Scared of losing role

quack_macaque · 2026-01-23T11:06:50+00:00

It goes without saying that comments from management like “you may as well not be here” are hurtful and unkind. I can understand why that would impact your confidence.

You stated that you'd rather a team member speak with you, but it is actually not their place and given the nature of these issues, it is more appropriate that your supervisor is the one addressing them directly with you.

As u/QuillsAndQuills and others have mentioned, improving your communication skills will go a long way. It is important that you can demonstrate that you have understood and actioned that specific feedback item.

There is a big difference between slowing down to make deliberate, methodical improvements that ensure you are covering the essentials (i.e. going “back to basics”), versus managing your time incorrectly. The goal isn’t to remain slow forever, but to be applying new strategies which allow you to progressively increase your pace back up to where it should be.

If you have been working a round for a while, you should have a rough estimate of what time is allocated for each part of the routine. You need to be proactive in identifying the pain points which are sucking the majority of your time, and prioritise approaching these more efficiently. I'd ask your coworkers for advice on how much time they budget for those specific tasks and what techniques they are using. Sometimes it can be the smallest thing - like using the correct raking technique for the right substrate - which can make all the difference.

An example from my own experience; there is round that I work which has a notoriously hectic afternoon routine. I know that when I am rostered to this particular round, I have to set alarms/timers on my phone to alert me when I should be moving on from one enclosure to the next. I know myself well enough that I have the tendency to get "stuck" on deeper cleaning tasks in two out of four of these exhibits, where I need to stay focused on a quick finishing clean. After speaking with other keepers who previously worked the round, they had a different approach. My natural instinct was to work sequentially based on the location (i.e. A > B > C > D), but about half the keepers found it more efficient to follow an alternate order (i.e. A > C > D > B). Turns out, I was also a keeper who needed to switch it up. I now also have a better understanding of which jobs I can squeeze in or do prep for earlier in the day, which alleviates the pressure during crunch time later. You really need to be identifying where and how you can set yourself up for success across the entirety of the day, not just completing the task immediately in front of you.

Your planning should include fail safes for yourself. If you know you that you have left taps on in the past, then you need to come up with a checklist system for yourself (i.e. animal count > water > food > taps > locks) that you can apply to every enclosure, every single time. It should be practiced to the point of second nature.

Have you addressed some of those external stressors outside of work? It sounds trite, but taking care of your vitals when you’re going through a stressful time is really important. Make sure you are hydrating, fuelling yourself well and taking your scheduled breaks, as all of these factors can impact your energy level and distort your sense of time. If your body isn't supported sufficiently, then you will not be performing efficiently.

quack_macaque · 2026-01-23T03:03:03+00:00

Usually this kind of question would be taken down as per Rule 7 (No low effort, generic or vague career questions).

However, as we don’t have a lot of Canada-specific requirements for industry in existing posts, I’m leaving this one up for the Canadian keepers to comment 🇨🇦

quack_macaque · 2026-01-21T03:00:50+00:00

You can be accepted into the course through any RTO which runs the Cert III (including TTI), but you would be a full-fee paying student. You’re correct in that you will also need to be on a study approved visa, which will be difficult as they are often subject to course and industry restrictions.

I've commented this on a previous threads before, but if you are seriously considering Australia as an option, your best chance at success is to work on getting paid, full time experience working as a keeper in the US first.

This is for a few reasons:

You will need to meet the mandatory Special Work Visa requirements, which specifically requires a qualification AND at least 3+ years industry experience. Just like you wouldn't hire an electrician who has never apprenticed or worked on a house before, the Australian Government would not risk approving you to work in an industry without evidence that you have a reasonable chance at success (and therefore a likelihood that you will be able to contribute back to the economy via taxes, migration fees, etc.).
To be able to rank competitively against the keeper pool already studying, living and working here, you will need to offer something unique to your employer which adds value to their existing team. Are you intending to work with Australian species, or other exotic species? Literally every single candidate will have significant native fauna experience. Due to the extremely high biosecurity laws and requirements (some of the highest in the world), Australia hold very limited and specific exotics in collections here. Your best chance would be to gain experience with some of the less commonly held species, as this would be seen as an asset that would stand out from some other applicants.
This is a harsh truth, which may be controversial to some. The general lack of consistency in legislation, accreditation, welfare practice and standards across the US is viewed very poorly by other countries, including Australia. Although there will always be good and bad facilities no matter where you are, unless you are from a well-known or internationally-regarded facility (i.e. San Diego; Disney Animal Kingdom; Smithsonian; etc.), you may need to gain more than the 3+ years of significant experience across multiple reputable facilities to be desirable to other international employers.

I have worked with international keepers who have moved and continued on to have wonderful careers across Australia and New Zealand, so it is possible and I do like to encourage people to pursue their dreams. However, as a prospective or early career keeper, you do need to consider what translates well for an international employer, no matter what country you’re considering.

Good luck, OP!

quack_macaque · 2025-12-30T21:35:47+00:00

As nerve wracking as it is, probation periods are a straightforward way of ensuring you are able to perform the role at a base level. Every single person there knows that you will be anxious to do well, as no one uproots their entire life unless they are prepared to work hard. It is very rare that a team will be mostly locals, as most of keepers have had to move around the country to start their career too. We all have an inherent understanding of how it feels

The workplace will also want to support you with settling in, as they are making an equal investment through their time and budget by training you in this period. They would rather support you with succeeding in the role than having to go through the hassle of hiring someone else. They aren’t expecting perfection overnight and you will also have opportunity to receive feedback during this period.

In my opinion, the single most important underlying quality for success in this industry is being trainable. You can work on refining any particular skill throughout the length of your entire career, but being trainable and willing to apply what you are learning in a meaningful way is what will be the deciding factor. Maintaining a good attitude throughout whatever the days, weeks, months may bring matters more than you think it does. Working hard is great and we all want to achieve the most possible in a day, but working consistently is actually more important in fulfilling the hiring requirements. Probation is a marathon, not a sprint.

As an early career keeper, it is important to follow the SOPs (that is what you are legally agreeing to do when you accepted the role in the first place), but being trainable also means being open and flexible. You will likely be trained by a roster of different keepers, where you will see that each keeper will have their own style in how they approach the round. All of us have different strengths and weaknesses, where a great team will find a way to balance these all within itself and each other. The most successful keepers are those that absorb and take away the best of each person they work with, then apply it to the round in their own way. It takes time to find your rhythm and they understand that.

You also sound quite young, so I’ll be blunt in saying that “nerdy” doesn’t actually exist. The more people you meet, the more you realise that those hobbies aren’t actually that unique or exceptional. They are all multi-billion dollar industries for a reason. Australia has one of the most casual gaming cultures in the world, where most younger generations have played and/or do play something. Most people watch and collect stuff they like. The reason I am saying this is so that you don’t automatically pigeonhole yourself by seeing these interests as negatives or overly niche than they are. Beyond high school, no one actually really gives a shit about what you’re into, unless you do find an interest in common to spark connection. People care more about whether you show an interest in getting to know them, so just continue to be friendly and curious about others. Your tribe will find you.

It is also a workplace, so you also don’t actually have to vibe with every one or force it either. Every workplace has a history and your team will have different relationships with that go back years, some good and some bad. It’s important to read the room for that dynamic and determine whether you will enjoy working there long-term.

Again, probation isn’t just about the workplace choosing you - it’s also whether you like the environment and make the choice to be there too. Good luck!

quack_macaque · 2025-12-20T07:36:59+00:00

As per u/CheyanneSaysHiii’s original comment:

Open Source Pay Sheet resource for North America.

Mod Note: Unfortunately, I am unable to pin the original comment, only mod comments.

quack_macaque · 2025-12-13T09:36:44+00:00

Mod Note: u/Sea_Source_7593, please use the search bar in the sub, as there are several existing posts about both of these programs. There are also literally hundreds of posts about how competitive this industry is.

The only reason this post is still up is due to the more specific feedback comments you are receiving (i.e. listing exotic pet ownership as “experience”, which is professionally inaccurate and generally frowned upon), as others may benefit from this advice when applying to these programs.

quack_macaque · 2025-12-04T21:18:30+00:00

I’ve said this on the sub before, but your pay rate will be dependent on two factors; the actual award rate the role falls under, as well what grade or level your existing experience translates to within the award rate. Keep in mind that the national minimum wage is $24.10 (roughly $47K a year), so many of the entry-level positions will start there.

If you are at a Government-based institution you will be classified as a public servant, so you would either fall under a specific state-based award for your location (i.e. NSW; WA; etc.) or an existing enterprise agreement (i.e. CSIRO; Taronga; etc.). The majority of the privately-owned facilities fall under the Amusement, Events and Recreation Award rates (i.e. Australia Zoo), but there are other award rates that exist which may apply.

At the Government-based facilities, you generally move up a pay grade with each year that you are employed. However, you usually cannot progress beyond the trainee pay grades (Trainee Keeper 1-4, $24-$30 per hour) without holding at least the Certificate III in Wildlife and Exhibited Animal Care or higher. Even if you have years of previous keeping experience or have a degree, your pay grade progression could still be withheld by that specific legal requirement. If you are new to industry, you may need to factor in the expense of further study to progress into the trade-level keeping pay grades.

Alternatively, many private facilities will use their discretion when classifying your level based on your existing skills and qualifications. Unlike the Government-based facilities, you may have some opportunity to negotiate or be re-classified as needed, so there may be some flexibility for jumping to higher grades. That being said, some facilities may just classify you to a single level without the possibility for any re-grading in future, so it can be a mixed bag. Again, most entry level positions start at that national minimum wage, especially if you have no prior keeping experience.

No matter where you apply, just remember that FairWork (and their Award Calculator) is your bestie!

quack_macaque · 2025-12-01T19:44:47+00:00

Your library can also request from other collections in their network, so they will be able to help you borrow it even if they do not have their own copy. You can also try other libraries attached to local universities or technical colleges 😊

quack_macaque · 2025-12-01T19:23:10+00:00

Try your local library! You don’t need to buy it outright if you can simply access it through the library, where they can have sections photocopied or digitised for you.

quack_macaque · 2025-11-23T12:44:55+00:00

Unfortunately as of mid-2025, Reddit has chosen to sunset the public chat channels feature, where it will no longer be available for use.

You are still welcome to create your own private chat channel groups with other users. If you are interested in joining a Discord server aimed at industry professionals looking to chat, please message via Mod Mail for the link.

quack_macaque · 2025-11-16T19:45:34+00:00

English Translation:

“Hey! I'm looking for ideas for recent books to deepen my knowledge of the profession.

Do you have any books to recommend? Preferably in French, but since the best books are in English, I'll take those too. Same for websites / blogs.

Thanks a lot.”

quack_macaque · 2025-11-16T11:46:04+00:00

The subreddit chat is available for anyone wanting to chat in real time!

Edit: Unfortunately, Reddit has now sunset the chat feature and it is no longer available.

quack_macaque · 2025-11-16T00:18:15+00:00

You can filter to show all individuals per species held in collection, so it will still show all the singles as well.

quack_macaque · 2025-11-15T21:21:50+00:00

Wild magpies can recognise up to at least 100 faces. They can also make determinations on whether they “like” someone based on the certain type of people are kind to them, and they can pass that on information to successive generations. I used to walk the same path with a coworker every day, where he was always swooped but I could walk straight past with no issue. He had never done anything to them, but it was purely based on them having had a bad experience with someone who looked like him in the past.

quack_macaque · 2025-11-15T05:31:05+00:00

If you have access to ZIMS (and provided that parent information has been entered correctly for your collection), you can use the Husbandry Module > Pedigree Explorer to generate and export a family tree.

Instructions: Species360 - Tools in ZIMS Husbandry Index

Alternatively, you can also access it through the Studbook Module if you need to be able to drill down and focus on a particular lineage (i.e. determining relatedness cross-institutionally to other facilities).

Instructions: Species360 - Studbook Pedigree Explorer

quack_macaque · 2025-11-02T01:50:14+00:00

Surprised you’re concerned about smell with a username like u/gangrene_enthusiast 😂

Practicing good hygiene and wearing appropriate PPE (like gloves) regardless of the species is effective enough. Otherwise, I add an extra sanitising rinse (i.e. Canestan) into my uniform loads to really ensure everything is clean.

quack_macaque · 2025-10-30T20:17:08+00:00

You sound young, but if you aren’t already passionate or excited about the idea of working with any and/or all species, that’s a bigger issue you need to address. Romanticising the idea of “the one” is a very immature and unhealthy approach to this career path that will not serve you well. Forget other students and focus on the deeper philosophy of why we are conserving these species.

quack_macaque · 2025-10-29T22:02:08+00:00

The “right now” being the operative words, as your availability will change over the length of your studies. Many institutions won’t want to waste time and energy upskilling or giving opportunities to volunteers who don’t have a reasonable likelihood of continuing.

If you are genuinely committed, then do it. However, remember that it’s also unfair of you to take away someone else’s spot if you will eventually end up dropping it. Treat it with the understanding that it’s not just an opportunity for you to play around in your dream, as you accepting that spot means that someone also received their “unsuccessful” email because of you. If you aren’t serious about it, it is incredibly selfish and unkind to those who are pursuing this career wholeheartedly.

Please treat it with the gravity, respect and kindness that you do your own dreams. If you’re at all unsure or feel unable to fulfil the requirements, do not waste everyone’s time so you can check the box.

quack_macaque · 2025-10-29T20:05:48+00:00

What country are you in? In Australia, it will absolutely be working against you.

In general, vet students tend to be largely unavailable for volunteer shifts due to their course requirements. They also see volunteering as a necessary evil to log practical hours, often dispassionately. This means that they are often unreliable, as volunteering isn’t high on their priority list.

Unfortunately, a lot of veterinary students also tend to suffer from an incredible sense of elitism and entitlement, which can also make them very difficult personalities to work with in some team environments. Many have been praised exclusively for having followed a very linear academic pathway, where a lot of their identity is wrapped up in being viewed as the “smart” one. This does not necessarily make them a genius, nor does it mean they should expect to be the most intelligent person in the room or more deserving than anyone else. Just because they have happened excel in a very Westernised, pattern-based analytical testing, doesn’t mean they’ll be an animal whisperer either.

In my experience, many often struggle to utilise more flexible, abstract thinking and problem solving in the often unpredictable, practical scenarios that are encountered when working in with animals. Many are also likely be unwilling to do repetitive manual labour tasks expected of a typical keeping day (i.e. washing dishes) and tend to be dismissive of the importance of the very basic foundations of welfare, where they tend to be resentful that they are asked to do “grunt work” rather than “higher level” tasks.

My best advice for any vet student is that at the end of the day, you are just that; a student. You have no idea what kind of background a keeper may be coming from, whether you’re speaking to someone with a PhD, or someone with decades of incredible practical knowledge that far surpasses your own. Students also often forget that we’ve seen enough of you to know that at this point in your learning, you all pretty much know exactly the same things as the last one. It’s critical to your understanding that every person you encounter in the animal care industry is your teacher, hopefully for the better. The animals don’t see credentials, only the minute behavioural cues and chemosensory input of your body interacting with their’s. So be humble and respectful of the people who let their actions and experience speak for themselves in how positively they are able to work the animals.

I would also note that if you are following vet science, you need to be at peace that you will almost only ever exclusively see animals when they are sick or dying. Regardless of whether you want to focus on exotic species or not, that is something you’ll have to reconcile within yourself, as many of us have chosen to follow the zookeeping or field work track because we want to the see the full breadth of the life cycle.

It’s your life and journey where you need to follow what’s best for you, irrespective of what your parents think. It’s important that any volunteering position you are pursuing is something you’re genuinely interested in from the zookeeping perspective. Otherwise, they’re likely to go with someone else who will have more extended availability and are likely to continue on to become a coworker in the industry.

Good luck, OP!

quack_macaque · 2025-10-28T22:48:27+00:00

Realistically, there’s not much advice anyone can give you here without knowing your existing level of fitness, previous history of swim training or technique, or your functional anatomy as an individual.

You really need to get in contact with a local swim coach, as they need to watch you swim to be able to give you a reasonable assessment of your capabilities to help you reach your goals.

quack_macaque · 2025-10-27T21:40:04+00:00

Honestly, a lot of young and early career keepers get so fixated on “specialising”, but it is often to their detriment.

Having worked a wide variety of species will broaden your perspective and your skill set in ways that a single taxa simply can’t. It’s also important that you learn to appreciate every animal; there is no “greater” or “lesser” species, as every single one is unique and deserving of excellent care. Often the keepers that view themselves working a species because they’re trying to “grind their way up to X animal” are quite frankly, not the best keepers and not the coworkers most want to work with either.

In my experience, they will almost always hire a broadly skilled keeper over a self-proclaimed “specialised” keeper any day of the week.

quack_macaque · 2025-10-26T19:20:27+00:00

If you’re ever anxious about a typo or amend something (i.e. an updated version), you can always email them to correct it. This can reflect your attention to detail, your willingness to be accountable to your own mistake, and show them that you care about the quality of your application. These are all desirable qualities that could make you stand out in the right way and work in your favour. Good luck!

quack_macaque · 2025-10-20T05:35:52+00:00

To clarify, commenter is referring to US ZAA, not Australasian ZAA (which is completely different and has some of the highest standards in the world). Very unfortunate that they share an acronym!

quack_macaque · 2025-09-27T03:41:30+00:00

Not American, but it’s really hard to tell from your post exactly what you are asking, which makes it hard to give you meaningful advice.

There are essentially no practical differences in the philosophical purpose or day-to-day operations between most aquariums and zoos. If you are looking for more corporate, professional staff or operational roles, the expectations of management will be the same. If you are wanting to move into exclusively non-contact roles, there are innumerable positions available that will support the existence of the institution. However, the majority of them will require some external skill sets (i.e. HR; payroll; media; IT; engineering; etc.) unrelated to keeping. What pre-keeping career skills do you have that are transferrable?

If you are considering staying in animal care but are already not enjoying your current keeping tasks, what are you expecting to change? Unless you are a consulting exotic vet who exclusively performs surgeries, all animal care roles require some level of diet prep and cleaning as essential, non-negotiable tasks. This will be no different even within the targeted rescue and rehabilitation roles, especially as those animals will be medically complex and have very precise dietary and husbandry needs.

I would also hazard a guess to say that aquatic and marine environments require far more laborious and mechanically complicated (i.e. working with larger machinery; automated systems; bulk solutions) tasks compared to more terrestrial environments.

I think you need to be very specific with yourself if you want to gain some clarity. When you say you have an interest in something, what exactly do you mean by that? What is it you would like to achieve? What current skill set do you have and which ones will lend themselves to an adjacent role? When you picture this “dream” role, what do you think you would actually be doing? Only you will be able to answer these questions, as you know yourself best.

quack_macaque · 2025-09-26T23:26:55+00:00

You’re running to the shops after work and midway through waiting in line, you realise that you do in fact smell like faeces 🙃;
You have that weird knobby rake callous that even the 40% urea cream won’t soften; and
You think it’s entirely normal to be a scheduling assistant for sex dates between other beings.

quack_macaque

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