out she really sucked at taking care of them but was great at putting interesting content on her page. I realized that our best hires were people with no real experience but who were really at ease at holding and interacting with geckos. We would fully train them in the way that WE wanted things done. I wish you luck and look forward to watching more of your videos.
It was more than one mistake. It was repeated, and then another mistake was her defending it. But like. Lack of feeding and mold? Even someone without experience knows better.
Dang people are weird…. Wonder why someone would go through all that trouble just to slack off. I don’t know how a miscommunication could have led to such poor care of animals?
Yeah, I feel like we’re missing part of the story. What was her side of the story exactly?
@@Anavirable I don't know what she could say that would explain why she thought she didn't have to give the animals fresh food and water every day, and why she didn't see a problem with the animals having literal mold growing on them. You'd think that'd be something that would make you go "Hmmm, that's not supposed to happen."
@@Anavirable there doesn’t need to be one cause it probably would’ve been bs. The evidence speaks for itself. This is clear negligence and just her thinking sje could get away with being lazy
@@zamiaramirez1390 But was she negligent in her other tasks? How well did she care for the other animals? Does Alex even know? Or did he not bother to check on any of the animals his brand new employee was caring for until he stumbled across the crested geckos?
Alex keeps saying she tricked him with her amazing interview. But after she was hired, he trained and presumably monitored her. She was there for what, 2 weeks? Was she just deceitfully competent for her training period? Enough so that Alex gave her *complete* responsibility over his animals? Or was she genuinely trying her best, and there really was a miscommunication? Either way, it’s not a great look on Alex.
Not deep cleaning them is one thing but she clearly hadn’t even LOOKED at them in several days
My favorite snake was killed by mold. No idea why his cage and only his cage was affected but within a week it exploded with a strange mold and killed him. I still not figured out why it happened to only him.
I've only experiences it in food bowls, I'm not sure what would have happened with a snake
This has happened to me once when my snake was in a plastic tub and I spilled some water when I put the water dish down on the fibre. The water got beneath the bowl and after a day or two the whole underside of it was thicccc with mold
If you were using a dry substrate and water got on it, sometimes it can mold. Not saying that's what happened, just the only thing I can think of. I'm sorry about your snake :(
It’s inexcusable for the employee to let that happen, and then to blame it on miscommunication, even if she didn’t know how to do it you should see and know that mild growing all over the tubs and geckos should be reported.
Just wanted to say I followed you before emerald scales and ill be following you after. I dont think your channel will die without emerald scales imo
I am very sorry for your loss. I hope this person will be able to learn from this and do better in the future.
I would never let anything like this happen. I have 10 animals and I'm proud of how healthy they all are and I love them all to pieces. I wish I could apply but I don't live near you.
I think volunteers can be more reliable than actual employees, mostly because employees have to be there.. Volunteers want to be there, it's not just a pay check for them.. Its a way for them to get involved with things they are passionate about.
I'm sorry that happened. I'm not saying this to blame you, but you're running a business that involves many types of animals and their lives. 1 week of training is not enough. That's why businesses have probation periods. You should hire new people, but put together a detailed training program for Emerald Scales. And yes you will have to check behind and evaluate people. You're the boss. This is growing pains.
The training program is a good idea, it will help long-term when hiring a manager as well. That means the manager can ensure everyone is trained the same way, and properly, as per Alex's standards.
Thats rough and really sad :( just a tip for the future because it can be super easy.
You are busy yes but even having 100 animals going back and checking up on them takes 10 minutes. So why not check in daily.
Or chalk marker each cage. When each cage is done require employee to write the exact time. Meaning they would have to take the time to look at their watch and write it down. You can go further to require them to write what flavor foods, how many bugs or what size feeders are fed. You can easily read and erase with a wet wipe. They are getting paid for a job so you make the intent clear from day one. Then you simply go in read and call it a day. Baby monitors are cheap. You can have one set up while you do youtube or other things and watch what they are doing.
that’s horrible!! i’m so sorry for your loss, but i also can’t imagine how stressful it must be right now, with your difficulties with Emerald Scales unintentionally becoming dependant on your youtube channel, no being able to send those geckos to the people that wanted them, the work, the money lost… i’m sorry.
WHAT edit: Alex please don't blame yourself for someone else's mistakes. You say you don't trust yourself in hiring someone but even you said, human error: everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes big ones, but don't blame yourself. This was her problem and I think you did the correct thing firing her. IF ANYTHING this should encourage you to know that your actually a great Employer because you have boundaries and know when something is more than a mistake. This was negelct.
That really sucks, hope you can find someone good to help you soon.
She didn't know what deep cleaning was okay but she didn't just not deep clean she neglected them long enough for one to die of dehydration and almost all the enclosures getting mold bc she didn't take out the food. I fucking cant wtf
Deep cleaning aside, those enclosures can't have been even regular cleaned 😅
Aw I'm so sorry! I don't own any Cresties at the moment- but I completely understand how it feels to loose an animal/pet. Sorry for your loss Alex! Then again thats the pet trade in a nutshell....
If you ever get a crested gecko remember this take them out when they are old and dont post about sick animals on r/crested geckos
@@quempire2656 Thanks!
Lack of ventilation in them tubs killed the geckos. Over misting with not enough ventilation cause the mold not the food.
Did you not check up on the animals in that whole week? You are basically the manager. You need to manage.
Perspective from someone in management:
First, regarding interviews -
Your gf has been working with you for a few years now, right? Can she sit in on interviews? My senior manager and I always do interviews together so we can compare notes on people and fill in where the other might miss things.
Secondly, delegating is hard, but it’s easier if you have a thorough task description for each responsibility. If you or your gf can take the time to thoroughly describe each task, it removes any possibility of “communication issues” which are usually a result of trainers not going through each step in detail or trainees who don’t remember/don’t follow their notes.
Thirdly, a week is way too short a time for training, especially when lives are on the line. It sucks to have double the workload for a long time, but I usually supervise common tasks for at least a month (full time employees) and uncommon ones for 3-6 months. Even if your trainee possesses the knowledge on how to perform their tasks, it’s crucial to nail down the fine details of how YOU want them performed.
I agree on all three. Especially the third one. He is busy but she definitely needed an eye over her.
hired someone to take care of my cresties for a week whilst on vacation… came back and most of the baby cages had maggots crawling in all the food bowl and mold in most adult cages.. One of my poor babies had it the worst and I am so lucky he survived ♥️ The lady said she had her own cresties and beardies at home and I’m seriously praying that they are in a better home soon
Really sorry for the loss, in the pet trade sadly we live and learn by the death of our animals but its all a part of it.
I am a small business owner and I totally understand the difficulty in hiring! The reality is, its never clear. Someone may seem perfect and end up terrible. BUT, the reality is hiring is STILL worth it. Its worth the pain and discomfort and stress, and trial and error.
My suggestion to you would be to conduct more interviews, but give a trial period where you really make sure that you, or someone you trust can check their work. over time you can develop trust with a person if they have good worth ethic and do a good job - but I would make sure to check their work once they leave, every day for a week in the beginning. Then switch to every other day. Then once a week. It may be difficult, but its worth it to put in the effort to find a good employee.
Oh, Alex i'm so sorry. Trusting someone with the lives of your animals is so hard and for something like this to happened is insane. I hope she realizes that this was awful and never does this to any of her own animals...
It's an understatement to say I would have been ENRAGED. There is no excuse her to have simply neglected those geckos. You rescued them to give them a better life and she essentially robbed them of the opportunity you gave them. I dont know how anyone can be on her defending her or upset with you. Those poor babies I'm so sorry
Agreed. Those innocent babies died because of her negligence and stupidity. She should be blacklisted from ever working professionally with reptiles ever again. Imagine sending your baby somewhere to have a better life, and instead they die in a horrible way. I have no sympathy for her, and I grieve for the geckos and their parents.
@@kingexplosionmurderfuckoff9376 Whos parents?
@@quempire2656 the ones who surrendered them for a better life
@@Babycat42069 why call them parents though
@@quempire2656 Because we provide them with all their care. Pet parents is a thing you know
As an animal care technician it is vital to make sure that people understand the gravity of their job. This story is terrible but it does a great job highlighting the importance of good work. My suggestion for next time (if there is a next time) is to make more detailed daily checklists for each animal. Its a lot of work at first but having that daily log to look back on is important. Again sorry to hear this happened but dont lose hope there are good people out there.
Anyone with common sense would ask why he didn't have someone helping or checking her work since she was working with live animals. This was his responsibility. Makes no sense to sue for something that should not have been able to happen in the first place.
Sorry, was for the comment below yours. I don't know how I always reply to the wrong comments. My bad.
Perhaps be a bit more hands on with management? You can delegate but still keep an eye on it. Checking in on the animals every other day with a new higher should be standard practice, mistakes that are less dramatic but still deadly can be made easily. If things go well, check in only every week but keep checking. Being the boss means keeping up with what is going on, even if you have just one or two employees. At my internship I had another some supervision over another intern, it sounds and honestly was a bit silly but a great learning experience. If you delegate, you got to keep checking. People can follow instructions perfectly and still do wrong because your instruction was inperfect.
This person was not doing a great job for sure and should not have checked but after two weeks you should not have been so hands of.
Hey maybe don't blame someone when he's busy and hired/paid someone TO DO THE JOB??????? bruh. Alex has a lot to take care of
@@bugskgk626 I am not blaming him, but a new hire needs managing and Alex seems to also be managing Emerald Scales. People make mistakes or are just lazy, the boss is there to make sure the work gets done. A friendly startup vibe with trust and mutual respect is nice but a lot of people need some time to shift into a position and require some work to get them on the right track. I needed to be put on that track and put people on it, its not bad but normal.
You are right. Not checking on the business for that long is inexcusable.
This isn’t a mistake, this employee intentionally lied to you that they were taking care of your animals when in reality she was starving them. Especially if she had to check the task off every day.
I own a business in 2 states and I spent 25 years in management. I also was at one time a vet tech. I would never trust a new hire after 2 weeks, particularly with living beings. The rule of management is you are responsible for the employees that are under you. Since you are the owner, and the person who trained the new employee, then left this new employee to their own devices without checking to make sure they were doing their job properly, this falls on you. For that crested gecko to have died from starvation and lack of water it is clear that you never checked to make sure this person was competently doing their job. This is not a mistake, this is utter negligence on your part.
I'm sorry that this happened but I feel like there's maybe more that isn't being said. To be clear, I think she did wrong by not doing the cleaning and checking it off and does deserve to be let go for that as it resulted in the death of several animals but was she the *only* one who ever checked in on these animals? I don't know what your set up is like, but surely you can arrange a check in with all animals by another person even if it is to just check in on movement/activity once a week. It seems a little much to have her in as mostly a cleaner and leave absolutely all care of animals with her to the point where you didn't realise the animal deaths until two and a half weeks later.
Personal opinion here now, but the whole 'I've lost faith in my ability to hire people' is a valid feeling but you make it come across in such a pitiable way. I know it is tough, but this is the time to learn from your mistakes not commiserate on them. Yes, you hired someone who turned out to be untrustworthy but now you've learnt where the weaknesses in your business model was, it was dangerous to leave animal wellbeing to just the one person, you can now install measures to never allow this to happen again. i.e. every X amount of days you can do an all round check and make notes on any issues you find that can be addressed in the following week etc. You can arrange a better line of communication wherein that new employee can contact you for direct questions. You can learn to give more opportunities where you ask your employee if they have had any issues or any suggestions they have to promote a more communicative work environment.
I am not trying to put the blame on you. Something tragic happened and it sucks and you can feel sad about it. However, instead of focusing on how you can't trust yourself anymore, try to figure out where things went wrong and find solutions for it. I believe you can do it.
There is such a huge difference between an honest mistake, as that happens, and outright neglect of duty. I am so sorry you lost so many animals.
I’m sorry about your loss. I would hate for that to happen to anyone. But I think if you’re working with new people you should keep an eye on them for a few weeks. I know you might be busy but at least you could’ve glanced at the geckos a few times a week. But obviously We don’t know the full details. Just try to be more diligent next time. Hope it works out for you
This was NOT one mistake GH...
This was multiple mistakes Every. Single. Day.
1. No feeding?
2. No water?
3. You don't smell the mold?
4. You don't check up on your boss to see if you have done it right?
5. You mark off things on a massive whiteboard when you KNOW you have totally ignored it.
6. In a picture that is showing the mold it also shows that the place had not been cleaned since 1866..
Now I see at minimum 6 mistakes.. That was done multiple times..
Not sure why you keep downgrading this as to it being ONE mistake..
A tip for anyone who tries to hire someone to care for living animals...
CHECK UP on them.. First.. daily. Just ask how it goes, make points, have conversations. Then later on maybe every two days.. and so on.
Don't just leave a new "trained" person with your animals without checking up on them when YOU KNOW that there is even the smallest of chances that something might go bad.
It seems like it was negligence all around. The employee obviously did not do her job, but I don’t understand why neither you nor your girlfriend checked on the animals. I get being busy and not having time to clean 100+ enclosures, but why couldn’t either of you do a quick glance into the enclosures to make sure the employee is actually doing their job?
Unpopulated opinion; if I have an employee for only 2.5 weeks I wouldn’t consider that a fully trained employee or trust that their work is perfect. Double check new people man.
Biggest mistake was effectively only having a one week training period… typical probationary period at jobs is 1-3 months. I think a new employee would need a lot more oversight and someone double checking them for at least a month. No one checking up on the work of a brand new employee was definitely a big mistake and hopefully one that can be avoided in the future for the sake of the animals :( I feel bad for all involved, including the girl that fucked up, as I feel she was likely given too much responsibility and freedom without oversight way too early on
I think it may be good to have itemized checklists for each animal! We had that at one of my jobs and it was SUPER helpful for training and making sure nothing was forgotten (and also seeing if someone else skipped stuff for accountability)
As the ultimate owner, you are at the end the responsible one. If you can't have (just) a look at your animals daily, you are in over your head.
You could always try livestreaming while you're doing animal related stuff, you could probably make a lot off superchats.
Especially from $420.69 , $69.00, $42.00, etc. People love to donate the funni numbers.
it's so hard to tell if someone will be able to take good care of a pet. my sister is one of the most serious, dedicated, hardworking people i know, and she loves animals. she loves her crestie so much--does research, enjoys learning--but her husbandry is just...bad. honestly, it's a miracle to me her gecko has lived as long as he has, cause when she first got him he'd go without food for way too long (unbeknownst to me at the time) and his tank still doesn't get cleaned nearly as much as it should. so, i think it's possible that you're not just bad at finding the right person for the job. this was a horror story though; thankfully my sister's never had a problem with mold in her crestie's tank. im glad lessons were learned here , at least by some.
also, im really glad you're so open about all of this. dont forget you're still really young! whatever has to happen, you'll make it work.
100% relate in feeling unable to delegate work to others. The exact same thing happened with mould in an animals food that no one noticed somehow yet I noticed immediately because I bothered to actually look. Thankfully no animal death though.
A lot of people tend to put things off and go its not my problem or someone else can take care of it. At my job i was the only one who bothered to put out the careful wet floor sign and door mat and the day i wasn’t there to do it someone slipped. Its sad how often people just wont take things upon themselves.
So no one checked her work at all in 2 weeks?
i fell like maybe there might be a problem in leadership, if i had ppl to care for my animals, i would deffendly check those animals every day still to see if they did their job correctly? are they not at home at your house as i understand?
i feel that you might have missed the part of being a boss for your emplyees. maybe thats whats bothering the other one you let go'? (i dont know)
Her work was checked daily for the first 2 weeks, and then trusted with basic and repetitive cleanings, while still being there for more difficult tasks. this happened right into week 3
Did she just… did she not know what crested geckos were? Could she not find them? I’m just very confused about how this happened.
Really disheartening that the employee decided to completely neglect the animals instead of just asking. New employees are supposed to ask questions, I don't understand how they could leave the animals in that condition for a prolonged amount of time and still not know that they were fucking up. No matter how socially awkward asking your boss questions might feel you should be prioritizing animal life over temporary social anxiety. I have chronic anxiety and I'm unable to do most work because of it but I'd literally rather be set on fire than be personally responsible for the death of multiple animals that were completely preventable. I hope the ex employee feels guilty and that guilt causes them to make better decisions in the future because this is unacceptable
There was so much water in the substrate of the crested geckos. It was like mud.
Thanks Alex. 🤜🤛 Another great video. Sorry about loosing your cresties....
Just glad you got straight to the issue before any more harm could be done.
How can things get this bad?
Reptiles are probably the easiest pets u own, you literally just check the food, water, Temps, and cleanliness of the enclosure.
She surely must have a good explanation for this situation
I'm really sorry Alex, I kind of know what this feels like
I've had a person petsit while I went on holiday and I came back and none of my pets were fed.
I had someone reccomend her to me that's why we allowed her
I constantly checked up with her and she would assure me that everything was alright
My cats were so skinny, my dogs were lethargic, my birds were droopy, some of my fish were dead, and my snake was emaciated
I don't trust anyone anymore, I've just decided to stay at home for the holidays which really sucks, but I won't put my animals through that again.
That's awful. That's how my birds died. My cousin was supposed to take care of them, but when we came back, one of them was "missing." We all suspected that she just didn't care for that one and it died and she threw it away. The other bird looked sick and malnourished, but we were able to recover them.
@@fanime1 I'm so sorry that must have been heart-wrenching
I'm so glad you were able to recover one of them
I worked with an animal shelter for ages, people came and went, it was very hard to get good people. I think when an employee is new, even though it takes a bit of time to do, and it feels weird to do, you have to check their work to make sure they are keeping up. It will take a while to get into a flow, and people get faster at the tasks as they get used to it, but it is definitely worth doing the extra diligence when there are animals at risk in the situation. I hope you find a nice solution soon.
Hm, this happened within one week? It must be very humid in your area - or the enclosures are kept too wet (which is a very common thing). But it is definitely not normal that it molds to the point where the animals die - within one week. Just because the food was not cleaned out. At least in my experience(13+ animals). Your ex employee should have spotted this in any case, no doubt about that.
If she didn't understand and was too embarrassed to ask, she could've at least googled it. And anyone qualified to care for other animals would know that mold all over a vivarium, water, food bowl, and the actual crested geckos is pretty bad.
Honestly you made a few mistakes too. For you to write deep clean so and so. you would have to train her on what deep cleaning means. You should also train someone longer. After the training check in what they are doing every 2-3 days. She is new so you have to make sure what she is doing is okay. That’s why many places have probation. I’m not saying that she was right either. If she didn’t understand what you wrote she could text you. I recommend doing some research on how to train someone and orientating them to the job.
Sounds like she was either afraid of them or confused them for another animal and they got ignored all together. Either way thats so sad those poor guys and gals i know that had to hurt you. Youre very good to your animals. Sorry this happened but proud of you for being so young and able to still be hugely responsible. Keep it up!