Do You Have?

I'm probably too serious for my own good.
In that, when I'm in 'serious' mode, it's rather difficult for me to understand sarcasm/jokes for what they are. It takes me a second to switch gears and realize it.
Often I don't quite realize it until someone points it out.

In any case.
Today.

I had jumped onto the register to backup cashier.
And this customer came up saying that I'd rung her up for a harness at the wrong price.
That it had been reduced to clear.

So I went back there with her to double check.
Turns out the harness was in the wrong place. As the UPC didn't match it at all.
However, there were multiples of the harness in the spot.
Which means that it was a stocking error and not a customer putting something back in the wrong place.

So I called up the manager to get the price changed for the customer.
As I finished the transaction the manager disappeared back to the aisle the harness was on to double check things.
I followed as soon as I was done with customers at the register to make sure she ended up at the right spot.

She was pulling off the "reduced to clear" tags we had up.
As they were probably inaccurate.
Which left her with a handful of red square shaped tags.
She fanned them out and looked at me with a serious face and asked.
"Do you have a 6.27?"
Which is what we'd given the customer as the price for her harness.

Now automatically, my mind is in work mode right now.
So my first thoughts were. "Oh no! Did I remember the price wrong? Did we give the customer more money back than we should have?"
Before my mind clicked into second gear having finally processed the fanned out tags in her hands and instead said. "Go fish."

As that's what you say when you don't have a 6.27 in your hand. ;) haha.

Ah. Yah, I need to work on connecting the dots just a bit quicker when it comes to switching from work mode to fun mode.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Toppled Over

You know that feeling where you feel like things are going well enough. Possibly hectic, but well. But then something unexpectedly happens, that just sets you spiraling into a bad mood that means you're grumpy for the rest of the day?
Yah.
Happened to my manager.

She was working on truck, unloading the merchandise that had arrived.
When she came across an unpleasant sight.

One of the pallets had fallen over.
Not something that is unexpected.
Things shift in transport all the time, and occasionally the weight of the items stacked on the pallet becomes a bit much and...over it goes.

But it wasn't just any pallet that had toppled over.
it was a pallet of cat litter.
That probably had been stacked at least 6 feet high. Possibly. I only saw it tipped over.

In any case.
It probably wouldn't have been a huge issue.
As from the quick glance I saw, it didn't look like anything had broken open.
It just meant a time delay as she and the stockers would have to pick up all the fallen containers and get them off the truck before being able to unload the rest of it.

No.
The problem came from where the cat litter was...in relation to our fish shipment.

As our fish come to us on these trucks as well.
And the litter....
Had toppled right onto the boxes holding the fish.
Flattening at least four of them from their weight.

I guess flattened isn't a good word.
But the boxes definitely were bent out of shape.

My manager was like ()_() THE FISH!!! YOU MUST RESCUE THEM RIGHT NOW!!!

I didn't disagree with her lol. No need to make her more upset after this.

But I knew glancing at the boxes, that the fish were probably fine.
They're pretty well packed, and having the boxes get slightly squished shouldn't be an issue.

Basically I was right once I got into the flattened boxes.
The fish were fine.
I mean, some fish don't always make the transport. And we had a higher number of dead than usual....but overall the fish appeared to be fine. No leaking bags, no fish struggling to breathe out of water.

So in the end.
The fish were safe. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

Crowded In a Bowl

I can understand why customers want to get as much as they can for a good price.
Everyone likes a good deal.

But I have to draw the line when it involves animals.
Particularly fish.
It's hard to be understanding of people who want to crowd a ton of fish into a tiny space.
It's like they forget that the fish actually need room to move around.

>.<
For example,
I had a woman come into the store today, wanting to buy some goldfish for some presentation or other.
She'd gathered a gallon bowl some rocks,
and then wanted some goldfish.
Which I thought she'd want like 2 or 3,
but no.
She wanted 10.
10 goldfish in a 1 gallon tank.
And not just small goldfish.
These goldfish were larger like 2-3 inches.

Stuffing them into such a tiny space.
I could just see them dying quickly.

So I told her that was too small.

And unsurprisingly,
The woman was like "Well you have a ton of goldfish in this tank!!"
As she pointed to our tanks. As we recently got in our goldfish shipments.
And we had about 1600 goldfish divided between the two tanks she was gesturing at.
Which meant they looked super full.

*sighs*
I had to explain to her that we have FILTERS. that filter the water, while her bowl does not.
That all the tanks are on the same filter system, so while it looks like multiple tanks,
In reality it's like one large fish tank, which means tons and tons of gallons.
That's why we can have a ton of fish together.
Because it's a large tank.
Not because the fish like being crammed into tiny spaces.

*shakes head*

I eventually convinced her to just do five.
But she insisted that we do 5 of the larger goldfish. *eye twitch*
Which the fish would have a higher chance of survival if she'd picked the smaller ones.
But nooooo she needed them larger so people could see them in whatever demonstration thing she was doing. >.< Bleh.

In this case.
Bigger is not better.
*exhales*
I hope the fish survived.....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Mind the Gap

I don't know what my work was thinking.

I mean, I know what they're thinking but they weren't thinking correctly.

You see. It's the last week in the quarter.

As in, we have four periods where we try to improve sales, stay in budget yadda yadda.

And since it's the last week.

Apparently we're trying to be really good in everything.

Unfortunately.

Part of that 'staying good' plan.

Seems to deal with scheduling people in my dept.

>.<

Which I don't understand.

I look at the schedule and see that we have 2, 3 or even 4 cashiers all scheduled at the same time.

Yet.

For some reason we can't find time to cover all of my dept all day?

Ever day this week it's happened.

Where there's been a gap in the schedule.

Where nobody is scheduled to work in my dept.

Sometimes it's as short as 30 minutes.

Othertimes it's longer.

Where we had a 4 hour period when no one was scheduled to work.

Yet, we had coverage for our cashiers. >.<

I don't understand it.

I mean, my dept can backup cashier anytime if it's needed.

But nobody can back up my dept unless they've been trained.

As you have to know how to handle the animals/fish, catch them, talk to pet parents about them, etc.

How can they do that....

If no one is in the dept to do that?

It means that the job falls to the manager.

Or we have to hope that there is someone from my dept scheduled as a cashier so they can jump on over and fill the gap.

*shakes head*

I don't understand it.

Shouldn't it be obvious that my dept is the highest priority in coverage?

Because not just anyone can jump in and do it?

So shouldn't we make sure that there are no gaps?

Honestly I don't know what the managers were thinking.

But hopefully the gaps in the schedule are only for this week,

and won't continue into next week.

-Sarnic Dirchi

New Chemicals

I wonder if October is designated as the 'month of changes' at work.
Because honestly, over the past few days I've been hit with a lot of "Oh hey! This is changing, though you should know!"

And I'm like. O.o "How long have you known about this and why didn't you tell me sooner?!"

In any case.
One of these changes is that we got in new cleaning chemicals in our store.
And with the new chemicals also comes a new system for using those chemicals safely.

They installed it today.
All fancy smanshy.

Which of course will take some getting used to.
As I only was able to get a quick demo of how to use the cleaning chemicals related to my department before I was scheduled to be off.

A semi-complicated mess of hoses, knobs, and directions that I was able to understand pretty quickly.

lol However, I'm not sure if my coworkers will be able to understand it as fast as I was able to.

It's hard, when none of you coworkers are around to teach...and you have the day off the next day.
So I hope that my written instructions for how to use our new chemical system make sense....
That or that my coworkers will be smart enough to ask the managers how to use the new system.

...yah It's going to be a mess on Thursday when I get back for sure. ;) haha.

I do wonder though,
What brought on the change.
Why did we get new chemicals?
One for every day cleaning,
one for floor cleaning,
one for window cleaning,
and one for super duper deep only use probably never cleaning.

I mean, aside from the last one, we already had chemicals in the store for the other three.
Chemicals we won't use anymore now that we got the new ones in.
But why the change?
Safety issues?
Change of contract with the company we were with previously?
Updating cleaning procedures?

Who knows.
All in all, it will probably be a good thing in the long run, once everyone is used to the new system.

After all.
That everyday cleaning chemical was Not fun to have come in contact with your skin if it was in nondiluted format.
Trust me, I had the burns to prove it.
With the new stuff, that risk should be greatly minimized. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

Food

The thing about working in a Pet store,
Is that we sell a large selection of different foods for animals.

There are a ton of varieties.
Especially in Dog foods. *shakes head*

And with all the different dog foods, of course the companies are trying to convince customers to buy their foods.
Which means, the companies occasionally send out representatives to the different stores.
So that their representatives could teach the workers about their foods.
That way, we're knowledgeable about the different brands, and can better recommend to customers foods that will match their tastes/preferences/specifications/cost etc.

*shakes head*
It's a lot of info to take in.
And basically all the foods proclaim similar things with minor differences.

However, the benefit to these trainings.
;) Is that the representatives often bring us food as a treat for taking the time to listen to what they have to say.

Today, was no different.
We had a representative come by to update us on changes happening to their product, and again expound upon us the benefits of having us sell customers their brand of food.

The difference though.
Is that this time, the representative came in the morning.
And they provided Breakfast!

()_() Waffles, fruit, donuts.
It was delicious!! lol
The representatives usually don't come in the mornings.
So to have breakfast.
That was a rare treat.

Definitely worth listening to the representative for that. :D

-Sarnic Dirchi

Unwanted

Apparently customers are getting tired of their turtles.
As I had a woman come up to me today at work.
Asking if we took back turtles if they were originally purchased from our store.

Which we do.
But only within a certain time frame.
And unfortunately for the customer, they were over that time frame, by several months.

But I gave them the location of a couple other pet stores in the area that do accept animals and sent the customer on their way.

And literally like two minutes after I got done talking with this customer.
I had another customer call work.

And after a roundabout explanation,
Got to the point where they said they had a couple of turtles they no longer wanted.
So, they were wondering if we would take them.

lol.
It's so crazy how these sort of trends end up happening.
Where different customers, want the same thing, all in a row.

Hopefully those customers are able to find good homes for their pets.
Guess we'll see.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Lost and Replaced

I had a family come into the store today.

Looking to get a Leopard Gecko.

Why?

Because the one they were watching/had/whatever.

Had gone missing.

O.o Which is weird to say in of itself.

Because Leopard Geckos generally don't go missing from their cages.

Doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.

I've had two or three disappear at work before.

But still, it's weird to think that one somehow escaped its cage at a home....

Perhaps they'd left it out and it wandered away when no one was looking.

In any case.

The family came out to buy a replacement gecko,

Just in case they didn't find the other one.

-Which they might not for a year or so as those things can hide.

I've always found it interesting with customers.

That people who lose animals or have fish die on them when they're watching them,

Try to replace the animal before the person comes back to find their pet gone.

Honestly, I'm to the point right now, where I'd probably just text the person and be like. "Sooo we lost your leopard gecko. I can go buy you a new one." or something like that.

I'd let the person know that their animal had disappeared/died.

Instead of trying to hide the fact or replace the animal without their knowledge.

Not sure if the family who was replacing the leopard gecko was planning to tell the person or not. From the conversation they knew that the boy was going to notice that the leopard gecko wasn't his old one.

So perhaps they will.

In any case.

Hopefully they don't lose this new leopard gecko in the meantime.....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Out Early

Short shifts are the weirdest thing ever.
Since I'm used to working 8 hour days.
It's really weird to get off earlier than that.
Even weirder when I only work a 4 hour day.

Which I did today.
Do you know how weird it felt to leave so early?
I felt almost like I was skipping out.
I mean, it was amazing to get out and about and do other errands while I still had my energy up.

But wow.
Short shifts are weird.
I had enough time to get most of the opening tasks done.
And then I could leave.
No need to try and find something to do.
I could just....leave. Right then.
Because my shift was over.

So.
Crazy.

But so wonderful.
They're a great treat for me my short shifts.
Because I don't get them that often. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Fish

Gotta love it when coworkers misunderstand me lol.

So me and my coworker were at the fish wall.
I was working on cleaning the tanks,
while they were working on counting the fish.

And my coworker noticed that a fish wasn't doing too well.
-Fins had been chewed away.
-It happens in some of our more aggressive tanks where one fish becomes an aggressor to everyone else.

And my coworker was like "What do we do with it?"
And I'm pretty sure that I said something along the lines of "If it's alive, go isolate it, if it's dead toss it."
-As we have a tank where we can place injured/sick fish until they get better.

But for some reason, all my coworker heard was "Toss it."
O.o
So I watched him scoop out the fish and go to the trash can and toss it in.
And I was like "Was it dead?"
"No."
"Then why did you throw it away?"
"Didn't you say to toss it!"
"No, I said to isolate it!"

lol
Which cued a frantic dash to get a cup of water and go rescue the poor fish from the trash.
Luckily it survived that so it could go be placed in the iso tank.

lol *shakes head*
Still not sure why he thought I'd actually say to throw a live fish away.
We must have both been tired or something.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Guilt Trip

There's few customers that I dread seeing.
The customers where they walk into the store and you think "Oh no, not you again." sort of customers.

This post is about one of those customers.

The situation started out well enough.

Guy came in a while ago. (he's a semi regular)
To get an Oscar fish. Get a tank, the whole set up and such.

And it all went well.
He'd come by every now and then to pick up fish to feed his Oscar.

But then recently. Within the past few months.
He started telling me that he has to leave the state for a few months.
And he's not sure what to do with his fish in the meantime.
As he's driving out of state.

-And traveling with fish isn't always the easiest.
Especially with long car rides.

He apparently doesn't have any friends that he trusts to leave the fish with while he's gone for the season.
Nor is he willing to take the fish with him,
Though I told him multiple ways that he could move the fish with him that could help.

But they're all methods that involve money and other tanks, and the fact that he'd have to set up a tank again in his other state residence.

The last time I saw him.
He tried to bribe me.
Asking if I would be able to watch his fish for him, just go over to his place and go feed it everyday and he'd pay me a certain amount every week to do so for the next 3 monthsish.

It wasn't something that I felt comfortable with.
So I refused to do so.

Today.
He came in again.
Hiding his eyes behind sunglasses.

This time he tried to guilt me into helping him out.
"If you don't take my fish or know someone who can, then my fish is going to die!"

"I'm sorry, I don't have a fish tank, and none of the people I know have a fish tank, nor can they take on one now."

He left not happy.

I watched him go with a glower.

I don't like people who try to guilt me.
Especially when it involves animals lives.
Especially when my hands are tied.
Especially when other people are trying to put blame on others for their inability to care for animals.

I mean,
If you were taking on a pet.
You're taking on the responsibility for their well being.
Even if its just a fish.

If you knew you were going to be moving out of state for a few months.
You should have either a) not gotten the fish in the first place. or b) made arrangements before now to have someone take care of the fish/ take the fish with you.

You can't just guilt some random person i.e. Me, that you've talked to a few times at work, into taking on the responsibilities you should have thought about in the first place.

I honestly hope he takes the fish with him and does his best to keep it alive...
I guess we'll see what happens.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Alone Again, Naturally

I don't know why the managers sound so surprised when they realize I'm opening by myself.

I mean....I've been opening by myself on Saturday Mornings for practically forever it feels like.

Yet in the past month or so, basically every manager has commented on it.

O.o
Are they really not that observant? Have they just assumed I've had help? Have they not had it brought to their attention before? *shakes head*

But in any case.
The conversation always goes something like this:

"When in the next person coming in?"
"Not til after noon." I reply.
()_() "WHAT?! Why are you in the dept by yourself?"
I shrug. "Beats me, but that's how it's been."
"I can't believe that."
"Yah, I always don't have help until after noon....."

But does that change anything schedule wise?
Nope. lol.

Probably because we need the people more in the afternoon.
As usually on Saturdays, it's pretty dead in the mornings.
So most of the time, they schedule well, in that the second person shows up around the time when we start getting in our lunch time rush.

Still.
There are some Saturdays where it would be nice to have someone else opening with me.
On the other hand...with the work getting done faster with two people....that means there's more hours where I have to stand around being bored.

So. Double Edged Sword there. lol

-Sarnic Dirchi

Manic Energy

You ever encounter those people where you just think to yourself: "Something's wrong with you?"

Yah.

I get that every now and then at work.

With customers.

Who are acting weird.

Today.

I had one of those weird customers.

Her entire vibe was off putting from the moment I laid eyes on her.

As she walked past me, almost without seeing me.

I should have stayed silent and let her continue on to another coworker.

But I didn't.

I asked if I could help her.

And she turned to me with those crazed eyes people have sometimes.

Where they're open just a bit too wide and don't blink as often as they should have.

She was in a neck brace as well, which screamed injury.

So I had to wonder if she was drugged up a bit from that.

In any case.

Talking to her was one of the more tense encounters I've had recently from customers.

Not in a bad way.

But just the energy she was giving off.

It was like she was a radiating sun or whatever.

Standing there.

Swaying from side to side as she spoke.

Staring at me with those too wide eyes.

Asking too many questions.

*shudders*

I couldn't wait to get away from her and her maniac energy.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Before Hours

I don't understand morning people.
I mean, due to my job I have to be a morning person.
But if given the choice, I would choose to sleep in rather than wake up with the sun.

Other people aren't me.
Some are randomly up with the sun.
Or before the sun.

But still, I don't see why people would think that a retail store would be open at the crack of dawn.
Unless it's Lowes. Lowes opens super early. *shakes head*

But everywhere else its like 9 am or 10 am for retail stores to open.
Mine is one of those stores.

So when I walked up to work this morning at 7:30.
It was to find a woman standing in front of the doors.
Staring at the hours sign.
A confused look on her face.

-Which isn't surprising as technically our Grooming Dept was open at that time. But the main store was still closed.

So as I walked up to the doors I asked her.
"Can I help you?"

She looked to me: "Are you open yet?"
"No, the main store is closed for a couple more hours, but grooming and the vet are open."
"Oh...."

Since she obviously wasn't there for Grooming or the Vet. I assumed she'd leave it at that.
But then she was like: "Would it be possible for me to go inside and look around?"

>.<
No.
No it wouldn't be.
What part of "We don't open yet." did you not understand?
If we're not open, that means that customers shouldn't be wandering around the store until we are open.
It means that we don't give you an 'early bird' pass to let you 'preview' what is in the store just because you asked nicely.

*shakes head*
Besides, people who look, end up finding things they want to buy, and then because they don't want to come back to get it when we're open, so they come find someone who will check them out before they're open, or try to convince the person to check them out.

Basically.
I wanted to avoid that nightmare.
Besides, we weren't open yet.

I really should have said: "I'm sorry, the main store is closed."

Instead I said something along the lines of. "We have a forklift running around in there, it wouldn't be the safest."

Because honestly, how can we expect to get any of the stocking or cleaning tasks done early,
if we have to move slowly for fear there's a customer running about the store.
Especially if my coworkers didn't know that there was a customer in the store because we weren't open yet.
Then the possibilities of a customer getting hit by the forklift are much higher.
So better to not let the customer in rather than risk them getting injured before hours.

Honestly.
Hours are hours.
Stick to them customers.
If we're not open yet, we're not open.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Who's Decision?

I wonder who really wanted the pet.....

So, towards the end of my shift.
I had a guy and girl come into the store.
Looking into getting a reptile.

As the girl remembered having them when she was younger and wanted one.
And I guess the guy was really into it as well.

He was all set for a Chinese Water Dragon.
Pamphlet and everything in hand.

But as I explained that no, he couldn't stick the water dragon in a 10 gallon tank.
And no we didn't sell starter kits for water dragons.
And yah, they were a bit more high maintenance.

They began to look at other options.
Which landed us at the Bearded Dragons.
Which are a bit easier to take care of than Chinese Water Dragons.

Still.
The guy was indecisive.
Unsure if he wanted to totally switch from Chinese to Bearded.

He kept saying. "I think we should wait and think about it."

But the girl.
She wasn't having it.
She wanted a reptile and she wanted it today!

I'd thought that they were going to stick with the guy's plan and wait.....
But nope.

They came back to me a bit later saying that they wanted the Bearded Dragon.

I guess the girl strong armed the guy into making that decision.

*shakes head*

I wonder how that's all going to end up....

-Sarnic Dirchi

A 'New' Find

So, in the back area behind the wall of fish.
We have this drain in the floor.

Not the typical flat circular drain that you can walk over without thinking about it.
But instead it's a square hole in the floor with a grate at the bottom sort of drain.

-Don't worry, this hole is located out of walking space. So there's no fear of falling into it and twisting your foot.

It's main function is to drain the extra water from the fish tanks away when the sumps in the back get too full.

But we also use that area to dump any buckets of water that we may have to empty.
-Like from changing out the turtle water, etc.
Which is a lot easier to dump something out that's on the floor, than to lift up the bucket into the sink and dump it there.

In any case.
My manager was in the back today cleaning the place for the DM visit tomorrow.
And when I came back there,
I saw an addition to this drain.

It now had a grate partially covering it. (as there still needed to be room for the tubes that release extra water to go into.

It was the weirdest thing to see.
I was like "Well that's new!"

And my manager was like. O.o "Uh...no it's not. It's been sitting right next to the hole the entire time."

Which I suppose tells you that I'm not observant all the time. lol.
Or how often we felt the need to use the grate.

As I had no idea that it existed.
Nor if I saw it had I connected that the grate was supposed to cover the hole.

The things you discover.....

-Sarnic Dirci

Escaped Again

It seems to be the week for snakes escaping.

As tonight, I had to come into work to do an Annual Animal Count.
You know...where we basically 'set the record straight.'
Reset the system, start from zero.

You get the idea.

Well, as I was going through and counting our reptiles, I came to the corn snakes.
We should have had three in there, as last I saw we had three....

But as I was searching the bedding for them.
My coworker came up saying. "Oh I sold the last one."

.... last one?
By the paper I had in my hands, I should have had at least two more in that cage.

But two more weren't to be found anywhere. :(

Somehow, they'd escaped the cage.

But I don't know when that would have happened....
I don't even know if they were all in place when we did the bedding change for the cage earlier in the week because I wasn't the one to clean the cages.
So they could have been gone longer than a day.
Either accidentally thrown away.
Or loose somewhere in the store.

*exhales*

No idea what is up with the snakes in our store.
First the milksnake
Now the cornsnakes.
What's next? Our Pythons??
I hope not.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Nasty Water

Turtles are messy creatures.

Their tanks are rather hard to keep clean.
Especially when they keep knocking their food into the water.
Especially when they keep knocking over the filter so the water can't be filtered well.
Especially when there is more than one turtle in the tank.

Ugh.
For the past couple of weeks, its been a kinda nightmare to have to deal with those turtles.
It feels like I have to do a water change every other day to keep it from a) looking disgusting and b) smelling disgusting.

Plus, it can't be healthy at all to be swimming in water that looks like Chicken Noodle Soup.

Yah. Probably won't be having any of that any time soon due to being scarred by the turtles at work. *shakes head*

But today,
After deeply cleaning out the turtle cage.
I finally came upon a solution to keep the turtles from knocking their food bowl into the water.

I took the gravel in the tank, and piled it up around the food bowl.
So it can't be pushed around as easily.

Hopefully this solves the problem of food in the water.
Hopefully this means that the water can stay cleaner and not as smelly for it's required week of time.

But we'll see.
Turtles are nothing but determined to make messes it seems like.

-Sarnic Dirchi

'Friendly' Notes

Overthinking things is rather annoying.

As it makes me rather stressed out....

So, at work, they've instigated a new policy where you can only write 'friendly' notes if you're leaving notes for your coworkers.

-Not that we left anything mean before this point.

It was basically the

TAKE OUT THE TRASH!!!

Sort of notes.

(as the night people have troubles remembering to do that on occasion.)

But apparently.

That's too....Negative of a message.

Or anything where it's like "Hey do your job correctly."

Isn't wanted in the work place.

We need to be 'Nicer' to each other.

So that there's a better work flow and yadda yadda yadda.

But in my opinion.

Being forced to write "friendly notes" just makes the note come off as passive aggressive.

Not friendly.

The "TAKE OUT THE TRASH!"

Replaced with "Please Remember to Take out the Trash at Night."

(as you have to use Please in almost every note it seems like.)

May sound a little better, but I don't really see it as so.

Just let me say things as I want to say them and leave it at that. Why does it have to contain "please." Why does it need to be 'friendly?'

Who knows.

It just stressed me out.

So today's example of this was the issue of having to write a note for my manager.

As in the evening our closers have a certain section of fish tanks, where we take out all the decorations in those fish tanks and place them in a huge garbage can full of water, to bleach them over night (kill any potential algae growing on it) and then continue the process of cleaning them in the morning.

Which is a task that should be done towards the end of the day.

But according to my manager, the closers are pulling the ornaments too early.

Like around 5pm or so.

Which considering there's still like 4 hours left in the work day....

Isn't quite the presentation we want to give to our customers seeing undecorated tanks.

Nor, in my manager's opinion, is it the best use of their time.

As we do tend to get a lot busier in the evening with customers.

So if one of my coworkers is distracted with pulling out the ornaments....

Then that is one less person helping the customers in the store.

So what my manager wanted me to do was to write a 'Friendly Note' saying that Customer Service is the number one priority and that ornaments shouldn't be pulled out until closer to closing time. (half an hour before we close at the earliest)

Now if I hadn't been instructed to write it 'Friendly' I would possibly have written something like:

"Hey, Manager doesn't want us pulling ornaments until after this certain time. We need to focus on the customers instead."

Doesn't sound too bad right?

But is it "Friendly" enough?

Who knows.

That was where doubts settled in. How to make it sound friendly?

"Friendly Reminder, that we need to focus on customers and that tasks should come second. Please don't pull fish ornaments until after this time."

Could work....but is it too Passive Aggressive?

"Please Remember that customers come first, and that ornaments shouldn't be pulled until after this time."

Is that friendly enough?

Can you see my problem here?

I'm totally overthinking things.

Ugh.

I think I ended up writing something like. "Remember that customer service is the number one priority in the store. We shouldn't be doing tasks while there are customers around. This means that we shouldn't pull Ornaments until after this time."

Which...I still wasn't happy with how that turned out.

Written words can be misread in so many ways in so many different tones.

Honestly.

If the manager had just told me to write a note. Then I could have gone, done, and written it quickly without stressing over it.

Because multiple attempts to make it 'friendly' just irritated me like crazy in the end.

*shakes head*

I don't like these "friendly notes."

Not at all.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Take It Back

Often at work, there tends to be a trend with the customers during my shifts.

Like suddenly everyone wants birds.
Or everyone wants fish.
Or everyone's looking for a particular type of sand.

Things like that.

Well today's trend....

Seemed to be phone calls relating to returning animals. *shakes head*

I had someone call asking if they could return a cat they had adopted from us a while ago because it wasn't getting along with their cat.
-Which, if they read the paperwork they filled out, they'd have realized that we don't accept back animals that have been adopted. They have to go through the adoption group in order to return their animals, not through us.

I had another person call looking to see if they could come to the store to adopt out their dog that they no longer could keep.
-And I had to explain to them that we don't do adoptions, our adoption partners do the adoptions so they'd have to go through them.

I also had a person call about some fish he purchased over the weekend that weren't getting along with his other fish. Asking if we accepted them back.
-So I gladly told him about our return policy -as he was within it- and said he could bring the fish back right away.

In any case.

I don't know what it was about today but apparently it was a 'give up your pets' sort of day....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wrong Cage

Somehow...
A milksnake ended up in the wrong cage, last night.

To bad consequences.

For some reason the milksnake ended up in the cage below it's cage.
In the bearded dragon cage.

Where judging by the lump in its stomach.
and a missing bearded dragon....

It found a late night snack.

:(

And no one knows how it got there.

Did a coworker accidentally put it back in the wrong cage?
Did it somehow escape it's cage it's never escaped from and break into another cage?

Was it a wormhole that it found and traveled through space?

No one seems to know. :(

And likely no one will know. Y_Y
It's a mystery.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Out of the Dept

It's my habit, when I come into work, to check the work schedule.
Not only to confirm the time that I'm getting off....

but also to see who's working with me that day.

*shakes head*
It boggles my mind sometimes that my coworkers just come in to work their shifts and don't ever consider looking to see who or when someone else may be coming in to work with them.

Perhaps I'm just weird...

In any case.
I like to see who's coming in to work with me so I can plan accordingly.
As what I end up doing in my morning shifts ends up changing depending on who is coming in, what day it is, when the person is coming in, and when I should take breaks and such, etc.

That way I know how to use my time and plan things out.

Like I said....my coworkers don't seem to do that.

Today is a good example of that.

This morning I came into work and checked the schedule to see who was coming in with me. As expected it was my manager. I then checked to see who would be coming in after that point, and it wasn't anybody until I was due to get off my shift.
I also checked who would be in the dept when I left....
As it's gotten into everyone's habit to ask me who is coming in next when it comes to my dept. lol. *shakes head*

I have a knack for remembering things....

Occasionally I'll check on the Cashiering and Managering shifts as well. Just to see if there are people who can cover my breaks or not, or just for fun.

Today I just was checking my dept's schedule.

And the manager in charge, when he saw me was like:
"We have a lot of people coming in today to do pricing changes"
-As we had a sale end yesterday, which meant all those sale prices needed to come down, and then we needed to put up new sale prices for the sale that started today.
"Do you know who's coming in for you next?" he asked then. "I haven't checked the schedule yet."

Which....You'd think since he's a manager, he'd check to see who would be working while he was on shift....and where they would be working....

Maybe that's just me....

In any case he was like "So who's coming in with you?"
And I told him. "Its the manager just before the store opens, and then no one else until I leave."

"No one else is in the dept?"
"Nope. Just us two."

Which makes sense...
Considering basically half of my dept ended up coming into the store that morning to work....
but not in my dept.

They had been brought in to help with the pricing.

Two of them were already in the store when I showed up for work, already diligently working on pricing.
-These two coworkers have done pricing before so were used to it.

The next two.... lol

I was working on Dishes when my coworker showed up, looking harried, apologizing for being late as she'd been planning to call this morning to see when she worked...and ended up being called earlier in the morning to say she was late for work.

-Yah. ALWAYS check the schedule before the week starts. Never Assume with the work schedule because it can unexpectedly change without you realizing it.
This was one of those times.

So she showed up an hour late to her shift.
And once she clocked in came right to me to apologize for being late.
Which I was like "It's fine, it happens, but you're not in my dept today, you're in stocking."
(I'd happened to see her name in the stocking dept section as I flipped to my dept, so I knew that's where she was to be, plus she wasn't scheduled in my dept today)
O.o "Huh?" Was her response.
"You're scheduled to help with pricing today. Go check with the manager to see what he wants you to do."

To which she wandered off to find him.

-Obviously she hadn't checked the schedule to see where she worked.
I suppose since she's scheduled either as a Cashier or in my Dept that since we weren't open yet she'd assume that she was supposed to be opening with me.....

In any case.
A little while later, when I was in the middle of cleaning the cages for today.
My next coworker showed up.
Asking "So, do you need me to open up the floor or what?"
To which I had to smile and say. "You're not in the dept this morning. You're stocking."
O.o "Huh?" Came her confused response.
To the same reasons I listed above.
lol. "You're in to do pricing."
O.o "But....I've never done that!"
"Guess you get to learn."
So I sent her to the manager as well for him to teach her what to do.

lol.
Silly coworkers.
They would have realized if they checked the schedule that they weren't scheduled in my dept.
But again, it makes sense since it was both their first time being scheduled for Stocking that they wouldn't think they were in stocking.

In any case.
It's a good thing I had the heads up from the manager that more people were coming in for pricing. And that I had checked the schedule to see who was scheduled in my dept for the day so I knew when my coworkers should be in the dept and when they shouldn't. :)

Overall, it was rather amusing. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

Time At The Job

For some reason, the past couple of days. I feel like customers have been commenting about how long I've worked at Starsmet.

It's just little comments like:
"You've been here a while."
"Still here I see."
"Wow, you must have been here for a bit."

Things like that.
One guy was like "It's really good to still see you around, that you've stuck to this job."

lol.

Yah, I suppose when it comes to a retail job....it's odd to stay longer than a year...most the time it's odd to stay longer than six months....

But I've been at my job for 4 years.

lol. Basically I'm ancient when it comes to retail years. ;) haha.

But hey.
If I like the job.
Why not stick around? lol

It gives me experience and knowledge to help customers.
And the longer I stay the more I know. lol. :)

So yah.
Customers have been commenting that I'm always around.
But I feel that that's a good thing.
Because if they see me always around.
They know I'm around.
Therefore I should know a lot.
Which in most cases I do. :)

So all in all.
It's a good thing to stick around. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi