Two Anoles

Green Anoles are tricky creatures.

There are some animals that are easy to catch, others....much more difficult.

Anoles...they're in the latter category.

They're small and fast.

Which makes it difficult for them to be caught.
And also difficult to stick them in the containers we place our reptiles in when they're being bought by customers.

As they can slip through tiny gaps really easily.
So if you're not quick enough to shut the lid...
They get out.
And you end up chasing them all over the place. *shakes head*

So today, at the end of my shift.
A customer -a repeat customer- came into the store to grab two more Anoles for his cage.
He already has at least two, possibly three, but for some reason, this particular customer is really taken with them. lol.

 In any case.
He wanted two more anoles.
Which thankfully we had two anoles in the store.

But, as I was busy catching the first anole. -which was a pain as he slipped through the lid and got loose on the floor.
The second one....vanished.

O.o
I looked all over the cage, pulled out the decorations and everything.
But he was gone!!
And I'd literally seen the anole like two seconds before!
So it was totally weird.

My guess....is that it had clung to the top of the lid, out of my site.
And when I fully opened it...it took it's chance to escape.

As the customer was suddenly like:
THERE IT IS!!

And pointed to the area above my head.

Where we have a large display sign, that hides the top of the enclosure.
And the Anole had managed to climb up the side and down behind the sign. (as it's just a front.)

Which meant I had to quickly grab a step ladder, get on tip toes, and play around in the dusty layer on top of the enclosure before managing to finally catch the illusive anole.

But ugh. The dust. Definitely irritating to the eyes.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Directions

Every now and then, since my store is near a highway exit.
We get in people who aren't familiar with the area.
And so decide to stop into a PetStore of all places and ask for directions.
I've always wondered why the decide to stop here....

In any case.
This morning while I was working on cleaning the reptile cages at the front of the store.
A woman came in, looking for the nearby train station.
Which...I was like. O.o Train station?
Vaguely I knew there was one in the area where people use it to commute because I have a friend who's traveling from HomeTown to CollegeTown to go to school here.

-And after this conversation I remembered that I'd actually been to the train station the woman was looking for before. But it was like....six years ago....forever really.

In any case.
She was trying to find the train station, but the directions she'd printed off had led her into the wrong area. As she ended up in an Apt complex...and then at my store.
And she didn't have a smart phone, so she couldn't google directions again or use a gps....

But at that point, I actually had my phone on me.
Which is a smart phone that has internet/gps access.
So I looked up the address.
And discovered that she was on the wrong side of the highway.

She'd turned left when she should have turned right when getting off.

The woman had me write down the directions on her paper.
Which basically resulted in. "Go back past the freeway, turn right, and in two streets turn right again and you'll be there." -Of course I wrote down the street names/numbers ;)

In any case.
She left the store to go find the train station.
and I didn't expect to see her again.

But surprise.
A couple of hours later, while I was on break.
The woman came back.

Why?
She wanted to Thank Me.
And tell me that my directions had worked perfectly and that she'd been able to pick up her friend -who was out waiting in the car- and that she just wanted to come back and again thank me for being so helpful.

-As when she first came in I was like. O.o "I don't know where the train station is....we have a train station?"
But I don't like not helping people so I was like "Well let me try and look it up on my phone."

So she was just happy and grateful that I'd gone the 'extra mile' to help her out so she could meet with her friend on time. :)

Definitely was a good moment for me. ^^

-Sarnic Dirchi

Water on the Floor

It's never good to come into work and see water on the floor.
I mean, granted, if it's because the floors have just been cleaned, then it's understandable for it to be wet.
But puddles of water on the floor aren't good.
As that indicates something broke and/or overflowed.
Which usually means that something went wrong in my dept.
As that's where most of the water in the store is....

So, when I came into work today.
I saw a rather large puddle of water on the floor.
By our reptile cages.

O.o Which is rather odd....since there's hardly any reason for there to be water on the floor there.
Except....our Turtle tank is located there.
And unsurprisingly, the puddle of water originated from around that particular tank.

O.o
But why the water would flood....that was the confusing thing.
As the cage is self contained, and there is no chance for it to overflow....since there's only a certain amount of water that's located in the cage.
-If the water levels get too low, we add in more water.

Which since there was no obvious reason for the tank to overflow...
I had to wonder if somehow...a leak had formed. A crack or a hole or something.

However,
I discovered, once I had a chance to look at it closer.
That it wasn't a crack at all.

Within the turtle cage we have a filter. One of those that you place in the cage instead of hanging off the back.
Somehow.
Either via a coworker moving the filter forward,
Or the turtles themselves pushing it forward.
But somehow the filter ended up at the front of the tank -where the glass doors that open the cage are.
And got tilted forward.
So that the water within the filter was pouring against the glass and into the seam there...which then seeped onto the floor.
Once the water level in the tank got too low for the filter to be able to pull water into it.
It stopped flooding the floor around the tank.

Which since it happened during the night, leads me to believe that the turtles are the ones who moved the filter.

In any case.
Our cleaning guy quickly cleaned up the water on the floor, while I then moved the filter to its proper location, refilled the tank up, and established that there was no more water leaking out.

Thankfully it seems to be fine now.
The last thing I need is a leaking cage.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Reprint The Coupon

I got stuck on the register today.
Right when I was trying to take my last break before I got off of work.

But the manager covering the register got called to the back to meet with the other managers and I happened to be standing there. So he had me cover the register for a bit.
And I ended up getting a customer with a bag of dog food.

It was an older gentleman, with a longer beard.

And he was like "So, I bought some food a bit ago, and that receipt came with a coupon...but I can't find it. Could you reprint it out for me?"

Which....is a nice thought.
But I'm pretty positive that reprinting receipts doesn't reprint the coupon that goes with it.

-If this turns out to be a thing, then I'm going to feel really bad about it. But I'm pretty sure it hasn't happened with receipts that we've reprinted out for customers before.

As we do now have the ability to look up receipts there at the register if the customer has the right information for us to look it up.
And we can even reprint that receipt for them.

But I don't think the coupon that went with the receipt can be reprinted. As it would make sense that if the particular coupon date had passed, that it wouldn't be reprinted when it can no longer be used.

However the gentleman didn't seem to believe that it wasn't possible.
He asked me at least three times if I could just reprint the coupon so he could save some money on his dog food.
To which I had to explain to him three times that I could reprint his receipt but reprinting the receipt he'd had last time would not reprint the coupon as well.

I still don't think he believed me.
And maybe if I hadn't had a headache and been trying to get off the register so I could go give my coworker a break (as my time slot for a break had passed by then, as it was now too close to me getting off work to take a break) then I would have been willing to try it.....

In any case.
It seemed to be the theme of today where I'd have to repeat myself to the customers multiple times to get the concept across that I was trying to explain them. As they apparently didn't want to hear a contrary thing to what they wanted....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Don't Eat That!!

Boys are weird.
My coworker guys are weird.

So I was sitting in the break room, on break.
When one of our new coworkers comes into the room to also be on break.

And after a bit he gets up and starts going through our fridge there, just to see what random stuff is in there I suppose.
And he happened to see some of the readywhip cream things that you put on icecream, that we got who knows when for...well whenever we have ice cream parties.

Well, he examined the dates on them and apparently they'd expired like a year ago. O.o

Shows you how often we clean out our fridge. lol.

So he took the canisters and I thought he was going to just throw them away.
But then I hear this odd sound...
Like he was actually spraying out the cream.

I looked up from my phone,
And that's exactly what he was doing.
Spraying out the cream from the canister....
Into his mouth.

()_()
WHAT ARE YOU DOING CRAZY PERSON DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!?!!?

*shakes head*
I actually don't know when or if whip cream expires...
but apparently even though it was old, it still tasted good to my coworker.

Crazy.

If he's sick tomorrow, I will know exactly why he is.
Because he ate that cream stuff.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Not Engraved

So, in our store. We have an engraving machine.
Where people can engrave tags for their pets. You know, the tags that have the pet's name and the owner's information on them.

In any case,
I happened to be walking by the registers near where the engraving machine is.
And a woman comes up to me holding out her tag, saying that it didn't work.
She'd placed the tag in the machine and it hadn't engraved anything.

O.o
My guess was that something had gone wrong, either the customer had pressed the wrong button or something.

So I went over to the tag machine with her.
And scanned in the barcode, put in the code for the tag, and then the pet's name and owner information.
When the hatch to place the tag in unlocked,
I opened it up,
And placed the tag on the small little hook there.
-As you need to have it on the hook in order for the machine to be able to hold onto the tag, draw it back into the engraving part of the machine, and engrave.

Apparently.
Placing the tag on the hook....
Is the step that the customer missed.

She'd just tossed the tag into the open area where the hook is.
-As when the machine is done engraving, it drops the tag and it falls into a slot for you to pick up.
Like you would do for any candy machine.

So...by tossing the tag in....
It just fell to the slot.
So when the engraving was supposed to start....there was no tag on the hook for the machine to engrave.
*shakes head*

I'm not sure how she didn't realize it...the machine is pretty clear in stating how to use it and where to place the tag.... *shakes head*

In any case.
It wouldn't have been anything notable to write about....
Except.

Not even an hour later.
Another woman came up to me.
Complaining of the same problem.
Her tag hadn't engraved.

O.o
So I went through the same process with her too.

She didn't state that she'd just tossed the tag into the slot and not placed it on the hook.
But I halfway got the feeling that that was the case.
I mean...how else would the tag not engrave?
Perhaps if she'd hit cancel instead of continue.......

Still.
It's weird that two customers within the same hour had the same problem.
Especially because I went over the process of engraving the tag with the customers both times, and the engraving worked then....

So weird.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wishing You Well

I love customers who are happy.

The ones who tell you to have a good day, or stay awesome, or the like.

It definitely makes me want to help that person more.

Especially if they're a customer who comes in often.

The last couple of days I've had more people who are in a cheerful mood.

Those who are positive, and do more than say "Thanks" and leave.

I mean, as part of my job, it's part of the routine to say "Have a nice day!" to the customers.

So to have the customers tell me that, without needing to.

Is a great feeling.

Definitely brings a smile to my face and a perk to my step afterwards. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

On the DustPan

It's not uncommon to have fish at work jump out of the tanks.
If something startles them, they can try and flee, and sometimes fleeing means going up and out.

Even though it does happen on occasion, it's not common for them to do so.
Most of the time it's the Koi that jump out of the tanks,
Though occasionally other fish have been found out on the floor.

:( Most of the time, we find them too late to save them. :(

But today, as I was doing dishes in the back, my coworker came up to me, with a mini dustpan. Stating "I found this guy and I thought he was dead, but he's still alive! But I don't know what tank he goes in!"

On the dustpan was one of our Plecos.
()_()

lol, if it had been me....I would have either, grabbed a container of water from the tanks and dumped him in there and then went to find someone, or else just stick the fish in a tank and then go let someone know what I'd done.

In any case.
I grabbed the mini dust pan and dashed to the correct tank,
hoping that it wasn't too late to save the fish.

Thankfully, we were in time.
The fish didn't move for a couple minutes, but eventually the pleco started swimming around the tank again. ^^
Yay!!
Fish life saved! :)

Though it's totally weird for it to be a Pleco to jump out. O.o
They usually hang out on the bottom of the tanks....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Mattes

So in the mornings, part of our tasks are to clean out the cages that the cats are staying in.

You know, scoop the litter, make sure the food and water is full, sweep out any litter that ended up elsewhere in the cage.

Usually, how deeply I clean depends on the cat.

Some cats love to get out of the cage and wander around the enclosure while I clean.

Others prefer to just sit in their shelter and watch me clean, and others still.....just don't like people in general so you have to work carefully around them.

I usually don't try to force the cat to do something they don't want to do.

So if they want to stay in the cage, I work around them. If they want to jump out, I let them wander.

There are cats where it just takes them a week or three to warm up and want to leave the cage.

In this particular case.

We have a big orange and white kitty cat.

She is more of the shy kind. Preferring to sit and watch.

And hiss and growl at any other cats that come too closer to her cage.

For the past couple of days I've been cleaning her cage, she's allowed me to pet her head.

Where I could feel some mattes there in her fur. :(

As she's a longer haired kitty cat.

But as she was a bit temperamental and on edge with other cats, I haven't tried to do anything besides scratch her ears and pet her.

Figuring that those mattes could be easily cut off when she got adopted.

However.

That thought process changed today.

When this kitty cat finally came all the way out of her shelter, so I could see her fully.

-As I haven't tried to take her out before just so she doesn't get stressed out.

Oh.

OH.

The poor thing.

She had this HUGE matte of fur on the back by the tail. It was like eight inches long and at least two inches wide this huge matte.

O.o

I couldn't quite understand it.

How had the adoption group allowed themselves to bring such a matted cat! Usually they have them shaved first or comb them out.

After all, people aren't as likely to adopt a cat that looks ragged and ill-kempt. :(

No wonder people hadn't really been looking at her.

No wonder she was grumpy.

Those mattes probably weren't comfortable at all.

Just then, one of our groomers happened to be passing by.

So I asked her if anyone was working today that groomed cats.

(as not all groomers groom cats, it's a more specialized skill set. You start with dogs then go to cats if you want to.)

Which, she was one of the groomers who actually groomed cats.

So I asked if she would be able to give this orange and white kitty a combing or maybe shave the fur.

She took one look at the kitty and was like. "Oh we're shaving this one."

The mattes were that bad.

So she took the kitty cat into the grooming salon.

Which luckily, I discovered this early in the morning before they were busy with dogs and such.

Ah.

The kitty cat apparently purred the whole time she was being shaved. To which I would be really understanding lol. Get all that uncomfortable fur off.

Now she looks a lot happier if a bit less furry. :)

I'm glad we were able to help her feel better, though I feel bad that I didn't notice more quickly. :( poor thing.

-Sarnic Dirchi

GloLights

A couple of weeks ago, we got in a new set of lights for our glofish tanks.
I only knew of this because the manager showed me the box of them.

It was one of those conversations of "Look what we got!"
"Cool!"
"Yah, we need to put them up sometime soon."
"Alright."

And then we promptly forgot about it.
Not literally.
Like I knew in the back of my mind that we (as in I) needed to get it done.
Just hadn't found the time for it.

But then, I got a phone call today.
From the company who had sent us the glolights.

The lady on the phone, asking if we had installed the lights and if they were working correctly.

I told her that we'd received the lights, but hadn't been able to put them up yet.

She seemed rather offended about that. "You should have put them up as soon as they came in."
Uhmmm sorry. Got busy.

"Would it be possible to get them put up today? If I call you back?"

At that moment in time. We weren't that busy. So I said. "I should be able to in about 10 minutes, but give me half an hour in case we get busy."

Because that's usually what happens when I'm trying to get stuff done at work.
I think "Oh only three more tanks, I'll be done soon."
And that's when the customer rush shows up.

So I gave myself a bit of a window to get those three new lights up for our glofish. As the company had designed/created/manufactured a new type of bulb that would be more blue to show off the glofish better.

Guess what happened?
Yah.
I got busy with customers. As they decided to show up then.

But yay for me. I got the new lights installed within my estimated half hour. Ha!!
So I was able to say "Yes, they're installed and working just fine" when the lady called back.
She was happy to hear that. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Phone Plan Coupon

Our work did a promotional thing today.
A sneaky promotional thing.

Apparently, today, the Starsmet company sent out coupons to specific phone carriers.
Where if they came in today only.
They could save $7 on any purchase.
And it was only the people who use that certain phone company who got those coupons.

So, suddenly.
Around lunch time.
-And possibly sooner, but around lunch time is when I ended up on the register more often than not to help backup cashier because the managers were in a meeting and there was no one else to call up to the front-

We were inundated with customers who had that coupon on their phones.
Customer after customer after customer it felt like. (though it wasn't every customer)
Who wanted to take advantage of the coupon and buy something and get it for cheap.

We quickly discovered that you couldn't use the coupon on a product unless it cost more than $7.

But still.
We had customers buying items and just needing to pay change in order to get their item.
Like under a dollar change.

Haha. The crazy thing was.
The customers were using their debit cards to pay for these things.
Like seriously. .47 cents and out they bring their card.

I was like. O.o You honestly don't have a dollar on you??

I mean I get that you don't have to worry about coins rattling around in your pocket with a card.
but seriously? Why use your card for so little?

I don't understand. *shakes head*

I wonder if Starsmet is going to continue doing these phone deals for different customers on different phone plans....

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Quick Return

.... I don't understand how it happened.

I helped a customer buy a green anole.
Grabbed a paper towel to place in the container. Caught the anole.
And sent the customer on their way.

Only to have the customer return, like not even an hour later.

....with the anole dead.
()_()

"Did you leave it in the car!" was my first sentence I said to him, as I was surprised.

After all it's been hot. Leave an animal in a hot car too long and it dies. It had been such a short time....that was my first thought.
But the customer denied that that had happened.
He said that he'd gone straight home and it had been dead by the time he got there. O.o

It's always possible that the customer lied. As they do do that.

But I have to wonder.
....was it my fault?

You see the paper towel I grabbed to put in the container.

Part of it had already been wet.
Because the towels had been partially soaked when my coworker was doing a water change on our betta fish earlier in the day.

I didn't think it would be a problem....
But now I wonder...
I doubt that the stress coat in the water would affect the anole...it's basically just a water conditioner and we place a similar thing in the reptile waterbowls....
But had my coworker added a different chemical as well? As I know she's been prone to doing that, adding in something to help the fish stay healthy.

Had that chemical....been in the papertowel. Had it not reacted well to the Anole and the anole had died from that?

It's hard to say for sure.
We'll probably never know.
But its definitely weird for it to die that quickly......

-Sarnic Dirchi

Nightly Chaos

 It's funny, sometimes how clueless my managers can be about the state of my department.

Apparently, last night, Head Manager got a taste of the 'chaos' that is the closing shift.

It's not surprising that the night shift isn't well done.
Because a) I haven't been able to properly train my newest coworkers.
They've just kinda been thrown in and trained by whoever is on duty.

Which means they pick up the habits of the people already closing.
Chaos begets Chaos.

And with basically like all of the closers now being greenies with hardly three months under their belts....It's not surprising things are difficult.

In any case.
The Head Manager apparently had trouble keeping my coworkers in the dept and have them helping customers.

One was focused on the task of feeding the snakes -as that is a night task.
The other one would wander away.

So apparently HM had to spend most of the shift wrangling my two closers to keep them in their spots.

*shakes head*

This isn't surprising at all.
I know that newbies have a hard time multitasking. They get focused on one thing. I had that struggle when I first started work. Get focused on one task, forget about the fact that I needed to help customers. So I understand that. It's something that can be adjusted with time so long as there is somebody there to correct them. The longer it goes uncorrected, the more likely it is to become a habit that you can't break.

The fact that my coworkers wander away from the dept also isn't new. I currently have three wanderers on the night shifts. Those who just disappear to elsewhere in the store.
They don't realize that they need to stick around, and if a customer takes them from the dept they need to go right back to the dept.

In any case.
This whole realization process resulted in this sort of conversation:

Head Manager: We can't have the closers feeding the snakes anymore. They get too focused on that task and forget to help the customers. So can you feed the snakes in the mornings?
Me: No, policy says to feed them at night. Plus we don't really have time to do it.
Head Manager: But what does it take? Like two minutes to feed the snakes?
Me: Something like that.
Head Manager: The night people don't know how to multitask like the morning people do.
Me: *thinking* Because you don't give them the opportunity to learn how to do tasks and help customers at the same time. Me: It's because they're new.
Head Manager: Well, it's already too late to relearn it, they can't be feeding snakes and expected to help customers.
Me: But policy says to feed them at night because they shouldn't be handled after they're fed. So you'd basically be taking them off the floor for the entire day.
Head Manager: Fine... Well they can't feed the snakes until after we close then!!
Me: *thinking* Great....then they're never going to get fed.

Honestly.
The easiest solution to this problem would be to have me work a few evening shifts with everyone to make sure that they're doing tasks correctly, staying in the dept, and helping customers. They need a guiding force that isn't being given to them because none of the other managers care about my dept unless something goes majorly wrong. *shakes head*
The easy solution would be to have a meeting for everyone and go over the expected tasks, but the Head Manager shut that thought down. Saying that we should do "more one on ones" ....like we have time for that. >.< *shakes head* Ugh.

There's also talk of switching to feeding all the snakes on one day. Sunday when it's slow.
Which originally, was how we were doing it.
But we stopped doing it because Special Coworker wasn't doing well on feeding the snakes, as he was focusing on that task more than the customers. So we switched to doing a couple every night.

*shakes head*

What I really need is a one on one with the managers and go over what is expected and what we can handle.
As we had no problems feeding the snakes before closing...until we hired the new people. It's a matter of proper training. Teaching them. Not just letting them loose in order to see how the pieces fall into place.

Guess we'll see how that all turns out....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Where's the Fish?

This morning, a couple of customers -two guys- came into the store.
I saw them while I was finishing up resetting up the toys and branches in the bird cages after cleaning them,
As they came in with what looked like a bag of water.
It was a big bag of water.
Which either meant that they were returning a fish, or having water tested.
It didn't seem like it would be a dead fish.
Because the bag was waaaaay too full of water.
So it was either a large sample of water for our water testing.
Or it was a fish return.

Turns out....it was a halfway fish return.
As the guys were bringing us a fish.
But they'd bought the fish from our competitor.
And as a policy....we don't accept fish unless they were bought from us within a certain time frame.

It was my manager who'd talked to them over the phone, and heard that they were just going to flush the fish if we couldn't take them. -as the competitor didn't let them take it back.

So he said that they could bring it in, and we'd just stick it in our display tank of fish.

Which is what we ended up doing.

And after a little while I let the fish out in the tank and ensured that he would be fine. Which he was.

A few hours passed.
Me and my manager got busy with other tasks.

He was in the middle of doing the weekly fish count.
-Where we check what our inventory says with what how many fish are actually in the tank and correct it.
I was nearby when he turned to me and started to ask:
"Hey did you put...." He trailed off like he'd forgotten what he was asking.

He could have been asking anything, really. In relation to a customer, to a coworker, to a product, to an animal.

But with him staring at the fish, counting them. And asking me.
That only had to mean that he was thinking about a fish.

And put....put a fish where?
Put a fish away?
What fish needed to be put away?

It was the fish that the people had brought in earlier this morning.

So in like the split second he trailed off, I jumped in. "Put away the shark? Yes, I did."

lol and that was exactly what he'd been trying to ask me. :)

And I was like "Are you surprised I knew what you are asking?"

And he was like: "It's scary sometimes how you're already in my head."

As in I can read his mind. lol.

;) Perhaps I can.
Or else I'm just good at taking pieces of information and creating a picture from them. lol.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Phone Call Questions

Children talking on the phone.

It's one of those instances where I wonder what the parents were thinking.

Why have the child talk on the phone? Why not just talk yourself?

I mean, sure it's a learning experience for the kids.

But its rather annoying for us.

To try and answer questions.

And then have to deal with the adult calling us again to make sure that the child repeated the correct information to the adults that we'd told them over the phone.

Honestly....

In any case.

I got a phone call today at work.

From what sounded like a child.

Who knows if it actually was a child.....and if this person was a child, how they managed to get the phone number to my work and call is beyond me.

But. This child.

Proceeded to have a conversation like this with me:

"Hi, do you have any black moors?"

"Yes we do."

"How big do they get?"

"About 12 inches."

"Wow that's huge! It's as big as a shark."

"No, sharks get bigger, but that is big."

"Do you have sharks? Because I want to feed the black moor to my sharks at home."

"I'm sorry, I don't sell fish for food."

"Oh, do you have hamsters?"

"Yes."

"Do you have Russian hamsters?"

"Yes."

"Do you have Teddy bear hamsters?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I had a hamster once. But it bit me."

"I'm sorry it bit you."

"Yah, so I threw him away."

"You threw the hamster away?"

"Yah, because he bit me."

"That wasn't very nice."

"He bit me though! Why would he do that?"

"Maybe you smelt good?"

"Do you have any lizards?"

"Yes, we have lizards and snakes and turtles."

"Oh."

"I have to go help some customers now, is it alright if I say goodbye?"

"But my Mommy said that I could talk to you for five hours!"

"Oh, well we're not open that long, and I do have other customers to help."

"Do you have any dogs?"

"No, sorry we do not."

"Oh. Well we're heading over there now! Bye!" *hangs up.*

*shakes head*

That was literally the conversation I had with this child.

But at the point of the child asking about the goldfish eating sharks.

I'd begun to wonder if this higher pitched voice on the other end of the line actually was a child.

It could have been an adult pretending to be a child.

As it seemed like the child knew a bit too much.....for a child.

Sure there are smart kids out there.

But. yah. With how the conversation went....

This either was a child playing a prank.

Or an adult playing a prank.

In either case.

It was a waste of time for me. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Taking out the Trash

I actually do believe it's the stocker's job.
Once they're done restocking the shelves with product.
It's their job to take out the trash that has accumulated in the store.
As most of the time it is their stocking boxes that take up most of the trash.

Of course, there are bags of trash from the groomers and my dept and the vet, from customers throughout the day....

So, in a way.
It does make a bit of sense that everyone in the store should take turns taking out the trash to the dumpsters out back once you think about it.

If only that were the case.

Today, Roti, the new manager, asked me and my coworker to be the ones to take out the trash.
As he wants to 'spread the work around.'
So he's planning to apparently make it so not the just the stockers are taking out the trash.

Though I have to wonder if he's truly going to spread the work around.
Will he make the groomers take out the trash one day? The vet people? The cashiers?
Or is 'spreading the work' just giving me and my dept more to do?

Who knows.
I'm guessing it's going to be the latter rather than the former.

In any case.
While I didn't mind helping out and taking out the trash.
-As I do see the logic in having everyone take their turn.
What I didn't comprehend was the fact that Roti chose the only two girls in the store. (who weren't groomers) to do the task of taking out the trash.
There were plenty of guys around (stockers) to lift the heavy bags and break down boxes and such.
Yet the two girls had to do the heavy task.
*shakes head*

I don't understand guys logic sometimes.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Long Phone Call

You know....I don't really mind it when customers call the store to ask their questions.
I mean...it's never fun to answer the phone because you have no idea what sort of person will be on the otherside, nor what question they will ask.
But still. I've reached the point where I don't mind answering the phone.

That being said...
I really don't like it when the phone calls take away from me trying to do stuff.

So this morning. Basically right as we opened up our doors for the day.
I got a phone call.
From a woman, who was having problems with her fish tank.
In that she was having fish suddenly die off,
And she wasn't sure why.

Was it a Pleco that she'd bought a couple weeks ago that had died?
Was it a fungus?
Was it the fact that she hadn't changed the water in almost a month?

Honestly...
These sorts of questions are really hard to answer over the phone when I can stare at the remaining fish, nor see a dead body.
I just have to guess and give my best advice on what to do.

Like Change the water, Treat the fish with a Fungus Cure, Wait to add more fish, make sure the lights aren't on. etc.

The solutions definitely vary by phone call and situation.
But generally isn't that hard to give suggestions.

The woman on the phone....
Kept asking question after question, explaining what she'd done multiple times, asking for advice, coming up with more possibilities as to why her fish had died.

And wouldn't you know it....
Twenty Minutes had passed by.

>.< *sighs*
Seriously. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with this customer trying to help her out with her fish.
That was 20 minutes I was delayed in finishing my tasks.
As I had to finish cleaning things up from cleaning cages earlier.
Which the sinks are behind our fish system....and it's rather noisy back there.
So I had to stay out on the floor, getting nothing done in the process as I chatted with the customer.

*shakes head* Hopefully the solutions help her....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Unhappy Leader

It confuses me when people aren't understanding of situations.
Like...there's nothing I can do, but why are you getting so PO'd about it?

So.
At my work, we partner with a couple different adoption groups.
Where we provide space for them to bring in cats (and sometimes dogs) so that they can adopt them out to people looking for a new pet.

Right now we have two groups.
And currently every month we switch between them.
So group A is one month. Group B is the next, and Group A is again the month after that.

So currently, since it's a new month.
We should have already switched out from Group A to Group B.
But for some reason...Group A didn't take out their animals when they should have. They only took out half of them.
They were supposed to drop by today to come grab the rest of them, so that Group B could come in and replace them.

But I got a call from the Group A leader.
Who was super sick. Sick enough that she couldn't make the drive up to pick up the animals.
So she was seeing if it was okay to keep them there for a while longer while she tried to find somebody to come up in her place to grab the animals.

As she was struggling to find somebody today to come take them out.
I checked in with the managers.
Who said it was fine, they just wanted her to get better.
But we had to check in with the Group B person to make sure she knew the animals were staying a little while and that she was fine with it.

....She wasn't fine with it.

To say I got an ear full is a bit of an understatement.
She was PO'd to a T.
It was her month. She should be able to have her animals in right away.

Which I totally get. The group had overstayed their month.
But it wasn't on purpose.
People do get sick.

And they only had like four cats left.
So there was room to have Group B bring in some animals.
But the Leader wasn't having it.

"I don't want my animals to catch what HER animals have. "
O.o
....how can they catch anything if they all have their shots and vaccinations?

Honestly....
I think she was over exaggerating things.

But it definitely wasn't a fun conversation to have with her.
She was angry enough over the phone that it stressed me out and her bad vibes gave me a good headache afterwards. >.< Luckily I managed to get rid of it.
But Gah!

Geez Woman.
The other person was SICK. She tried to drive up but was basically throwing up every other mile and couldn't find anyone else to go grab her cats!! *shakes head*

Have a heart okay? Things don't happen just to make your life more difficult. >.<

-Sarnic Dirchi

Canister Filters

I'd noticed it a few days ago.
That our display goldfish tank goldfish weren't acting right.

The last time they weren't acting right.
It was because the canister filter below had gotten clogged up, so no water could flow back into the tank, so there was no circulation happening within the tank.

A check of the outflow of the filter proved I was right.
The water was barely flowing.

Which meant that there wasn't much oxygen flow in the tank.
So the canister filter had to be filthy.

Unfortunately, when I noticed....>.< I didn't have time to fix it.
It got busy.
So I left a note for others to clean/fix the filter.

But when I came back to work today.
I saw a note that my coworkers had tried to 'fix' it.
But didn't know what was wrong or how to fix it.

After all....the goldfish tank has a canister filter to filter.
Not an over the back filter system like the other two display tanks have.

And to my knowledge, I doubt the others would know that. Nor know how to clean it.

So I wasn't at all surprised to see that they hadn't figured it out.
My coworkers aren't prone to problem solving. If it's not an obvious solution, then they leave it for someone else to figure out. (Usually me.)

I made sure to show my coworker on duty how to work with the canister filter system this time around. Showing her what needed to be cleaned, and how to get it to start flowing again.

So the filter system is fixed!
And next time it gets clogged up with gunk, someone else can do it. :)

-Sarnic Dirch

A Question in the Wrong Section

You know what always throws me off when I'm talking to customers?

It's when I see them I a certain section of the store, and then they ask me about a completely different section of the store.

Like today.
There was this guy today.
Who I encountered while he was looking at the reptiles.
To which I asked him if I could help him.

You know, expecting him to have a question about reptiles. Because he was looking at them.

But then the words that came out of his mouth...
Didn't fit with what I was expecting.

So I had to ask him to repeat his question.

His question.
Was asking what Parvo was and how he could get the vaccine.

O.o

Last I checked, Reptiles can't get Parvo.
So it confused me,
Until I realized that he wasn't talking about reptiles.
He was asking a question for his dog.

As Parvo is something that Dogs can get.
And cats can get too though it's usually referred to by the name Panluke....I believe.

*shakes head*

I hate those moments.
Where it takes me a second to connect the dots and use what little information I have to figure out what is actually being asked and what animal it's referring to.
As I feel it makes me appear slow witted.

Though luckily.
I think I manage to cover my confusion well.
In that it's sometimes only takes a split second or three to figure out what the customer is really after.
So I can jump from one topic of expected conversation to a different one.

Doesn't always happen that quickly.
But yah...

It's annoying when I get asked questions outside of the visual context given.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Big Fish Small Space

A woman came into the store this morning.
To return one of the goldfish she'd bought the night before.

Thankfully, it was alive.
As it was one of our expensive goldfish. Over $30.
Which considering most of the fish are under $5. It's a pricy fish.

The customer was returning it because she'd realized,
After buying the fish and putting it in her tank.

That the fish was in way to small of a space to do well.
She decided to research it to make sure.
And her research confirmed her suspicions.
Her tank was waaaaay too small for the goldfish.

As that goldfish would do best in at least a 30 gallon tank.
And she'd put him in like a 3 gallon bowl :S

So very little oxygen.
Very little space.

Concerned that she would kill the fish.
She brought it back as soon as we opened.

To which I'm grateful.
It was a really pretty fish.
And he's now happily swimming around with his buddies again. :D

Thank goodness for smart customers.
Though I am rather annoyed at the coworker who'd told the girl it was alright to put that large fish in a tank that small. >.<
I'm hoping it was just a misunderstanding.
But it's hard to say for sure.....

-Sarnic Dirchi