Miscommunication

I get this quite often.
A customer will come up to me and say "I need to get a fish."
And I'll be like "Okay, which one?" So I know what I'm looking for and which tank to go to.

O.o
But more often than not they respond with "Mhmmm."
And for the longest time it confused me cus I'm like. "That's not a type of fish...." So I have to repeat myself to get the answer I'm seeking.

But I think I've figured out where the confusion comes from.
They're not hearing me say "Which one?"
They're hearing me say "Just one?" -as in you want just one fish?
To which they answer "Mhmmm" or "Yes." because yes, they want just one fish.

Oooohhhh...

-Sarnic Dirchi

Stretched Taut

We have these chains across the various ladders we have at work.
Ones that we can hook and unhook as we need the ladder to climb on.

Most of the time the chains stay unhooked because my coworkers and I are constantly going up and down said ladders to catch fish on the top row of fish tanks and bag them for customers.

Well, when the chains stay unhooked,
Children are more than likely to see it as an opportunity to climb.

Which is what happened here.
Only the mother noticed just as I did,
And told her kid to get down, and surprisingly, she then went the extra measure, and hooked the chain across the ladder for me to show her kid it wasn't to climb on.

I thought "Oh cool! That's helpful!"
And didn't think more on it.

Until an hour or so later,
When I needed to use that ladder to catch a fish for a customer.

()_()
I couldn't get the chain off.
No. the thing was so taut there was hardly any give at all.
Which was so weird, because the chains usually are slack enough to form a shallow smile. Easy to hook up, easy to take off.
But somehow, the customer had gotten part of the chain wrapped around one of the hooks,
So when she strung it across to the other side.
It was taut.
I'm surprise she even got it to hook.
As I couldn't get it off.

I ended up having to use a different ladder, and once the customer was gone, basically had to take apart a couple of the links in order to get it slack enough to unhook.
O.o

Talk about overachieving that 'keep the kids off' goal....

-Sarnic Dirchi

In the Way

So, there I was, in the back.
Checking on the animals, writing on charts, giving fresh food and water.
And I had my back turned to the cart where we place all the food to move about the dept.
I turned around to grab something...

And right like six inches in front of my face was this giant harvester spider!!
Gah!!!!
It's long skinny creepy legs half curled, it looked like it was waiting for me to walk into it's grip.
Ha.
ha.
NO!!!

To make matters worse....
The spider had me backed into a corner!
The door was on the other side of it!

So I scooted sideways, not blinking as I kept my eyes on the creepy spider.
Until I'd made my way around the room, away from it.
And then,
The spider proceeded to drop down lower moving closer to the wall I'd just been standing in front of. Until it reached the ground and then crawled underneath the cages there.

O.O
...Apparently I was in its way?

Still.
Very. Very. Creepy to suddenly have a spider in front of you that you nearly walk into. :S

-Sarnic Dirchi

Black and Orange

It usually happens, that we end up getting the busiest in my shifts....when I am alone in the department.

Some days it gets busy enough that I'm being called in six directions at once....with no backup to help me out. Or if there is backup, they're already busy helping elsewhere in the store. Like with cashiering, or helping customers in other areas in the store.
Effectively leaving me by myself.

Which was what happened today.
In that I'd been called over to let customers see the cats and adopt one out.
To return to my main department that had three different customers waiting.
And I helped them in the order that I'd seen them.

Which left a woman last out of the people being helped.
She'd been standing by our goldfish waiting to be helped there.

And when I finally got to her.
She said that she needed 24 of our largest goldfish.

But before I could ask -as I usually do- if there were specific goldfish that she wanted.

She stated right out. "I need 24 large goldfish. I want all the black and orange ones you have, then the rest are to be orange."

O.o
Okay.
No problem.

I bent down to the task, just as her husband came up.
And he heard what she was saying.
And was like. "Really?"
And she was like "Yes really, I was made to wait, so therefore I'm going to get the goldfish I want."

O.o
Okay....
Though if you're in a hurry lady, having me pick out specific fish isn't going to make it go faster.

I also found it....odd that she didn't like being 'made to wait.'
What did she expect? Instant service upon walking in the door? If she saw that I was the only one in the dept, how could she expect me to help her any faster? I suppose she thought she should have been helped first. Though I had no way of knowing who needed help, and upon being called to my dept had thought I'd helped the person I'd been called there for.

In any case.

I did have the thought cross my mind to take as long as possible in catching her fish.
....though my instinct is to help the unhappy person as quickly as possible and get them out of my store....

Still, I started out catching just the orange and black ones.
Which she did not like after like the second fish.
As she said. "Any orange ones you catch you can put in as well."
Which I was fine with. It would make catching all 24 fish faster, though she wouldn't get all the orange and black ones she wanted.

Still.
I found it rather amusing that she was seeking to make my life more difficult.
As it's not the most difficult fish request I've received.
I mean, I've had years of experience catching fish.
So to be told to catch specific ones is no longer a big deal.
It just means the customer will have to wait longer if that particular fish is being difficult in being caught.
Otherwise, I enjoy catching fish, so I have no problem fishing out specific ones. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

Food in the Name

So I had a customer come into the store today.
One who brought in a fish that had died....without bringing in the receipt.
Which meant I had to take extra time in looking up the receipt there in the store.
:( Which was particularly frustrating....considering that this customer....actually works at our sister store. So he should know better than to throw away the receipt. *shakes head*
In any case. After I found the receipt and replaced his one dead fish, he wanted to buy some more.
He wanted in particular, Female Guppies. As he wants to breed them I suppose.
Ones with specific colors.
Why?
Because he had specific names in mind.
He got a red guppy and named it Ketchup.
A yellow one and named it Mustard.
A blue guppy and named it Mayo.

O.o
Then he asked me if we had any green guppies so he could name it Relish.
Which I didn't.
So he wanted to know what other condiments there were so he could pick out another guppy that matched the color and name it after that.

lol. The first thing that popped into my mind was Sauerkraut.
Because in church we'd been talking about a BBQ we'd had as a ward, and one of the guys said that the Sauerkraut wasn't the best tasting.
So it was on my mind.

lol the customer was like O.o Eww!! No! Who eats that?!

Not me, but others do.

But what I wanted to know....is why name your fish after condiments? It's just such a weird naming system.    

Perhaps he should have eaten before coming over to buy fish....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Flying Free

It's interesting to see the different styles of the guys who deliver the animals to the store.

Some appear more timid around the animals.
Other's are more confident.

They way they take the hamsters and birds out of their traveling boxes is different with each guy.

Our current guy....
Is a bit skiddish around the birds.

I'm guessing he's been bitten more than once by them and doesn't like them much.

Most guys just cut a hole in the box, and convince the birds to fly into the cage that way.
This guy likes to grab them one at a time with his gloved hands and put them in our cages.
His method takes longer,
But to each their own.

But with his method...
Sometimes the birds get loose.
There was one shipment where it seemed like every single bird got loose whenever he'd open the box.
And this time around wasn't much different.

Some birds escaped.
Others did not.

But this time....

One of the finches landed on the ground.
By the door.
-As they're in a small room when they first come in. So it's no big deal when the birds get loose as they don't have many places to go.
But.
This smart little finch.
Somehow managed to slip under the crack between floor and door.
And into the main store.
Where the ceilings are like...20 feet high.

And quickly flew out of reach!!
()_() Gah!!

....not much we could do....
We had to just wait for it to come down at some point.

Thankfully.
It did before the end of my shift.
One of the vets were able to trap it in one of their waiting rooms.
And I was able to catch it in a net, and return him to his buddies.

Yay for the bird being caught before I had to leave! :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

Update on the Snake: :( Treatment at the Vet didn't take.....it ended up dying. :( Now I'm sad.

Stuck Fast

It was the craziest set of circumstances.

Like, it shouldn't have happened, but it did sort of circumstances.

So there I was,
Cleaning out one of our snake cages.

When the hygrometer in it....fell off.
I tried sticking it back to the side of the cage.
But the stickiness wasn't sticking any more.

So I propped it up inside the cage to fix later when I was done with all the cages.

Unsurprisingly.
Things got a bit more....complicated.
Which is what usually happens when I'm confident things will get done quickly.
Other problems arise.
Customers come in.
Need to go fix something else real quick...

So it took longer to get to putting everything back than I wanted it to take.

I got back to the cages after like an hour or so.
Opened up that particular snake's cage.
And saw to my dismay....

That the little ball python in the cage....
Had gotten stuck to that hygrometer!!

Apparently the stickiness had become sticky again.
The snake had knocked over the meter as he explored the clean cage.
And had become stuck on the stickiness. :S

Thankfully....he hadn't been stuck for longer than an hour.....
But that was an hour too long.

As I could see his neck was distorted from him trying to pull himself free.

Unfortunately...when snakes get stuck to sticky things....it's really difficult to unstick them.
As they're soo...expandable in ways.

But from past experiences....
-Where escaped snakes have become stuck to the sticky traps we have out for mice/insects/etc.
I knew that the Vets in the store had a product to help take away the stickiness.
Mineral Oil.
Rub it against the skin and the stickiness and the sticky becomes non sticky and the snake can be pulled free.

-Ha, it's always humorous....(not for the snake) because the main Vet there....hates snakes. And avoids them at all cost.
lol. Thankfully, he has a heart, and a strong desire to help any animal in trouble.
So as long as I keep the head away from him, the Vet is happy to help an animal in need.

Which he did now.
It was slightly difficult to keep the head away from him as the snake had become stuck pretty close to the head. basically the lower throat area.

But because it was such a small area that was stuck.
We quickly got him free.

Only....he didn't look the best when we got him free.
His throat was distorted, it looked like scales were peeling up.
Plus....he was bleeding slightly.

It definitely was a situation where we needed to take him to our vet that sees our Reptiles, like ASAP.
Just to make sure he was okay and that he wouldn't bleed to death.

The problem....
Is that our Reptile Vet....is like 15 mins away.
And technically only the managers are supposed to take the animals to the vet.
The other problem....is that we only had one manager in the store.
And wouldn't get another one in for a few more hours.
We didn't want to wait.

So the manager gave the approval for me to take the snake to the vet.
-I've done it before on similar circumstances. So I knew where to go.-

I dropped off the snake....
But still don't know what the verdict is because my shift ended before the Vet called for us to pick him up.

So I hope he's fine.....that he'll recover quickly.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Gone?

So every few months our animal set up changes.
I mentioned a few posts ago how I discovered the Reptile, the Bird and the Hamster set up was changing.

But I was confused as to why we didn't have any place for Chinchillas in the new schematic of 'where all the animals go.'

There'd been no message saying we were no longer carrying them, no indication that they were removed from our inventory.
They were just....not there.

But then.

I found out why.
Why we won't have chinchillas anymore after we sell our current one.

It's because we've broken ties with the breeder who breeds them.

After investigating conditions there....
They were deemed not to be up to standard.

And so....
We're no longer getting Chinchillas from them.

O.o

Which could mean that we'll never have Chinchillas in the store again....
Or it could mean that they're just on a 'long term out of stock' list until we find a new breeder to get them from.

It's hard to say for sure.

:( But it is depressing to know that there are people out there who don't care about the animals at all. What conditions their in. What health they have. That they have enough food and water.
That they're really only doing it to make money.
It's super depressing.

I wish there was more I could do....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Display Fish

I had a customer come into the store today.
One of those "I get what I want and I don't take no for an answer" sorts of customers.

Which are always fun to deal with when you have to tell them no for an answer.

Most of the time you just try and dissuade them to a lesser choice that won't be as bad.
Sometimes it's successful...sometimes its not.

She'd come into the store looking for large goldfish.
You know the full grown kinds. at least 10 inches or larger.

Which a lot of people have been looking for recently as they seek to restock ponds and such.
Unfortunately our goldfish come in like at 3 inches maybe 4 inches long at the most.
Often not large enough for the people seeking large cheap fish.

Our Koi come in slightly larger maybe up to 6 inches.
But still.
They're not the 'big' fish many customers want if they want big fish.

This customer though.
Who saw our selection and deemed them too small.

Asked if the Comet Goldfish in our Display tank were for sell.
They were tiny gold fish when we'd put them in, but now they'd become nearly full grown months later.

Under the last manager, the fish were not for sell. Frankly because they're annoying to have to fish out of the display tanks, and mess up the nice set up we have going there. So we didn't sell them.

But the new current manager of the department, has a different view. Since we have the fish in the store the fish are for sell.

Still. I was not anxious to sell them.
So I told the customer that I was not sure, I'd have to double check.

I couldn't get away right away though as she was easily distracted by the other fish and wanted to know how they'd do.

Which is when I discovered that the container she wanted to put the two large goldfish in our display tank in....
Was basically just a glorified fish bowl.

From how she described it and shaped it....
I'd be surprised if it was 20 gallons. It was probably less.

But basically it was a large fish bowl.
Outdoors.

That she wanted to put a live plant in....then have the fish survive off the plant.....so she wouldn't have to feed it or anything. >.<
ummmm....sure that can work, but only if you have the right kind of plants.....and if the tank is established.
But she wouldn't listen to that. She was confident in what she had planned, as she'd done it before apparently.

But everything she'd told me.
Convinced me that there was no way at all that I was going to let her buy the display gold fish.
From what she'd told me, it would be a bad living space for them.
After all they are currently in a 56 gallon tank.
Giving them a space 1/5 the size would not be good for them.

So again, when she said that she wanted them, I said I would check in with the manager.

So I went over to the office.
Where all the managers were having a meeting.

And said "Tell me the answer is No."

To which they raised eyebrows and chuckled but said "Okay, the answer is No. Why do we need to tell you so?"

So I explained the situation.
and thankfully they agreed with my opinion.
They couldn't allow the fish to be sold to her.

So I returned to her and said "Unfortunately, the goldfish aren't for sell."
And she was like *angry eyes* "Did you just say Fortunately?"
Which yes, it was fortunate that she'd blabbed too much and allowed me to not sell the fish to her. But I said "No I said Unfortunately. We can't sell the fish."
To which her ire left. "Okay."

I tried to convince her to go for some of the smaller feeder goldfish.
But she wanted as large as she could get.

Like I said. Sometimes a customer won't take no for an answer, but they can be given a lesser option.

She finally decided on a medium sized (about 4inches or so) Oranda Goldfish that we had on sell for $5. *sighs* Kinda wish they weren't on sale. Sales make people greedy.
But at least I convinced her to only buy one.

So she left with an Oranda Goldfish to put into her giant bowl.

The only other thing I could do....is 'forget' to tell her about our guarantee with the fish.

Because if she wasn't going to listen to me, and put the wrong size fish into her container....
I wasn't going to let her know she could return the fish if things went south and it died.
She'll have to deal with her own consequences there.

But hey.....it was only $5. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Hopping Around

The problem with taking things out of the reptile cages....
Is sometimes the reptiles manage to sneak out of said cage, via the decoration you're taking out of the cage.

>.<
I was taking out ornaments from our Green Tree Frog cage.
To do a bit of cleaning.

And thought that all the animals had stayed in the cage.

Only, as I was placing a branch in our hot water to be cleaned.
I saw something brown fly away from the water.

At first, I thought it was moss.
But then I saw the brown thing move again.
Hopping.

A frog?

It jumped right into our back sump area.
Right into water.

:S

Thankfully,
I managed to catch the hyper little hopper.

And put him back in his cage, no worse for the wear it looks like.

Silly frog....I have no idea how he hopped onto the stuff.
I thought it was clear.

Thankfully he didn't stay in the sink to get boiled. :S
Cus that's no fun to find. :S

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Cricket Effort

O.o
Sometimes I wonder at my coworker's logic.

So, my second opener, who was in charge of opening the rest of the department while I worked on the cage cleaning task of the day...
Was taking longer then normal.

She should have been done feeding the reptiles by now.
As that was where the cart was stationed.
But for like 10 mins....as I went back and forth finishing up the cage cleaning....
I didn't see her.

No,
What she'd been doing was bagging crickets.

Bagging multiple bags of crickets. O.o

Normally when we feed the reptiles, if it's the day to feed them crickets (as we feed them mealworms as well) we normally just gather a bunch of them into one bag, and then dump out the appropriate amount into each cage for the reptiles to eat.

But....apparently that takes too long? It's too much of a hassle?

So she chose to bag in individual bags, the amount of crickets needed for each cage.
Which is like...20 cages....
So 20 bags.
Which takes like 1-2 minutes to bag if you get the right amount on the first try.

...Which if you do the math.
DOES NOT MAKE IT GO FASTER!
>.<
She wasted like 20 minutes at least bagging those crickets.
(and wasting bags in the process)

To make it so she didn't have to count out crickets when she got to the reptiles.
She would just grab the appropriate bag,
Dumb out the crickets into the cage.
And move onto the next cage.

Which yes. That part would be faster.

But the effort it took in bagging them?
Not faster at all.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Size Issues

We often get customers in looking for specific kinds of birds.
Usually birds we don't carry like cockatiels, grey parrots, macaws, love birds, cockatoos. etc.

We stick with the smaller birds right now. It's always possible that we will start carrying larger birds in the future.
After all.
We just started carrying a new bird. The Bee Bee.
So it's possible sometime in the future that we'll begin to carry the birds customers are wanting to get.

But until then.
I can only direct them to locally owned pet stores as possible sources for the birds they seek.

Today though,
I had a woman come in.
Looking for Love Birds.
Birds I had owned in the past when I was younger, but didn't have much experience with.
Love birds would fit in the size range of birds we do carry.
But we don't carry them yet.

Like all customers the woman was like "Why not?"

....*shrugs* My guess is we haven't found a breeder that meets our standards yet. Or there isn't enough of a demand to start carrying them. Who knows.

But I chatted with her for a while.
Helping her decide on a cage.
As the one she'd picked out from our selection....was too small for two love birds. (as they do best in pairs)
It would be fine for a couple of parakeets.
But love birds need a bit more space.

Unfortunately for the customer, her current living situation has limited space....so the cages she can choose are rather limited.

....Which if you want to get birds....they do best with as much space as possible. Especially when it comes from the parrot family. They need a lot of attention.
Limited space....
Not good for the birds.

But we finally found a cage that I approved would give them enough space, but would fit in the space she needed.

I agreed to hold the cage for her.
While she went to check out for sure that the cage would fit into her place.

Not sure if she came back....
I left before she did at least.

Hopefully she ended up finding the right arrangement so her birds when she gets them, won't be too cramped.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Pick Up Service

We get some odd requests at work.
Some we can fulfill.
Others we cannot.

My coworker told me of an odd request she had.
Which I would now need to fulfill as the customer making the request had not yet shown up and she was off.

The request?

Apparently the customer wanted to buy a Red-Eared Slider Turtle.
But she didn't want to come into the store.
She wanted us to bring the Turtle out to her.
Because she had an SUV full of kids.
And didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of keeping track of them in the store while trying to purchase said turtle.

So my coworker checked with the manager on duty.
To see if we could fulfill the request.
The manager okayed it. Provided that we made sure that the customer paid for the turtle first before we gave it to her.

Lucky me, I wasn't busy when I got a call from the customer.
Who was about to arrive at the store.
So I grabbed the paperwork, and walked outside to the SUV as it pulled into the first slot outside the store.
And had her fill out the necessary forms to buy the turtle, took the cash she handed me.
Went inside, placed the turtle in a carrier, bought the turtle with the money she gave me.
And then went back outside to hand the woman her change and the turtle.

To which she happily took,
And drove off with her car full of young kids.

*shakes head*
I wonder how long it is before we create a 'drive thru' system or a 'pick up' system for these types of customers.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Grimy vs. Shiny

My coworker had to deal with an interesting customer the other day at the register.

Apparently the customer had handed her cash.
Which resulted in a single penny being given back.

But the customer wasn't happy with that single penny.

Why?
Because it was old and dirty and grimy looking.
She wanted a brand new shiny penny instead.

O.o

But my coworker had already closed the drawer.

So the customer had to wait until another customer paid with cash, before my coworker could give her her shiny penny.

O.o
I have no idea how long she had to wait....
But seriously...
It's a penny, no matter how grimy it gets....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Escaping the Tank

I was in the middle of doing dishes in the back, when one of my coworker's came up to me, and told me that he'd found a Hermit Crab on the floor.

O.o
A hermit crab?
How could a Hermit Crab be on the floor? I mean, a Red Claw Crab, I could totally see.
As they have escaped before. One even made it outside the front doors. But a Hermit Crab? Unless someone left a 'dead' one out on accident without disposing of it....I'd never seen one escape.

"Is it alive?" I asked.
"I think so? It was twitching." he responded.

"Show me."
So he took me over to an area a few feet away from the fish tanks.

And there scuttling away.
Is not a Hermit Crab.

But a Red Claw Crab.

Ah! So I had been right in what the creature was!

So I rescued him and put him back in his cage.
And as I did so, I discovered the possible source of how the crab escaped in the first place.

One of the decorations had been pulled out of the tank.
One that had large holes in it where crabs could hide.

My guess is that he'd been hiding inside when the decoration was taken out.
Therefore, when it was left out....
he crawled out to explore.

At least we found him before he got too far....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Pinched

I'd just finished putting all the decorations for our Chameleon back into his cage. I shut the lid, and noticed that the Chameleon had gotten some very interesting coloring on his body.
He was green like normal chameleons but there were a bunch of black dots now patterning on him as well. I hadn't seen the pattern before, but didn't think much of it.

Until I came back a few hours later, and noticed that he was still the same coloring...
But also still in the same spot. O.o
That was weird because it was a weird position for him to be in. Very stiff legged.

So I looked at him closer.
And realized that his tail, instead of being curled up.
Was stretched upwards....upwards into the ()_()
Oh crap.

His tail was stuck in the lid!!
-It was one of those hinge lids where part of it flips up.
And somehow, in the process of putting him back in.
His tail had gotten stuck in the crack there!

Ah!

So I quickly opened the cage.
And freed his tail.

And his black dots totally vanished.

O.O Oh.... Black dots = pain. Got it.

The last half an inchish of his tail...
Was a different shade than the others.
Darker, kinda dead looking. :S

Had I just killed part of his tail!??!

I couldn't tell.

Maybe it would recover.
Maybe it would be fine.

Only time would tell.

Thankfully.
I didn't kill off a bit of his tail.

It's recovering fine.
Curling up and moving around.
There's a very slight darker color to it, a mark where the lid pinched his tail.

But I'm confident it will fully recover.

Yay.

-Sarnic Dirchi

How To Fit You All

It was a normal morning.
Where I was pulling the info for what birds we were expecting to get in this week, so I could prepare cages to hold them for when they arrived.

And I noticed that there was a weird name on our list.
I mean, sometimes our conures have odd names associated with them, but at the end of the name it always says conure.

This bird though.
Was a Canary Winged Bee Bee Parakeet.

O.o
I'd never heard of such a name.

I mean. We carry canaries.
We carry parakeets.

But a canary parakeet?
O.o

What weird hybrid was this?

Apparently this Bee Bee is a type of parrot.

One that can be playful, friendly, talkative.

lol. Like I always tell customers....we may not carry a certain type of bird now, we may start carrying it in the future.

(What we really need is to start selling Cockatiels as that's the most popular bird requested when people come into the store)

So, from what I can figure out. This Bee Bee should be treated like a conure. Similar food, similar cage requirements.
But I guess we'll see when we actually get it in.

The main problem though...
Is the same problem we have currently with our reptiles.
I have a new bird coming in.
but there's no room for it.

As all our cages are currently full.
So I looked up the plan for our habitats for the birds.
And saw that the Bee Bee is supposed to take the place of our Diamond Doves.

The problem?
We still have a Diamond Dove in the store.
Because those birds don't sell that quickly.
....Like our snakes that I need to sell....

Which means when the Bee Bee comes in....I can't bring it out onto the floor until we sell the Dove.
Which could be tomorrow....or it could be in six months.

So now I have like a week....to sell the Diamond Dove.

In any case....
Because our reptiles had their plan changed.
And our birds had had a new addition...

It only made sense that something would be changing with our small pets as well. The mice, hamsters, guinea pigs.

So I looked up the habitat plan.
And I was right.

It had changed. Or will be changing. The plan hasn't gone into effect yet.

Not that we really stick to the schematic when it comes to our small pets. We go through our hamsters and guinea pigs so quickly that when a cage opens up, we fill it with the next available hamster. We don't wait to place the same type of hamster in the same cage. But place the next available type of hamster in that cage. As some types of hamsters sell faster than others.

In any case.
We're getting in a new type of Guinea Pig into the store.
It's called a Skinny Pig.
Basically, it's a hairless guinea pig. O.o So weird.

What's weirder....is that the new plan....doesn't have a spot for our chinchilla....but there aren't any notes that we're no longer going to be carrying it. We....just don't have a place for it.
Considering we've had the same chinchilla in our store for months now.....

So once again, when the time comes....I'm going to have to figure out how to get the new animals in while we still have the old animals....

Yay for complications.

-Sarnic Dirchi

I Want Food

Ugh.
I hate it when my coworkers don't listen.....
Though sometimes I wonder if they do it out of spite.

So, this morning it was me and my coworker.
And we were both staying in the store long enough, where we needed to take a lunch break
-Usually it's just me who needs to take lunches as the others don't stay as long to need it.

Only my coworker had been delayed in helping a difficult customer.
And I couldn't really leave as there were other customers needing help.

She was supposed to leave my department at a certain time, to go spend her last hour as a back up cashier on the register.

Which when she finally got done with the customer.
She was due to be out of my dept in half an hour.
Exactly how long of a lunch we each needed to take.

And since she was off before me.
She needed to take that lunch first.

Which meant she would need to cover me when I took my lunch, which meant she wouldn't be in her cashiering position for half of her hour in that department because I would need to take my lunch.

Yet somewhere in there.
Our communications didn't....well, communicate.

As the plan was for her to go on lunch, for me to go on lunch, and then she'd go on cashiering...probably to cover the cashier's lunch and then be off.

But either she didn't connect the dots that I needed to take a lunch too....
Or she was just so tired she wasn't thinking...
Or she was purposely making my life difficult......

Because after she got back from lunch, she went straight to the register, and the cashier disappeared.

Which....I assumed that the cashier had snagged her first and gone on lunch.
And while I wasn't happy to have to wait an hour longer to go on break than I'd planned.
I was willing to overlook it.

Until my coworker called the cashier up to be backup.

*eye twitch*

The cashier hadn't gone on shift.
Instead, my coworker had just assumed she had to be on register when she got back.
and didn't realize, somehow, that I still had to take a lunch too while she was there as no one else would be in my department until I was off.

So I checked in with the cashier first, to ensure that she wasn't going on lunch. And explained that I needed my coworker to cover me for my lunch,

Again, I wonder....what was she thinking.

Thankfully we all managed to get our lunches in.
But the miscommunication sure was irritating.

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Vet Trip

So, I had animals that needed to go to the vet today.

Ones that could not be delayed another day for they weren't doing well.

But the plan that I'd talked to my managers about the day before....

Didn't seem to be working out.

As the manager who was supposed to be coming in....

Didn't.

Our newer manager -who'd never taken animals to the vet, and couldn't take them to the vet because he had school right after work- had come in instead.

Not a big deal, as we had a second manager scheduled to come in an hour before the newer manager was scheduled to leave.

Only....

Last week, when I had to take animals to the vet.

And I was in the same situation.

The second manager had forgotten that he was supposed to take the animals to the vet.

And so came in just as the other manager had to leave.

....Which meant that I ended up having to take those animals to the vet myself (something I'm not technically supposed to do as I'm not a manager) In order for them to be seen, as they wouldn't have made it to the vet otherwise.

So today,

When I realized what was happening.

I had two options.

To wait and see if history would repeat itself.

Or take action and ensure that history wouldn't repeat itself.

I chose to take action.

As I had this manager's phone number.

So I sent him a text.

Reminding him that there were animals that needed to go to the vet today.

Surprisingly enough. He'd remembered O.o

And was actually on his way to come grab them when I texted him.

So, I hadn't needed to worry about the animals getting to the vet today.....

Though I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't texted, then I would have encountered the same situation as last week.

So better to be safe than sorry.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Called In...Or Not

It's become rare for me to get called into work.
Mostly because I work full time.
So I don't have much leeway in taking on other people's shifts when they call out.
Not without getting overtime, which nobody really likes to give.

So it was a surprise to wake up to work calling me on my day off.
Since....I had a full schedule of hours.
and they usually only call if they need someone to cover a shift.

But I wondered if it was some other problem that they knew only I knew the answer to.

Nope.

They were calling because one of my coworkers had called out sick.
And everyone else they'd called hadn't been able to come in, or hadn't responded.

So the solution they'd come up with.
Was that I would come in on my day off.
And then the next day when I was scheduled to work, they would call in someone else to cover me for that shift.

Me. I like to help out when I can. As I have no desire to have my work crash and burn because we're short on staff.

So I said yes.
Got ready.
Drove to work.
Parked.
Turned off the car, and was reaching to grab my stuff.
When my phone rang.

O.o
It was work.

I picked up expecting them to ask me where I was.
And I was going to tell them I'd just pulled up.

But no.

They were calling,
To tell me that two of my coworkers who they hadn't heard from...
Had just shown up to cover my sick coworker.
So they wanted to know if they could cancel me, and still have me work my normal shift the next day.

I'm pretty easy going.
So I said. Sure. It was fine.
Not letting them know that I was sitting out in the parking lot talking to them. lol.

It wasn't much skin off my back.
I live near enough to work that it wasn't a big hassle or waste of gas to drive there only to not work.

So I went back home.
And enjoyed my day off. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

One in a Bag

So, one of my coworkers has a rather loud voice.

Like you literally can hear her when she's at the front of the store and you're at the back of the store.

Her voice just carries.

I thought it weird...

That I could hear her talking to the same customer for a long time.

I was busy finishing up cleaning some cages.

And didn't realize what she was doing until it was too late.

She'd caught somewhere between 20-30 of our goldfish for a customer.

Who, from what I could see and tell from overhearing portions of the conversation as I moved about completing my own tasks....was that she'd gotten a bunch of betta females and a few of our Dwarf Frogs as well...and already had those in her cart.

I thought my coworker would quickly be done with her....

As it doesn't take that long to catch and bag up fish.

What I didn't realize though....

Was that my coworker was individually bagging up each goldfish.

So 20-30 goldfish were being bagged one in a bag.

And not just our small bags.

But our largest bags.

O.O

We're not supposed to do that.

For one we're technically not supposed to sell for 'events' aka Weddings, proms, carnivals, receptions etc.

The managers in my store don't care about that little fact, *eye twitch* but we have been rather firm on not individually bagging those fish.

Because it's a waste of time for us, and resources.

I mean my coworker just spent 40 minutes bagging those fish! *eye twitch*

If a customer wants a ton of fish individually bagged, we have the right to refuse.

Usually we end up putting the fish in one or two bags (depending on how many they want) and then give them the bags so they can bag them themselves.

Yet....here my coworker was....

Doing exactly that.

Bagging up each goldfish individually for this customer.

For who knows why. Maybe there was a legitimate reason. But I'm guessing it was for some sort of 'event' as people don't usually want their fish individually bagged.

*shakes head*

By the time my coworker was done, the lady's cart was overfilled with bags.

And when I brought it up to my coworker (when she was halfway through)

She was like ()_() WHAT?! I didn't know we couldn't?!!

OooOooohh

HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THAT! YOU'VE BEEN HERE NEARLY TWO YEARS. SOMEWHERE IN THAT TIME FRAME I MUST HAVE MENTIONED IT TO YOU!!

Ugh. >.<

Needless to say, I wasn't very happy with her because it delayed us in opening with that venture.

....I suppose I should say that at least the customer left happy.

Even if it left me irritated.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Where'd They Go?

So, we haven't carried Rats in our store for a while now.
Like since the beginning of the year.
Why?
Because our Breeder stopped breeding them, and our store hasn't found (and may never find) another breeder to go through to get Rats.

So, we carry the rat supplies. but no rats.

Yet....I still have people coming in to the store,
Asking if we have any rats.
What rats we have.
Where are the rats.

....I don't have any.

And they seem so offended by that answer.
WELL WHY NOT?!?!

Because, dear customer, I can't sell what we don't get in. When our breeder chooses to not breed certain animals it's not like I have any say in the matter....

-Sarnic Dirchi