This is an interesting time to be an animal specialist. About a week before I took my test, it was posted on the Portal (our store sort-of-news-site-sort-of-employee-resource-center) that our animal assortment would now be determined by store instead of by district.

For those of you unfamiliar with retail terminology, the assortment is the selection of what the store sells. Research done of the surrounding area determines on what the assortment will look like. Taking the assortment down to the individual store level means whatever we don't sell will be ordered less or taken off the shelves entirely.

Basically, it means my department will be losing all of its conures, cockatiels, doves, finches and canaries. Strangely enough, I actually think this is a good move on the company's part. The only species we consistently sell are budgies. The rest sit in overpopulated or small-ish* cages for months until they are finally sold, transferred to another store, or die. This way we'll only receive the animals that sell on a regular basis; so, less fun species for me to play with but fewer, healthier, happier birds. And their happiness wins out over mine any day.



*By small-ish I mean the minimum size that the species can safely be housed in 24/7. Certainly a smaller habitat than I'd consider for my pets, but the store is a business and needs to be run that way.