A lifetime ago a friend's chain got tangled after he and I removed the rear wheel to repair a puncture. We plugged away at it for the whole afternoon, my friend was almost in tears in the end, but then his dad came home (a pastor), and I thought, what can he fix, he's only a pastor, but he did it in a few minutes.
Tangled chains are like Chinese puzzles. Perhaps the LBS chap thought, he's not going to puzzle it out, he'll just use a chain breaker.