Rich Z
08-06-2002, 01:21 PM
I don't know if any of you noticed it, but I had to put a MINIMUM ORDER in place this season. This is just temporary until I can get out of the crunch I am in taking care of newly hatched babies.
Packing up an order is time consuming. Unless you've ever done it, and had to pick through hundreds (sometimes thousands) of animals looking for that one blasted last one to complete the order, you have no idea what it is like. Quite frankly, at this time of year, I just can't take the time it takes to pack up a small order for a single $25 animal. Even with that single animal, I have to do everything basically that I do for a much larger order except pull the same number of animals. All I did was figure out a minimum value for my time. Yeah, I know it sounds mercenary on the surface, but it really is not that way at all. I'd much rather turn away 20 of the $25 orders than suffer a heart attack trying to fill them all. The minimum order is cheap life insurance.
Realistically, considering the cost of shipping the animals in the first place, it is pretty foolish to place an order for less that $100 any way. BTW, that figure does NOT include the cost of shipping. The $100 minimum is considering the value of the animals themselves.
I am sorry I had to do this, but the work load right now is absolutely unreal. And with eight shows scheduled between mid August and the first part of November, it isn't going to get any better anytime soon.
As such, my correspondence is going to degrade from it's normally 'just barely adequate' level to completely dismal and beyond. Any email that requires more than a grunt or two from me in response is going to get piled up on that huge list of other emails that are awaiting an answer from me.
I have a stack of orders that are awaiting all of the animals on the list to be feeding before I can ship them out, and it looks like many will not be able to be shipped before we get back from the Daytona Beach show. The amount of work I need to do prior to that show to be ready for it is ridiculous. When I think about the number of animals I need to sex and label, plus all of the ones still just hatching out that will need to be set up in their deli cups and offered food, my head begins pounding and my heart skips a beat.
And WHY does time have to go so darn FAST these days???
Packing up an order is time consuming. Unless you've ever done it, and had to pick through hundreds (sometimes thousands) of animals looking for that one blasted last one to complete the order, you have no idea what it is like. Quite frankly, at this time of year, I just can't take the time it takes to pack up a small order for a single $25 animal. Even with that single animal, I have to do everything basically that I do for a much larger order except pull the same number of animals. All I did was figure out a minimum value for my time. Yeah, I know it sounds mercenary on the surface, but it really is not that way at all. I'd much rather turn away 20 of the $25 orders than suffer a heart attack trying to fill them all. The minimum order is cheap life insurance.
Realistically, considering the cost of shipping the animals in the first place, it is pretty foolish to place an order for less that $100 any way. BTW, that figure does NOT include the cost of shipping. The $100 minimum is considering the value of the animals themselves.
I am sorry I had to do this, but the work load right now is absolutely unreal. And with eight shows scheduled between mid August and the first part of November, it isn't going to get any better anytime soon.
As such, my correspondence is going to degrade from it's normally 'just barely adequate' level to completely dismal and beyond. Any email that requires more than a grunt or two from me in response is going to get piled up on that huge list of other emails that are awaiting an answer from me.
I have a stack of orders that are awaiting all of the animals on the list to be feeding before I can ship them out, and it looks like many will not be able to be shipped before we get back from the Daytona Beach show. The amount of work I need to do prior to that show to be ready for it is ridiculous. When I think about the number of animals I need to sex and label, plus all of the ones still just hatching out that will need to be set up in their deli cups and offered food, my head begins pounding and my heart skips a beat.
And WHY does time have to go so darn FAST these days???