I don't understand my coworkers

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thefriggintribe

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2010
Messages
209
Location
New Brunswick, Canada
At work I have my cubicle covered in rat pictures & figurines. Everybody can clearly see that I am a pocket pet fan. People constantly come up to me to inform me that they have pet snake and then stare at me to see how I will respond. I personally think this is rude because I can only assume they are trying to make me upset. I politely explain that I respect all living creatures and hope they treat everybody (including their pet's food) humanely and with respect. Although I personally choose not to have a pet snake, I respect everybody's choice.

Am I taking this too personally assuming they are trying to upset me?
 
I don't think so... People come up to me like that all the time as well at me job. I think it's very rude because honestly? Why even bring it up? There is no reason for them to just come up and tell you about their snakes. That's almost like going up to a dog lover and saying you feed dogs to your pet lion. I think some people just feel horrible about themselves so they try to make others feel horrible as well for sport
 
It would be one thing if they said, "I have a pet snake, it is a boa and his name is Striker. I have had him for 3 years and he is just the cutest..." But all they say is, "I have a pet snake. What do you think about that?"
 
Ask what its name is... They obviously want you to flip out, so confuse them and do the opposite. Get super interested in their snake. You probably care more about it as a living creature than they do, chances are. I've found many herp enthusiasts don't even name their pets and simply keep them for their looks/color morphs. Like collecting stamps... :(

(For the record I keep a snake and have my ratties, but my ratties will always come first. Mortimer eats mostly frogs and would never grow big enough to ever eat a rat, hence why I chose his species of snake as a pet. XD)
 
No, I don't think you are taking this personally. They are clearly going out of their way to try and upset you.. or get a reaction out of you at least.
 
Um, what the heck. My boyfriend's friend's do that to me, but they are stupid dudes in their mid 20's, so I wouldn't expect much more from them. But coworkers? That's just immature and they need to get over it. I know that the guys do it to get a rise out of me, talking about how their cats kill rats or that they think rats are delicious in a rat soup (really!? clearly just being a-holes). If I went to work and people felt the need to go out of their way to talk to me about snakes, I'd be pretty annoyed. It would definitely get old, quick.
 
i've had it happen with people that go to my school. "why would anyone want pet rats? i have a snake, i can take care of your problem". i tell them how often rat's actually kill snakes, and they shut right up. even my grandmother has said it to me, but about her cats.
 
Ive had that happen to me before, If someone says "Well I have a snake and I feed it rats" I reply with "thats great" I try to not let them get to me. They are only looking for a negative reaction from you.
 
There are so many immature people in the world. If only as many people could try to make their fellow man feel comfortable as opposed to making them feel uncomfortable. Very sad.
 
Yeah...people are jerks. I suggest either straight up ignoring it or, as someone mentioned, just going with it and throwing them off.

Honestly, I would just ignore them. Not trying to judge, since I don't actually know these people but it sounds like they wouldn't even care if you just went with it...those types of people own snakes for the sole purpose of doing what they're doing: being 'edgy' and 'freaking people out'. Cut them off and don't give them an audience. "Ooh, you have a snake...Gee, you must be reeeaaally tough." Not. Odds are it's a ball python and they got it off of kijiji or from a buddy less then a year ago and don't even know anything about it. They just wanted a status symbol.

I'm enclosing a mini rant under a spoiler because it goes into a little more detail that I'm sure not everyone wants to read. Feel free to delete it, if it's felt to be excessive though it should quite tame.
[spoil:3u1abyaq]Honestly, the only reason I'm putting this under spoilers at all is because there's going to be off-hand mentioning of FT. Nothing hardcore but I know some people don't like thinking about feeders at all and I respect that. Though, if they've come this far in the topic, odds are that ship has sailed. But, worst case scenario, I don't want to get yelled at lol. Also, I might use mild language...I'll star it out and everything but yeah...

Anyways, back to the topic. I feel ya. I'm so tired of these Dbag frat types making everyone, including ME look like a jack*ss. When I tell people I keep snakes, I expect to be treated like I'm a horrible person because of it. Because the most public face of not only snake, but reptile keepers are jerks. People don't care that those types aren't representative of the hobby, they don't care that those idiots cycle through snakes faster then a cheap pair of socks. These people usually only have these animals for a couple of months before A) they get tired of it or B) the poor thing dies from improper care.

And the whole rat vs snake thing, I see way too much of working in the exotic pet industry. Back when I was manager at a large-chain-unnamed-for-legal-reasons petstore, I refused so many sales just because they were this kind of person. (Technically, I was not supposed to do that, which probably contributed to my unhappy leaving of the place but whatever. If that's the way it's gonna be then I'm glad to be gone)

A prime example was, really the only snakes we got in were baby Ball Pythons. For those who care or don't know, bps have a (undeserved) reputation for being hard to feed FT too. So, naturally, people gravitate to them because A) they're readily available which means that B) they're cheap and C) they come with a ready-made excuse to feed live. Now, I take a lot of pride in producing healthy, stable animals. I don't sell anything that's only eating every 3rd tuesday of the month, provided there's a southwest wind blowing. I teach animals in my care to eat properly and I do this by knowing how to make the snake comfortable and understanding how they work psychologically. These myths of bps starving themselves because the horrible owner tried to *gasp* feed it FT are nothing but crap. More and more excuses made up to justify lazy, immature and irresponsible behaviour.

Snakes, like everything else have survival instincts. Everything they do, they do to stay alive. Turning down perfectly good food again and again just because it isn't alive is against it's very nature and, if that's happening, it's not that the snake 'wants' live...something else is wrong with it.

If I had a dollar for every time somebody brought me a ball python or any other snake that "won't take live", I'd be the richer then Saudi Arabia. And I have never fed live in my life and never will.

Anyways, one day I had this guy looking at one of my bps and he was asking about it. He was a 20 something college guy so I was already on high alert. Then he was asking what it was eating. I told him it had a great appetite and was doing extremely well on FT. He looked at me and laughed and said "Not for long! No frozen at my house." Without a second thought, I told him that the animal was no longer for sale. He asked about another bp and I told him I wasn't going to sell him anything, so long as he fed live. I calmly explained why and he just laughed and said he'd go somewhere else. I told him that if that's what he chose to do, I couldn't stop him but advised not to spend too much money on something that's either going to be killed by a rat or die from infection.

I've had this conversation countless times. Some people you get through too, most you don't. Such is life.

I don't really know what the point of all this is...I guess I just wanted to share. Sorry for the rant and sorry if I upset anybody. Please know it was not my intention.
/endrant[/spoil:3u1abyaq]
 
I guess I'm fairly lucky at work. My colleagues are solid dog and cat people - I think I'm the only one with anything remotely "exotic" - so I haven't had to deal with the feeder rat "conversation" yet. The worst I have to deal with is this [s:1hbp0m87]past-his-expiration-date-and-going-senile[/s:1hbp0m87] coworker who repeatedly regales me with the lovely story of how his younger sibling squeezed his childhood pet hamster to death.
 
Well at least for you it's coworkers. I get that type of crap from my husband and friends. They say it, of course, to try and get a rise out of me. I'll go one of three ways: ignore, or get really, really mushy and sickly sweet and coo and goober on about how wonderful they are and make them look at my cute pictures, or lastly I might make a threat like 'the next time you come to the cottage I'm going to duct tape you to the bed in your sleep and then put my rats under the covers with you and let them eat you alive.' If they're kind of rat-phobic, then that is a great visual image for them to carry around. Hahahaha!
 
Ugh, Bamboo. Come to my school. My biology teacher has a bunch of reptiles in our room, and she feeds them live baby mice right during class. When I asked her why she doesn't feed frozen, she gave me some BS about how it's a live animal, it's not going to eat dead things!

And then went on to complain about how her snake is already picky enough. Yeah, ok. Maybe because you take crappy care of it, keep it in a stuffy classroom that gets no air conditioning over the weekends/breaks, and all the other reasons. But don't try to tell her that- she's a BIOLOGY TEACHER.
 
jorats said:
Joanne said:
Well at least for you it's coworkers. I get that type of crap from my husband and friends.

From your husband?!?!?! :sad3:
Oh yeah, I would never call him 'Mr. Sensitivity'. LOL
That is why I find someone else to look after any of my sick or special needs ratties when I go away.
But at the same time, I don't 'ask permission' when I bring home another animal, so if he's not on board, then their care is on me. I would rather have that independence than not be able to bring home who I wanted to. :nod:
 
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