MLAARE -Fading Gone

A sore throat.
Makes it difficult to work.
Especially when it ends up being that you loose your voice because of it.

And when you work in a retail environment.
Where you actually have to talk with customers.
Sometimes for minutes on end...

It doesn't bode well for the voice box. For the sore throat.

Luckily for me, today.
My voice held up until the last two hours of my shift.
Thankfully, it wasn't too busy with customers that last couple of hours.
So I was able to rest my voice for a bit at a time.
Making it so I would be able to talk to the customers enough for them to understand me.
Before I would lose it again.

Not quite the way I wanted to end the year. With hardly a voice.
But hopefully I'll be able to recover tonight and get my voice back tomorrow for the New Year. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Decisions Decisions

I had a customer today,
one of the dithering types.
Where its hard to make a decision
based on the options given.

She was needing a new fish tank.
But had limited space in her living room for it.

She was liking the bow front fish tanks.
Particularly the 36 gallon tank.
Which would be at the maximum size she could go for the space in her living room.

Which she wasn't sure if that would fit.
She wanted to go for a small bow front but we don't carry the smaller sizes.
Could we put a bow front on a straight edge stand?
Could we put a straight edged tank on a bow front stand?

Maybe she should go for smaller.
No
Yes
No
Yes.

At one point we got her the 36 gallon tank stand set she'd been eying.
But I could tell she was still hesitant with the decision.
Sometimes you just need to push them to a decision so that they can get home and away from all the options in the store, get them to see the Tank in its place in their home.

She ended up changing her mind though.
Deciding to not worry about it fitting.
And went with a smaller tank. A 20 gallon with a light set up that she liked and a stand.
It wasn't a bow front, but she definitely seemed more happy with this decision.
And she ended up buying it. :) yay!

I hope she's happy with it in her home. ^^
As I felt bad for her, agonizing over the decision for over an hour really.
It seemed like she was close to tears a few times.
Thankfully it seems to have all worked out in the end. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Cricket Squandered

It's been a busy past couple of weeks.
Due to the Holiday season and all the shoppers flooding in wanting stuff.
Which means, in the chaos of customers, being short staffed, and trying to get the bare basics done before leaving work...
Some things fall by the wayside.
To be ignored until time was once again found to do those things.

Today was one of those days.
Where I could actually do some of the 'extras' without worrying about being able to finish everything else.

You see, we get our Cricket shipments in in two ways.
Boxed by the thousands to place in our bins to bag up in however many numbers customers want.
And prepackaged crickets that are 'to go' boxes that have like 24 crickets in them per box.

The thing about the prepackaged crickets is...that usually they need to be checked every week.
To see if there were still 24 alive crickets in them.
And if there aren't, either toss them or fill them back up.
Recently we've been going the "fill them up" route.
But more recently....we haven't had time to touch those prepackaged crickets.

So they've sat.
And died.
And sat.
and died some more.

But today!
I had time because we got our other tasks done earlier than the recent normal, and there were hardly any customers in the store to pull me away.
To take those prepackaged boxes.
and actually go through them.
And fill them back up, put in fresh crickets, fresh food.
So I could tell customers to just grab one. So that I wouldn't have to bag up crickets. lol.

Oh. Such a sweet feeling to have that option again!
I no longer (until next week.) have to explain why the prepackaged crickets are mostly dead. (because we haven't had the time to go through them.)

So glad to get that finally accomplished. ^^

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Falling Apart

For the past little while,
We've had a problem with one of our bathroom stalls.
In that one of the posts, apparently wasn't tightly held together.
So if somebody bumped it the wrong way.
It would move over.
And then the door to the stall wouldn't be able to close.
Because there would be a space there where the lock couldn't reach the other side.

For the most part its an easy fix.
Just move the post back into place.
And the door will shut and lock again.

But then.
I came in,
And noticed that the stall wasn't looking as normal.
I tried to shut the door.
And there was like a six inch space.
Much larger than normal.
I tried to fix it...

But then suddenly the hinges and screws all came loose. O.o
Uhh....ohhh....
There was no easy fix to this.

Thankfully, our janitor dude was still there.
And with his help.
We took off the post.
And reconnected the hinges, placing the screws back into their slots.
And with some struggle,
Got it all put back together again.

Good as new.
Woot! Yay for teamwork!

Hopefully we don't have any further problems now that we put everything back together. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Happy People

I had a lot of customers come into the store today.
Not surprising because its the day after Christmas.
And people come into the store to pick up new pets or things for their new pets that day.
Thankfully, for me, it didn't start getting busy until about lunch time.
As it gave me time to get my department open, and have another coworker show up then so I wasn't once again scheduled by myself.

The funny thing is,
A lot of the customers I got today.
Were ones that I'd helped before.
Not get animals.
But get their set ups for the animals.

And then they came in today to grab the said animals. lol.
So interesting.
"There's our amazing girl."
"There's our animal expert. She knows everything."
"Oh good you're here, I was hoping you would be."

lol it was really a confidence booster.
To see so many customers recognize me today and be happy to see me.
Hopefully my recommendations to them today were helpful.
And that they'll continue to be happy to see me.

But for now, I'm glad I had happy customers to work with,
as it makes work a lot easier when we're both happy.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -By A Thread

Had a sad situation at work today.

I was busy opening the store.
I don't know if I would have even seen it and been able to do anything...if I'd been there as it happened.
Its just...if you don't expect to see something...you don't see it.

And I didn't even see it until a boy pointed it out to me.

"You have a Dead Parakeet."
O.o What?!
Usually if a bird happens to die on the floor. you see the body on the bottom of the cage.
Which, there wasn't one.

Then the boy pointed to our rope toy we had hanging from the cage.
The one with frayed ends on the bottom.

And hanging from that...by the neck.... was a parakeet. :(
Poor thing.
It had somehow gotten two strings around its neck...twisted in a panic...and well...he hung himself. Y_Y
Poor thing!
I have no idea how long it struggled...I don't know if I could have rescued him if I had noticed sooner...
But...the strong was wound rather tightly.
I had to cut off the rope he was hanging from before I could unwind it from his neck.
So. So. Depressing.
So crazy!
Its like a freak accident. Something you don't imagine ever happening.
Y-Y

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Arriving Today

I was taking a break at work today.
When one of my coworkers came in to the break room and was like "Oh! There you are Sarnic, you have a guy here looking for you."
O.o
A guy?
Here.
Looking for me?

At first all I could think of was that my brother had dropped by again for a visit though I would have no idea why he'd be back down this way.

Was it a customer? Maybe they had more questions, or wanted help from me specifically for some reason.
Though since the store had just barely opened....it seemed highly unlikely.

So a guy.
Some guy asking specifically for me.

The only other person I could think of.
Was the guy that delivers us our shipments of animals.
But I wasn't expecting him until tomorrow.
As he said he'd be coming that day when I asked him last week when he was coming.

But when I opened the door to leave the breakroom,
there were the boxes of animals.
And soon after, the guy who delivers them.

lol.
Apparently he was supposed to have come yesterday. :S
But he can only travel so much before he has to stop and rest.
And yesterday the heads of his company said he had to stop and rest.
Which was good for me.

Because today is actually the day that we prepare our back rooms for receiving our new animals. Which usually show up two days later.
But in situations like this.
They sometimes come early.
So we try and be prepared ahead of time so we're not scrambling if they show up before they should.
Thankfully.
We were prepared.
All the cages were set up and such.

So I didn't have to scramble to get anything ready. :)

Yay for being on top of things! lol.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Overwhelmed

Oh boy.
The Christmas shopping season hit full force today.
With customers coming into the store right at 8.
And they just kept coming.

And it sucked.
A lot.
Because we were super busy.
and for some reason.
I'd been scheduled to be by myself for half of my shift!
Like it was regular Monday.
Newsflash.
It wasn't.
This week is going to be crazy.
All the parents coming in to get animals for their children and supplies for their pets.

Once my opener left.
I didn't get any of the remaining tasks done.
It was like four hours of constant customers.
Which luckily they were all nice and I liked helping them.
but less luckily...I was busy busy busy.

I'm so looking forward to when this week will be over.
When the gifts will all have been given.
When Christmas will be over.

Here's to surviving tomorrow. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Remodel

So I'm pretty sure that the fish tanks in our store.
Have been there since the store opened.
Decades ago.

For their age, we manage to make them look pretty good.
Constant scrubbing and such.
But in some areas their beginning to show their age.

Today.
As I was busy helping customers,
I happened to see some stranger with a camera come out of the room behind the fish tank.
Which customers shouldn't be back there.
So I asked him if everything was alright.
"Ya, I got permission from the manager."
Which is weird.
So I asked him why he was taking pictures.
For like a school project or something?

No, he was taking pictures for the company.
For the possibility of a remodel.

Basically they wanted to see the state of the tanks,
And then see if they wanted to budge a remodel for the tanks or not.

The guy was sure to stress that he wouldn't 'hope' that the remodel will get done.
Which I know all too well.

Every year at the store
I've been told that they're going to take out something, remodel something, etc.
And it hasn't happened yet.

We're going to get rid of the Display Tanks.
Not.
We're going to move the aisles around.
Not.
We're going to get new counters for the registers.
Not.
So the news that we may get a remodel for our fishtanks, but not to hope for it...
lol.
Isn't surprising.
I will be pleasantly surprised if we do remodel those fish tanks.
I will be extremely happy if we do because I think if we can get a face lift to our department,
It would do us well. :)

Guess we'll see.
:)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Frozen Frog

Sometimes I wish I knew the origins of some of the situations that happen in my store.

Like today, For Example.
I'm in our break room, taking my lunch break.
And my coworker comes in.
With a tiny little Tupperware container.
Seriously only big enough to hold a single oreo.
Wondering what we should do with the Green Tree Frog that was within it.
Because A Customer Returned that Green Tree Frog. In that container!
Seriously.
>.< I thought that it was a strange thing to place the frog in.
Rather tiny too.
I mean, it fit, easily enough.
but it couldn't move around.

I hadn't thought more of it.
The frog looked fine, my coworker hadn't mentioned anything weird.
So I said to put it back on the floor.

I didn't think more about it.
Until later, when I returned from my break.
And encountered a couple of customers and a young boy with them.
Wanting to get a snake.
A ball python to be exact.

They were like "We were reading this pamphlet and we want to get this snake."
And I was like "Okay...do you have a cage for it?"
"Yes, we returned the tree frog, we'll just put it in that cage."
"Oh..." *alarm bells ringing* Because seriously. Frogs can live in small cages. Snakes can't. "What size of tank is it?"
"Its the same size as the one out there its in."
Which if they were looking in the lower tank would have been like maybe a 5 gallon tank. If they were looking on the top row...that's more like a 2 gallon tank.
In either case. Both tanks were too small to house a Ball Python. I told them they would need to get at least a 20 gallon tank to house the snake.
And the boy was like "But the snake is in a smaller tank now."
Cue rolling of the eyes. >.< "Because this is a temporary cage, the snakes don't stay in there that long. You can't keep them in such a small space for long periods of time or else they get grumpy, you need a larger tank."
"Well, I'm just buying this for my sister, my sister can come back later and get the tank then."
I refused to sell though. Because they could say they were going to get a bigger tank later. But would they? No, I wouldn't subject a snake to that. So I went a slightly different route. Telling them everything else they'd need to get. Different bedding, a different cage to feed the snake in because if they didn't have that the snake would get aggressive. Etc etc.
But if they were considering keeping their regular tank, a Leopard Gecko would have been alright in a smaller tank. It just needs a different bedding and crickets/mealworms.
They decided to think on it.

So in the meantime while they were reevaluating their animal plan. This guy his girlfriend and the nephew of the guy.
My coworker tells me.
That I shouldn't sell any animals to these people because they don't know what they're doing.
They said the frog wasn't eating...
But was it?
Apparently when he came into the store to be returned the poor thing was Freezing Cold! Basically FROZEN. From being so cold.
Which meant they had left the poor thing in the car for a while.
Because moving a frog from a heated tank, to the car, to the petstore wouldn't get it freezing cold.

And having just experienced the debacle with the Tarantula.....I was even more wary about selling these people a pet.
>.> #naughtylist for sure guys.

In any case.
They came back asking to get another frog.
I told them the only frog I had in the store was the one they had just returned.
They asked if there were any other frogs like it in the store.
Frogs needing the same type of cage set up? No. No I didn't have them.
I did have a Pacman frog, with a similar set up. But if they couldn't take care of the Green Tree Frog, I wasn't trusting them with this particular one either.
So I told them I didn't have any.
So they asked to get one of the lizards that we have in the same cage as the frog instead.

I couldn't really refuse. They said they had heat, they said they had lights.......So they said.
In any case. I went to grab the paperwork.
And sparked upon an idea. Because the guy looked a little young.
As its a college town you don't think on it much, as a lot of young looking guys come here to college.
But I was like "I'm sorry, I should have asked you this sooner....but how old are you?"
"Seventeen" he replied.
Hooray! There was the answer I'd been looking for.
"I'm really sorry...but I can't sell to you, you have to be 18 or older to buy animals from us."
"But...I bought one last week."
"I'm sorry, we should have checked, we're not supposed to sell to anyone under 18 because they're not considered adults yet. See, it says right here on the paperwork." Showed him where it said "must be 18 or older to sign."

Soo...they called the boys mother.
I had to take a call.
They came back and the guy said "She's 18" pointing to the girl that was with him. "Can she fill out the paperwork."
"I'll have to see some ID" I replied.
"I don't have it."
"I can't sell to you unless I see an ID" I said. Because honestly. They could be lying. And they weren't doing much to establish confidence in them either.

Soo they ended up leaving.
I never saw them after that.

A part of me feels sad, for ruining their day, making it so they couldn't get any animals.
But most of me is glad that I denied them. Because they'd already made one animal suffer. If I was able to save another from suffering then I consider it a job well accomplished.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Naughty List

I don't like this time of year for one simple reason.
Because people like to surprise other people with animals as presents.
And more often than not, the animal ends up suffering because of it.

-Okay, not strictly true, A lot of people will randomly find/comeacross/get animals and want to take the best care of it possible.

But during the Christmas Season...not always true.

So.
Six days ago.
My Coworker sold our Tarantula to a guy who said he was getting it for his friend.
She did the standard questions.
Asking if he had a set up and everything.
Which the customer said that his friend did.
He was just here to pick it up.

So she sold the tarantula not thinking anything more about it.

Only...
To have a totally different guy come in last night.
With the Tarantula.
Saying that he couldn't take care of it.
-It was a White Elephant Gift!! *blazing eyes* *fury. full of fury*
And that the spider creeped him out, so he was returning it.

FIVE DAYS LATER.

And you know what?
In that FIVE day period.
The poor spider hadn't had any water. Hadn't had any food!
He'd been trapped in the small temporary container we put the spiders in for that entire period!!

Oh, to hear my coworker (the same one who sold him.) talk about it.
She put in like six crickets and the spider downed two of them in like two seconds. She put in water and the spider literally ran to it to get a drink.

You usually don't feel bad for spiders.
But the Poor Spider!!
No creature deserves to be treated in such a manner!
He's lucky to be alive!

>.< Ugh.
That customer is on the naughty list for sure. For years and years and years to come. >.<

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -That Time of Year

It's that time of year,
Where customers have to decide.
When to get their animals for Christmas.

Do they get them now and have to find a hiding place until Christmas?
Or wait and hope that the animal is still there.

Because this time of year, it's rather hard to know what animal is going to be popular for Christmas.
We could still have the certain animal.
Or it could sell out.

And every years its different.
No way to know for sure.

And its up to the customer to decide. :S
Hope I don't have to deal with too many disappointed customers this year.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Lefty Bitten

There's a thing about hamsters...
When they're grumpy....they like to bite.
Especially when they don't want to take the medicines you're trying to make them take.
And when they bite...
They bite down on whatever is closest to their teeth.
Which can, on occasion, be the hand that's holding them.

Thankfully we have precautions for that.
Little things called Gardening Gloves.
Aka... our "Bite Gloves."
Nice thick gloves that little hamster teeth. (or thorns or pointy gardening plants) can't get through.

So we can wear them and protect our hands from sharp pointy teeth.

Only...
There's a problem though.
With going on vacation. Disappearing from the store for a couple of days.
Is that things tend to happen while I'm gone.
Things move around, get cleaned up, thrown away.

So when I came in today.
To give the meds.
I automatically looked for the Bite Gloves.

And I found one.
Just one.
The left handed glove.

Which is great.
....For right handed people.
As you hold the hamster in the nondominate hand, give the meds with the dominate hand. Nobody gets bitten.

Guess what?
I'm left handed.
Wearing a bite glove on my dominate hand... doesn't work.
Because I have to give the meds with my right hand.
And I'm not right handed. Like I said above.

So it took a lot longer to give the meds today.
Because I couldn't find the other glove.

Turns out, it more than likely got thrown away. *sighs*
Hopefully...
We get another set of bite gloves in soon.
So if anything, life gets easier for me again.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Gloves

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later.
I mean. It's been months.
If not longer.
Half a year maybe?

Since I got bit by a hamster.
Hard enough to draw blood.

So it's not a surprise that I got bit today.
While I was doing bedding changes.

It was totally my own fault too.
I scared the hamster as I was trying to pick it up.
And he freaked out and bit me to escape.

What's crazy is that this hamster managed to draw blood.
While I was wearing gloves.
I mean, they're just regular medical gloves.
So they're easily torn and punctured.

But what's crazy is...
My glove wasn't punctured.
The hamster managed to draw blood without tearing the glove!
So. Crazy!!

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Timing the Greenies

So, for the past couple of weeks.
I've been training a new coworker to work with me in the mornings.
Which means I've been having her do the bedding changes as they are more complicated and time consuming than the other tasks.
Because its such a time consuming task, there is always the concern about how fast my coworkers are moving. As there is a set 'time limit' for how long each task should take.

But with the Greenie, those are lax.
I don't expect the Greenies to be able to move as fast as I can on their first day. Especially when its their first time doing the particular tasks. There is going to be a lot of uncertainty, questions, corrections etc.
So I expect them to take a while on tasks.
I usually give them around a month of doing the task. (which would be like 4 times for each bedding change since it takes place once a week.) before I start urging them to go faster.
Before that point, I'm more lax about timing because I know that they're new.
lol I'm not expecting them to move the moon for me.

In any case.
Each greenie is always slightly different. They catch onto one thing quicker than another, or just don't catch on at all. Timing always shifts depending on the coworker and their capabilities.

What's funny about my current greenie is that she's really concerned about timing.
How fast she's moving, if she's going too slow, if she's doing things on time. etc.

Lol I've had to tell her multiple times to relax. To not be so uptight about getting things done right the first time. Or fast.
She's new. I understand that. I'm willing to let her figure it out.

But the nice thing is...that she's figuring it out quickly.
Even though this week is only her second time going through the particular bedding changes, she's doing them nearly as fast as I am.
Which is nice. Because we can get things done faster elsewhere in the dept.

I'm glad she's concerned about doing things fast. ^^ We'll see if she can keep up the pace, but right now she's doing really good for being super new to everything. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Ratless

()_()
Wow.
That's unexpected....

Soo after three years of working at Starsmet.
We had a message come down from the heads.
Telling us that we'll no longer be selling rats.

O.o
Dumbo Rats.
Fancy Rats.

Once we've sold what we have, we're not getting anymore.

O.o
Why?
Not really sure.
All I know is that the company that we get our animals from has decided to stop selling them...
So therefore...we will no longer be selling them.
I don't know if that will be permanent...
or if it will just last until we find a new breeder to get rats from.

Its one of those good bad moments.
As I do like having the rats in the store.
They're sweet and friendly and fun.

But in many many ways I'm glad we're no longer going to be carrying them,
Because in reality...
They don't sell.

The rats in our store will often get full grown before we sell them.
Sitting in their poor cages for months and months and months until they are finally taken home.

So I'm glad that we don't have to watch the rats get older and larger.

But still. It's weird.
To have it happen now....
I guess everyone finally decided that they weren't profitable?
Who knows.

But sometime in the future (months from now more than likely)
We'll no longer have rats in our store.
And its going to be weird.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Transaction Trials

It was one of those days where I felt like I was stuck on the register for most of my shift.
I wasn't.
But it sure felt like it.
I kept getting called up to help back up cashier for the cashier there in order to keep the lines from being too long.

Unfortunately one of those transactions I ended up taking forever on.
As I had a woman come up to the register wanting to return everything she'd just purchased because she'd forgotten to use a coupon she had that would give her 15% off her entire purchase.

I'm of the mind set where I want to help you save as much money as possible.
So I was willing to do what she requested.
Didn't think it would take that long,

But after I returned the items, rescanned them...and then tried to use the coupon, it wouldn't let me...

Turns out -after consulting with a manager- that I had to return the items. Finish that transaction -aka give her her money back.- And then rescan everything in a new transaction. Then I was able to use the coupon to get her her discount.

*shakes head* For some reason she wasn't willing to give the cash back that I'd given her...instead choosing to swipe her card again. Apparently she needed cash?

But.
While I was trying to figure out what was going wrong and how to fix it. (System updates always mess with me since I'm hardly on the register.)
The woman, turned to the lady that was standing in line behind her.
And offered her an extra coupon she had that would give the woman 15% off of her purchase as well. (as you can only use one per transaction and the discount expires this weekend.)
Which I thought was super sweet of her to do.
To give the woman waiting compensation for having to wait so long while we figured out the process.

It reminded me of a few years ago, when I had the same situation happen to me.
I was standing in line in a craft store, and a woman in front of me gave me a coupon to save 40% on my purchase, which was amazing because I was rather strapped for cash at that point in time. So to save a little extra money to use elsewhere was super helpful!

So glad to see that there are people still willing to do that. ^^

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Zombiefied

Zombie crickets are always fun to work with.
Not that they're actually zombies.
But that's basically what they are after they've been frozen and then thaw and come alive again.

I got in a shipment of crickets today.
A much needed shipment,
As my shipment yesterday came in all dead.
Which isn't good,
as we Hadn't had a cricket shipment in over a week.
Which meant that we were really super low on crickets.

-In fact, this morning when I came in, we were completely out of crickets of both sizes.

So I desperately needed this shipment of crickets to be good.

Guess what.
Yah.
>.<
It wasn't good.

I knew right off the bat it wasn't good, when the delivery came in.
Because the boxes were cold to the touch.
If the boxes were cold to the touch, that meant that the contents inside would be as cold if not colder to the touch.

And Crickets do not like Cold.

My suspicions were confirmed when I opened up the boxes.
Motionless crickets resided inside.
Cold.
Because no heat packs were provided to keep them warm.
So they just got colder, and colder and now...
For all intents and purposes....they were dead.

But.
It was possible that the crickets would revive.
As sometimes when they get too cold, they go into hibernation instead of dying.

Yesterday's shipment totally died.

So I wasn't hopeful about today's shipment at all.

But, I didn't just toss them all in the garbage and call it a day.
No, in the winter, we usually give the shipment a few hours to 'rejuvenate.'
Just in case the cold temperatures happened in the manner that hibernates the crickets instead of killing them.

And lucky me.
It was the hibernation most of the crickets chose.
So a few hours later,
After they had warmed up,
I looked again.
And the crickets were up and moving around.

Yay!

That was very very very good.
Because like I said, I was completely out of crickets.
So I desperately needed this shipment to at least have some live crickets in it.

Thankfully. Live ones I got.
Who knows how long they'll stay alive, I'll have to see what the damage is tomorrow.
But at least my dead crickets came back to life for a bit! :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Fishy Creativity

I got to do today, something I've been itching to do for the past week.
Ever since my new manager said I could.

And that thing was...
Redecorating our largest display fish tank. ^^

Because BB my new manager gave me permission to.
To add in new things.
New fish.

So much fun!!

But because of the Black Friday craziness, I haven't had the opportunity to fully invest in redecorating.
And I wasn't expected to do so the very day it was brought up.
Because of the whole holiday crazy crazy. lol.

Still. I did some odds and ends before today.
Adding in a few fish.
A couple of decorations.

But today I finally had time to actually 'sit' down. (stand on a stool and reach in really.) and really spend some time redesigning the tank to look 'new' again.
(as you know...after a while new and exciting becomes old and boring.)

Tons of fun!
And I think the end result turned out great!! ^^
All I need is to add in a couple more fish -if they come in on our fish shipment later this week- and I feel like the tank will be complete with its new makeover. ^^

But I have to say its fun.
Fun to create.
To design.

To make things look amazing. ^^
Wish I could do it more often.
lol which is probably a good thing that I don't have the ability to get a new giant fish tank yet...I'd probably be redesigning that thing every week or so. ;)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Escaped and Found

We had a lizard escape from work the other day.....
Meaning like...two weeks ago, really.

Where I was doing an inventory of our animals and realized we were missing one.
Naturally I assumed it had died or something.
Or possibly even accidentally walked out of the store without going through our registers. (who knows how accidental that could have been.)
So I adjusted our numbers and thought nothing more of it.

But then I came into work a couple of days ago.
To an odd sight of one of our cages on the floor by our second register.

Obviously, it was meant to catch something.
But I had no idea what it could be, because I didn't think anything had gotten loose....
But obviously some sort of reptile had by the set up.

A quick consultation of notes left on our communication board
Told me that a customer had spotted a leopard gecko disappearing underneath register two, in the crack there.

Which explained why the whole set up was by register two.
To try and catch the leopard gecko.

I didn't think it would work though.
I mean, there are plenty of places to hide in our store.
We had another leopard gecko survive basically a whole year in our store (as he escaped.) before we found him stuck to a trap and rescued him.

Not to mention I doubt he would have stayed under the register when the store finally emptied out.

In any case.
Today, I got a call up to the register.
Where I was greeted by my greenie coworker who had....
Yah.
The missing leopard gecko in her hands!

Apparently a customer had found him.
Where and how, I didn't get the chance to ask.
But the important thing is.
We found him!

Poor thing was kinda cold and skinny.
Wherever he was hiding out it was obviously not near the escaped cricket hangouts as he seemed rather skinny.

Hopefully he survives this adventure of his.
We'll see. :D He seems to be doing well enough at the moment....just needs to fatten himself back up again.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Drunken

I was in the middle of doing the morning tasks of feeding our small animals. The hamsters, rats, guinea pigs, etc.

And I opened up one of the cages of rats that we had.
That's currently a bit over crowded due to the holiday season as we're going through animals rather quickly.
....With the exception of rats.
I don't know why we were sent so many, our Rats don't sell. It's like...one in a month if we're lucky.
And we have basically a year supply of rats currently.

So needless to say, I lifted up their little house to check on them all.
And noticed that one of our little rats was smaller than the others.
So I picked him up to see if he was doing okay.
Because if one rat is smaller...usually that means that they're not getting enough food or water.

As soon as I picked him up he began squeaking.
wiggling.
Twisting,
turning.

He was very energetic.
Making it hard to examine him closely.
Not that I needed to see him closely,
As I put him back in the cage...
He fell over.
like right onto his back.
And struggled to get back on to his feet.
Once he was on his feet...
He staggered around the cage.

Kinda in a drunken way. An energetic drunken way.

Not.
Good.

There was something going on here.
Possibly something neurological.
As seeing that sort of shaky gait, the trouble walking...
Doesn't bode well.

So I immediately called the manager to take him to the Vet.
Its not a sort of situation where you want to wait and see if he recovers.
The sooner he's on meds the more likely he is to get better from whatever is troubling him.

Unfortunately...I left work before the rat came back from the vet.
So I don't know what the final prognosis was.
Hopefully its something treatable. 

Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Sick Bird

I was called up to the register this morning, by the cashier.
Why? Because there was a customer there that had a concern.

What was her concern?
That we had a sick bird.
And that we needed to isolate it and put it on antibiotics right away.

The problem with birds....
Is that they don't show that they're sick....until they're basically on deaths door.
I've had alot of experience with sick birds.
And usually, if they look sick....they're usually dead within twenty four hours.

Yah. So putting it on antibiotics....if this bird was sick...
More than likely would be pointless.
Even if I could get it to the vet the same day...more than likely it wouldn't help the bird.
And considering that its a holiday weekend...the vets are less than likely to be open.

Still.
I would do what I could.
If the bird was sick, I'd do what I could do under the circumstances.

Of course, I didn't let the customer know all this.
As they seemed rather knowledgeable about their birds and antibiotics.

So the customer showed me the bird.
And at first look,
It did have that sick look to it.
Puffed up.
Eyes closed.

Definitely looked sick.

So I went inside to catch the bird.
So I could isolate it.

It flew around rather easily.
And once I pulled the bird out of the cage.
He looked pretty normal to me.
Eyes open.
Looking about.
Not puffed up.
Alert.

And as I walked out of the enclosure with him in hand.
The customer was like "Oh, he didn't look so sick when he was flying around."
I nodded in agreement.
But told the customer "I'm going to isolate him and observe him for a few days." anyways.
Just in case.
To observe him.

And ensure that he is actually as healthy as he appeared this morning.

We'll see how it turns out.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Black Friday Worry

I've had my fair share of Black Friday experiences at work.

Okay, so it's been like only four of them.

But still, I'm more experienced than basically everyone else there lol.

So it's not surprising that my fellow opener for Black Friday was a bit nervous.

I mean, its easy to picture all the horribly crazy things that can happen on Black Friday.

I did it my first time working Black Friday.

Because I didn't know what to expect then.

Crazy mobs.

Fights.

People getting trampled.

You know all the things you hear about happening in other retail stores.

But.

This is a PetStore.

I told my coworker.

People don't get crazy here.

lol, I told basically everyone I talked to.

You'll get a handful of people into the store.

Most of them will head over to the cat section for Cat litter.

Some will go elsewhere in the store.

And you'll get a handful of people in our department.

Looking to get specific aquariums or terrariums or maybe an animal that's on sale.

We'll be crazy busy for like an hour.

And then the rush would die down, only to pick up around lunch time with more customers. :)

It would basically become like a busy Saturday from then on out. :)

Which is exactly what happened.

When we opened up there were like 40 people who came in the doors.

Most of them headed deeper into the store for cat litter mostly, and doggie stuff.

And we had a handful of people come into my department.

For our fish tanks, our reptile tanks, and a couple of animals.

Not a big deal.

Nothing overwhelming or crazy. :)

Just like a busy Saturday. lol :)

-Sarnic Dirchi 

MLAARE -Negative Nancy

Do you ever wonder what has happened in other people's days to make them act the way they do?

I do. On occasion. Especially when they end up bringing my own day down.
*shakes head*
I was barely treading water at work.
Trying to deal with all the day to day tasks, and then the extra tasks heaped on top of that, while training a new person in the department on our last day of Black Friday preparations.
It was manageable. Stressful.
Nothing to get me down.

And then I got this call.
That I had the misfortune of being the one to answer.

It was a lady on the otherside.

Basically furious.
Because she'd just been at our store.
And she had discovered that out of the four items she purchased.
One of them hadn't been placed in the bag.

That item being a little brown dog tag.

She'd been in a hurry you see. And hadn't had time to take the tag through the our tag machine to get it engraved right then.

And somewhere in the middle of the transaction.
The tag hadn't been placed with her other items.

I could see the solution to why the tag wasn't placed in the bag easily enough.

Usually people take the tags straight to the tag machine.
So the cashiers keep the tags out so the customer doesn't have to dig through the bag to get to the tag.

I'm guessing this is what happened.

I told the customer this.
And she was still mad.
"Why didn't the cashier say anything! I have to drive all the way back to get my dog tag!"
And she continued to bash on the cashier for causing her this great inconvenience.
 Basically saying that she shouldn't be a cashier anymore.

And all the while I'm thinking. "Lady. Chillax. It was probably an honest mistake!"
I mean, who knows how busy it was at the time of the transaction.
She could have been distracted by another customer or coworker, Could have had problems.
She could have placed the tag right by the customer and the customer just didn't take it, but my cashier was already distracted with the next customer in line.

Really.
Its pointless to get so huffy about the whole situation.
As I'm pretty sure your "long drive" isn't more then 15 or 20 minutes so it wouldn't be as much of a problem as it is for the people who come from 2 or 3 hours away.

*shakes head*
In any case, after that unpleasant interaction,
My whole day just seemed to get worse.
Things ended up going wrong more. Or were more difficult then they were supposed to be.

Thanks to one negative phone call.

Which is why I'm super glad that I don't get them that often. Because that kind of negativity is not fun to have to deal with.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Decorating!

I think I'm going to like my new manager.

Because she's given me free reign to our display tanks.
lol

She pulled me aside earlier today.
and told me that we needed to make the tanks shine.
Add in more fish.
Do fresh decorations.
Add in cool bubbles and lights and such.

and to have at it.

-Not all at once of course, we don't want to go overboard or anything-

But she wants us to get our display tanks up and shinning.
Because the point of our display tanks is to sell them.
To show customers what the fish will look like.
To show them what their tanks will look like when they're all set up and nice looking.

Because customers like what they see, and buy what they like.

But I'm excited.

Because I get to decorate tanks!
I get to add in new fish!

Oooooo it can satisfy my craving to have a fish tank of my own if I can decorate our fish tanks.
Add in fish that I like.

I'm super excited.
I just don't know if I'll be able to put this plan into action until after the Black Friday crazy.
Because Pre Black Friday prep is already crazy here in the store.
But this definitely gives me something to look forward to. ^^

I can't wait.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Noisy Birds

I encountered an adorable woman today at work.
She was staring at the birds.
And I paused to see if she needed any help.
She didn't, she was just looking at the birds.
lol basically getting her fix of the day.
As she used to have birds, and at one point rescued a very noisy parakeet from outside that she eventually had to get rid of because her son has sensitive ears and it was either he move out or the bird leave. lol.

I could totally understand that. I have sensitive ears as well, and when we had birds at home growing up they would get on my nerves as well.

So we chatted for a bit.
Which was fun. I actually like making connections with customers.

And in the end she thanked me for letting her talk my ear off.
lol.
I didn't mind it. I'd finished all my tasks and the store wasn't that busy.
So it was good to pause for a moment and hear about someone else's life. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Done Too Soon

I love coming into work early.
Because that means that I get off work early.

The only time I don't love coming into work early.
Is the weekend.
Because we don't have the same amount of tasks on the weekend that we do throughout the week.
No cages to clean, no fish tanks to clean.

Basically all the things that take up a lot of time...
We don't have to do.
Because the focus is all on customer service. Since the weekend is the busiest time for us (and the holiday weekends means even more crazy.)

So when they bring me in at the normal 'weekday' time....
I get done with everything really early.
Like before the store opens.

And there aren't a whole lot of customers in the store in the mornings.

Which means...I spend a lot of time twiddling my thumbs, trying to keep myself busy once all my tasks are done.

It was even worse...
When the managers decide to have you train a greenie on those days.
Because even though the greenie is slow at all the tasks -since they've never done them before.
With both of us doing them at the same time....we get things done faster.

Which left both of us twiddling our thumbs looking for things to do.
Add to it that I had a third coworker come in...

Yah...
Our department looked pretty spiffed up since we had time to do basically all the things we don't have time to do during the week. lol.

Thankfully, I was able to send the greenie to go train on how to be a cashier, so it only left two of us bored out of our minds.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -One Mistake

So....
I apparently 'made a mistake' today.
The first one that my head manager has seen me make in 11 months.

Though its not totally true.
As what was involved was.
That we hadn't yet received in shipments of supplies we needed.
Namely containers to put the animals in for the customers to take home.

And a couple of weeks ago, I had filled out an order form to order those supplies.
but had left it up to a manager to actually do the ordering.
As I'm not a manager, and therefore those weren't my duties.
Technically I'm not supposed to be filling out forms either, but we've been a manager short for a while.

In any case.
Apparently I had written down that we needed to order a certain sku.
And it was the wrong sku.

Which meant that we didn't get what we had ordered.

So apparently, it was my fault.
And my head manager took great delight in telling me that.
*shakes head*
That I'm not 'perfect.'
I never said I was, lol.

Though I really don't think it was my fault.
I mean the manager who ordered the supplies,
Has ordered those supplies before.
Many many many times.
So he should have realized that I'd written the number of the wrong line.

But at least we have the mistake figured out,
And we're getting in that needed supply order.
Hopefully before the crazy of Black Friday begins.

Yet...
I can still see my head manager bringing up this 'mistake' for the next week or so.
We'll see if he does or not.

*shakes head*
Why is it that the bad is more easily remembered than the good??

-Sarnic Dirchi