Hop-a-long

I was in the middle of counting fish when I saw it.
This dark blob hiding in the corner where one wall of fish connects to another.

A step closer and I knelt down to realize. 
O.o 

There was a Fire Belly Toad on the floor.
About 12 tanks away from where he should have been, in his tank. 

The poor thing was so dark, and had bits of dust and fluff stuck to him.

Nearly I thought he was dead,
As I know Fire Belly Toads are semi aquatic...
But I don't know how long they can last before they need to go back into water.

And I had no idea how long this little froggy had been out of it's tank.
Nor how he'd gotten out of the cage in the first place. O.o 
I mean.......really. I have no idea....

But out of the tank he was.
And thankfully, once I poked and prodded him, I discovered that he was still alive. 
*sigh of relief* 
If a bit lethargic.
Which I figured meant, he really should be put back in his cage into the water.

So I picked up the froggy and took him over to his tank, picking off the dust and such as I did so, and gently set him down inside in the water, gently sprinkling him with a bit more of it as he climbed halfway onto land again. 

Thankfully, it seems like his jaunt outside his tank didn't have lasting effects. He turned bright green again quickly enough and seemed like a happy camper. ^^ 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Little Celebrations

I helped the most adorable grandpa today.
He was an older man, probably in his 80s or 90s by looks. 
Who had a cute little shuffle walk as he moved about the fish wall with his cane.
And a high breathy voice that you really could only understand if you were paying attention to him and trying to figure out what he was saying.

But he was the sweetest thing. ^^ 
lol he had a couple of helpers around my age with him.
Helping him to decide on what fish he wanted to get for his fish tank to 'spice it up' a bit. 

And it was so cute.
Because after I would catch his fish, and show them to him to make sure it was what he wanted. 
He would do a little fist pump, shaking his hand in the air and let out a breathy "yaaaah!!!" of celebration because he was so excited to be getting fish. 
It was so heart warming to deal with him, catching him his fish and seeing his excitement.
Ah. I could have helped him all day. ^^ I loved being around his cheerful attitude. ^^ 

I kinda hope this old man comes back for another visit. I would love to help him again.

-Sarnic Dirchi

But Why Work Here?

There are times when I wonder why my coworkers choose to work at the store....
I mean....I'm pretty sure they're doing it because they need the money. 
But....why....why if like, you're allergic to animals....would you want to work in a petstore? 
Or if you're afraid of snakes....why would you want to work in a petstore, more specifically, in the dept that deals with the snakes....?

I don't get it. Why work at a job that causes you stress, anxiety...or your allergies go crazy??

Today I learned that one of my coworker's is a bit of a germaphobe....
Which.....I know most public spaces are rather germ filled.....but I feel like a pet store with a ton of different animals in the store, messes being made, people coming and going....
It just doesn't seem like a place you'd want to work....

But I've had more than one coworker over the years who've stated that they're exactly that. A germaphobe... 
*shakes head* 

I don't get it. 
Perhaps it's a way to try and get over their anxiety/fears/etc? 
I dunno.....I really dunno

-Sarnic Dirchi

No Touchy!

I had to deal with one of our regular crazy customers today. 

This particular customer is rather particular about what you do with the bag of dog food that she wants to buy.
Where you have to carry the bag of dog food -she never grabs a cart to use. 
And basically hold it while she pays for it. 
Because if you set that bag of dog food down on the ground....it's now 'unsellable' to her and you have to walk all the way to the back of the store and grab a fresh 'untainted' bag for her to take home. 
And once you get it out to her car, the bag must go on the seat, not on the floor. 

*shakes head*
Apparently she's quite the germaphobe? 
Which makes sense with all the loops she makes us jump to keep her happy.
But I do wonder how she functions at home if she has a dog....I mean dogs are messy creatures....if you're a germaphobe how do you handle having a dog?? *shakes head* 

In any case.
I got to help her today.
lol also managed to witness the most awkward of hugs.
As she tried to hug the Head Manager -because he's her favorite. --because he works with her to help her get her needs and such. 
But because she's a bit of a germaphobe she didn't hug him. 
Like she air hugged him. 
There was a good two or three inches of space between them as they 'hugged'
*shakes head* 

So. weird.

I'm glad that I only deal with her on occasion. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Gone Away

So we had this mouse that's been in our sick room for months now. Because it ended up in a fight with another mouse, and got a bite/wound that caused hair to fall out and such. 
It should have been a simple matter of letting the wound heal and the hair grow back....
But it wasn't doing that.
So we treated it for ringworm for a bit....
Didn't work.
Took it to the vet and they tried an injection to help it heal.
It didn't work.
The wound and hair loss would get better...only for it to suddenly get worse again. 
O.o 
Was it mites? Some infection? 
I mean it got worse...like something had burst...only to heal again. 

We took it to the vet again, because the injuries were spreading down the mouse's sides along with the hairloss.

So I had the manager take it to the vet.
But...when I got back to work....the mouse wasn't there. 
We'd taken some other animals along with the mouse to the vet that day....and they'd returned but that one hadn't.

Which meant....that more than likely the Mouse had to be put down... :( 
Which is always disconcerting because...why would they put down the mouse/ it was fine beyond the random wounds. 

Apparently it wasn't fine.
When I asked, I was told that they put the mouse down because he was self harming himself. :( 
So the mouse was injuring himself on purpose. 
Who knows why....

Almost I think he might have been lonely.....
*exhales* 
I wish we could have done something different. Maybe tried putting him with another mouse or something. 

Y_Y Poor mouse. I don't like it when the result ends in that manner. Y_Y 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Do Not Enter Here

So there I was in the back room behind the fish wall, doing dishes as I was in the middle of cleaning out cages, when I look up to see a customer standing a few yards away by the door...inside the room.
The room clearly marked "Employees Only." 
The door where this customer shouldn't have entered, and should not be approaching me in. 

So I quickly go to meet her.
To a) get her out of the employees only section and b) figure out why in the world there was a customer trying to get my help an HOUR before the store opened. >.< Ugh. 
Why couldn't they have flagged down a groomer or one of the stockers who were actually on the floor and not behind "Employees only doors." What provoked the woman to go searching behind these doors in the first place? Who knows.

But she was there to 'make a return'
Which I was like "we don't open for another hour."
"well, we called and they said to come in at this time." 

What crazy person told you that you could come in at this time?? >.< If they were for grooming it would make sense. 

Turns out it was.
The customers had come in to get their money back on a groom that had been done on their dog because the groomer had for whatever reason (I didn't find out) shaved the dog waaaay to close to the skin on one of it's legs. And apparently it had made it red and slightly swollen. 

But the customers had refused to bring the dog back to the groomers with them this morning so the groomers could see if they could 'fix' the problem, nor did they bring the dog in so that we could have our vet check out the dog to make sure there was no lasting injury.

No....they just wanted their money back.
which I couldn't do because it's a slightly more complicated process to return a grooming thing than a regular purchase. So I had to get the manager involved and it took 15 of my precious 'before the store opens' time away from the tasks I needed to get done.

Thankfully I was able to break away from them and return to my task, so idk what ended up being resolved, but I'm guessing they got their money back in the end.

-Sarnic Dirchi

What's the Actual Number?

So there's this semi-regular customer I have to deal with.
Who I was fine with helping at first....

Until he tried to guilt me into watching over his fish while he disappeared for the winter to a different state.
You know, by saying "They'll die if you don't come take care of them!"

To which I was rather unsympathetic.
I mean, come on dude, you took on the responsibility. Be responsible for your own fish. Take them with you or get someone else to watch them, but don't guilt me into it by threatening their lives. >.<

-He had another coworker of mine watch his fish while he was gone I believe.

In any case.
I haven't liked him much since, though I'm still nice to him, I'm not...as nice.

But he came into the store today.
Wanting goldfish to feed to his Tiger Oscar.

So he said: "Can I get 15 small goldfish?" 
To which I replied. "Fifteen? Sure." 
"No, No, Fifty." He corrected me. 
"Oh, Sorry I don't always hear the difference between 15 and 50." I told him as I went to grab a container to catch him his 50 fish.

And so I set to work scooping out fish and counting them into the container. 
Only for him to say as I was nearing 50. 
"How many fish is that?"
"Around 40 currently." I told him.
"No! No! I just wanted FIFTEEN!" He told me.
I gave him a look. "That's what I said the first time and you corrected me so I heard fifty." 
And he was like O.O "Oh, I thought you said Ten, so I corrected you to Fifteen. But never mind I'll just take the ones you got, that will save me the hassle of coming back next week." 

>.< Ugh.
How do you hear 10 from 15? That doesn't even make any sense.
At least there's an understanding from confusing 15 and 50.
But 10 and 15?
I don't get it.
But whatever.
I got him his fish. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi 

Pulled Open

Our doors were shut when the customer pulled them open and walked in.
I thought she was there for grooming originally, until I saw that she was carrying a baby carrier and not a dog carrier like I'd first thought. Until I saw her grabbing a cart. 
Which was an issue.
Because we weren't open yet.
That's why the doors were shut and not automatically opening.
Because over the past month we've had people coming into the store an hour before we open because we've had the doors automatically opening for grooming customers who can come in to drop off their dogs up to two hours before the main store opens.
So we've taken to keeping the doors shut and occasionally locked to prevent normal customers from coming into the store. 

This woman had apparently ignored that fact.
So to double check I intercepted her and asked. "Are you here for grooming or the vet?" 
To which she responded "No?"
"I'm sorry, but the main store isn't open yet."
"Oh...But I saw people inside (the grooming salon has windows customers can see in to) and figured you were open." 
"Grooming is open yes, but the main store is not." I repeated and sent the woman back on her way. 
*shakes head* 
Honestly....just because there are people inside doesn't mean we're open.
I mean we have people in to stock and clean and such before customers come in. 

Really....some people need to learn to look at the hours posted on our doors....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Dead or Dying?

We're experiencing one of those die offs at work currently.
Where something strikes our Feeder Goldfish and they just start dropping like flies, so it's like a never ending task to pull dead fish from their tanks. 

So I was once again, doing another dead fish pull from the Feeders.
When I got temporarily pulled away by a customer. I hadn't thought it would be that long, and since there were no other customers, I left the bag of dead fish by the last tank I'd been fishing dead out of so I would have an easier time remembering where I left off. 

However, the customer ended up having more questions than I had anticipated, so while we were talking more customers showed up.

And with these customers were a bunch of kids. 
Who doing what Kids do best....promptly noticed the bag of dead fish.

Only they ended up freaking out about it.
Since I was talking to a customer I didn't quite tune into how it started.
But when I finally looked over to see what the commotion was about, there was a girl of like 10 years old or so holding the bag of dead fish and looking into it, with other younger kids surrounding her. 

Why?
Because they were worried that those fish were dying and the girl was coming to me to have me save them basically. 

However....the fish were already dead.
So I was like "Put that back. They're dead." 
So the child went and plopped them back on the floor. 

*shakes head*

Why do children only ever notice the dead fish? Really it's the weirdest thing.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Update

It was towards the end of my work shift when I answered the phone.
And on the other end was a guy who asked me "If I still had the Red Factor" in the store.

Which considering only one guy has referred to our canary as a Red Factor recently, meant that for whatever reason the guy I had to deal with yesterday was now on the other end of the line. 

So I confirmed for him. "Yes, we still have him here." 
"Oh! So it's a boy then." He said.
Me: "No...no, I don't know the gender, I tend to refer to animals as 'he' because all our rodents in the store are males. So it kinda just slips out. I don't know the gender." 

But in any case.
The man on the other end said that he'd decided to get the Red Factor anyways and that he would be up soon to get it.

Considering I was off soon....that meant I won't know until tomorrow if he actually came and got his bird or not.

But I am curious.....
As he'd said that he was flying to Florida today to go buy property there.....
So shouldn't he have been in Florida? Or at least flying there? Had his flight not left yet? Had he cancelled it? Had something come up? Had he been lying through his teeth?

I'll probably never know.
But I am curious as to whether or not that Red Canary is in the store tomorrow. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Red Factor

We had a customer come into the store today that....tried to strong arm us into breaking a policy.
I was in the back doing cleaning tasks when he apparently first came in. 
As I heard a call over the intercom for someone in my dept to go to birds.
I hadn't hoped that my coworker who was actually in that same area would deal with the customer, but it's notorious for my coworkers to not be where I expect them to be when customers need help.
So I made my way up to the front.

To see a guy coming back from the cashier, wanting to know if either one of us knew anything about the two canaries we had for sale. Particularly the "Red Factor" we had. (A red canary, the other was yellow) As he was pretty confident it was a girl, but wanted to know for sure.

Unfortunately we couldn't tell him that answer, as we'd only had the two of them in for like a week.
And with canaries, as young as they are, it's difficult to tell their gender easily. The difference is very slight, becoming much easier to tell when they're older.
So we go by the two main things with canaries.
If it lays an egg, it's a female.
If it sings, it's a male. 

The man was confident the red canary was a female.
-Which I halfway agree with because I've noticed that the females tend to have a bit of brown to them, and this canary has a patch of brown on it's head. 
But someone else had written a note saying that the red was a male....
Sooo...who knows. I haven't heard any singing, haven't seen any eggs so I couldn't say for sure what gender they were.

Regardless, the man was like: "I want this bird, but I want you to hold it for me for a week." 
To which I responded. "I'm sorry we can't do that." 
"Are you a manager?" He demanded. 
Which...."No, I'm not." but I have more experience in my department and with than animals than any of my other managers currently soooo THERE! 
But I continued with: "No I'm not, but we have a policy where we don't hold animals because there's too much of a chance of miscommunication to happen and having the animal accidentally getting sold to the wrong person, so we don't hold animals." There's also the chance the person would never come back, or that the animal would die before the person comes to get it. Sooo therefore we don't hold animals.
At most, under certain circumstances, and only with manager approval will we hold an animal, but it's never been longer than the end of the day. 
We'll also do like temporary holds because we have people come from like 4 hours away to visit our store so if a customer calls and asks if we have an animal in stock we can put a temporary "Don't sell this animal because a customer is coming to grab it." hold on it. 

But for a week?
No. We don't hold animals for that long. Ever. 

The man didn't like that saying: "I'm going to Florida for a week! I need to have this bird, else if it's gone when I get back I'm going to be super pissed off!" 

Which. Geez. Chill out grandpa. (He was older grey haired, but not a friendly grandpa, no he was intimidating) 

But I am the sort of person to help out.
And I did have the thought that we could take the canary off the floor and put it in a back room where we keep animals we don't have room on the floor for for the week. 
But I didn't voice this outloud, because a) I didn't like the guy's attitude and b)it wasn't policy.
But I played nice and said "I can't hold the bird, but I'll go double check with the manager for you." 

So I escaped away from him for a little bit to check in with the Head Manager.
Who said No. 
And stated the exact same reasons I had already told the customer.
So I returned to him again and told him that we couldn't hold the bird.

To which he finally resigned himself to it. Though I did ask him if he couldn't purchase the bird today and have someone watch it.
To which he said No, he didn't have anyone like that.

However, in the conversation that continued after that. It turns out he has a Red canary already that is a male and that he wants a female so that he can create a breeding red factor pair.

-Which my sister later pointed out....if he already owns a red male canary...why couldn't he have bought the one in the store today? Obviously someone has to be watching that bird already, so why not have them watch two?

In any case. The man left the store, with his fingers crossed that the Canary will still be there after a week. 
But not without a parting word to my cashier, that he thought the manager was a Chicken for not being willing to hold the bird. 

>.< Which. Excuse me? Just because we don't bow to your whims and wants and desires doesn't mean that my manager is a chicken. He's following policy. We're ensuring that we don't end up with a dead animal, an animal that we can't sell, or unhappy customers. We're looking out for the animal/customers. 

Honestly, I can't decide if I want someone to buy the red canary while he's out of town, or if I want it to still be here when he gets back in town. *shakes head* I don't know.

But it is interesting that he required four of us telling him that we can't hold the bird for a week before he was willing to give up on trying to get us to hold the bird for him.
As he asked the Cashier who said No. But the cashier also double checked by calling the VP manager...who also said No. Then he talked to me, and I said no. And I went and checked with the head manager....who also said No. 
*shakes head*

Geez. Some customers. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Of Course It's Wet There

There was a customer today who came up to one of my coworkers to inform her that he'd nearly slipped by the fish wall and that someone should clean up the water spilled.

Which...what were you doing to almost slip at the fish wall dude?
My guess was that he was wearing flip flops. Those things are slippery. 

But I found I kinda....silly to go complain to a coworker that there's water by the fish wall....
Because there is always some water on the floor there.
It's what happens when you catch fish constantly for customers.
Water gets out of it's tank and falls to the ground.

*shakes head* 
It seemed like a pointless gesture really. 
But whatever floats that guy's boat and convinces him he won't slip again. *shakes head*
My coworker did grab a mop to wipe up the water.
But unsurprisingly the floor was wet not two minutes later when another series of customers came in wanting us to catch fish. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Deptartmental Crisis

I'm not quite sure what happened this morning in the department.
But something got lost in communication or action...
Because when I came in to help support the evening crew in the dept.
(Because two of my evening shift coworkers had called out)
The department was all out of sorts.
Like the store closed in three hours, and my coworker was just barely getting to the task of changing out the betta water in our new bettas that just arrived.
O.o
That's a task that usually gets done before I leave work, around lunch time.
And here we were in the middle of the dinner time rush.
*shakes head*
Plus the back rooms were a chaotic mess because it was packed willy nilly with the supply order I'd sent in...none of it had been properly put away.
*exhales*
I did what I could to get the dept back in order, but I definitely will have a bit more to do tomorrow when I get into work.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Rotten Stench

So, earlier in the week, we had a customer come up to the register to complain that there were open rotting cans of cat food in our cat food aisle -often nicknamed Cat Can Alley because there's cans of cat food on both sides of the aisle- that had flies buzzing around it and such.
Which...I thought was weird, like why would we allow rotting food to just sit on the shelf?

Well...it's probably because we don't like working Cat Can Alley. It's honestly a nightmare to face and stock that section of the store. *shakes head* It's difficult to ever make it look neat.
But still...rotting food....

So I went to check it out, wondering if the customer was exaggerating.
They weren't.
There were a ton of little black flies flying about one four foot section of the cans. Crawling all over the place.
And then an awful stench. Gag inducing. That I smelt before I caught sight of two cans.
One broken open, the other punctured, sitting on the shelf.

I have no idea why those cans were open...had they been dropped? Had someone opened them and left them? Was it an accident or was it on purpose? Who knows.
I just know that it reeked.
So I quickly pulled the open cans from the shelf, and returned to that section to check the other cans in that area to make sure none of the others were broken open before spraying the empty shelf with a cleaning agent, and replacing the cans.

But then a couple of days later....I happened to walk down that aisle again....
And I could still smell the stench of rotting food.
There were still flies buzzing around the area.

Which...I checked that section to make sure there were no more open food cans! Why were the cat cans being sooo smelly again? Was it still a left over smell or was there something open?

I did a quick cursory glance, trying to find the source.
But the stench this time was a bit more powerful, the flies a bit more pervasive. So I ended up retreating to tell a manager about the issue.

And today, they finally figured out where the stench was coming from.

It was another couple of open cans of cat food.
Stuffed back out of sight.
But this time they were apparently crawling with maggots/larvae. :S EEEEWWWWWW!!!!

Thankfully, it seems like getting rid of those disgusting cans and again cleaning the area finally got rid of the smell....

But I do have to wonder....are we going to find a couple more cans of open cat food in a couple more days? Is this a new prank going on where people come into the store to open and leave cans of food to rot? Or was it just stocking/manufacturing error?
If it happens again...I'm going to say it's possibly human meddlement....because we checked those cans.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wet Food

I had a woman call work today with a concern about her cat. 
You see, she had adopted the cat about a month ago, and it wasn't eating Wet Food. So she was wondering what she was doing wrong and how she could convince the cat to eat wet food. 

Now...if a cat isn't eating at all, that's something you should call a vet for. As there may be some sort of internal issue. Which means...there's not much I can do to help out without knowing what's wrong.

But it's not like cats just eat Wet Food. So I asked the customer if they'd had tried feeding the cat dry food yet. Maybe the cat just didn't like wet food. 

To which the customer said. "Oh yah, he's eating the dry food just fine, and also drinking lots of water. But no matter what we do, he won't eat the wet food!! What do we do?" 

So I told them that it was fine that the cat wasn't eating wet food. Since he's eating the dry food and drinking water that means that he's fine. That some cats don't like to eat wet food. 

The customer seemed confused by that. "Why wouldn't the cat like wet food?" 

Umm.... because cats have different tastes?
"Cat's are just like people." I told her. "some like one thing and don't like another, just like some people like chocolate and others don't, or they like vegetables and others don't. It's just a matter of their taste. So some cats will eat wet food and others won't." 

"oooh, that makes sense." She said.

Yah...yah it does.
*shakes head*
Honestly...it confuses me when people ask that sort of question. I mean, since people in general have such varied tastes, it would make sense that animals would be the same way. Some would like one food, another would not like it. 
Everyone is slightly different.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Over the Top

I'd been noticing that the flow of water into our Feeder Goldfish tanks had been a bit...sluggish the past little bit. Where it was difficult to get a good strong flow going. 
Not a good thing when you have like 2000 fish that are needing flowing water so that they are getting enough oxygen. 
Normally pulling off the lock lines that control the waterflow into each tank helps, as they can get clogged up with gunk/snails/and other things. 
But as I pulled off the first of the locklines...I had the thought that perhaps something in the back sump/holding tank area was clogged up. As back there can get a bit messy and needs gravel vacuuming from time to time.
So leaving the tank as it was -without putting the lockline back on- I went into the back, and discovered that the part that sucks water from the sump into the tanks had a filter thing that was basically clogged. So I took it off, rinsed it out, put it back and gravel vacuumed up the rest of the gunk in that tank back there before adjusting the gravel vacuum so that I would be able to put water back into the tank since I'd vacuumed out a lot of it in my effort to clean the thing.

And I think somewhere in the middle of that, where I was filling the back tank back up, I got a phone call that took me away from my task and onto the floor.

It didn't take long, but as I headed back I happened to glance at the fish wall...
And noticed that the tank where I had left the lock line off....was overflowing. 
:S 
AHHH!!

Apparently not all the gunk had gotten sucked up by my gravel vacuum, but some of it had gone through the pipes into that tank and clogged the baskets that prevent the fish from swimming into the pipes while allowing water to still flow....
and with clogged out flows...the water just filled up the tank...and went over the tank.... :S

I reacted quickly darting into the back behind the fish tanks to get the gravel vacuum -that was putting water into the tank- out of the sump back there and turned off before I darted outside.

Only to realize that the water wasn't going down.
I noted that the other locklines were hardly running...probably due to the fact that that one lockline was missing so the water had easier access to getting out there. 

So I figured...why not even out the pressure of the water?
Which lead to a mad scramble for me to undo the locklines in the rest of the feeder goldfish tanks (there's 8 total) which allowed the water to spread out and lessen the pressure. 
Which thankfully meant the first tank's water levels were going down and no longer flooding the floor. 
-It wasn't a bad flood, easy enough to mop up.

And after I discovered that the baskets...the out flows were clogged, and taking them off and cleaning them...
The water levels evened out. :D 

Which finally allowed me to get the all the locklines back into their proper places.
And yah....definitely a moment of high adrenaline for me lol. 
But hey! The locklines are once more back to their stronger flows so that's a good thing. ^-^

-Sarnic Dirchi

Thirsty

My poor coworker was suffering a bit today.
Because she was stuck on register for the remainder of the evening and for whatever reason it was rather hot in the store...
And she'd forgotten her water bottle. :S So she had no easy access to water.
And with our vending machine broken....she couldn't get water that way either.

However, upon hearing that she needed a water bottle.
I came to the rescue.

As a while ago we had a work party that had had bottles of water.
And me...I'd grabbed one and shoved it in my locker on that offchance that I would need it some day. 

Turns out that day was today. 

So I just went to my locker, grabbed the bottle of water and took it up to the register for my coworker. That way she would be able to stay hydrated in our warmer than normal store. :) Yay!

Woot for being prepared. ^^ 

-Sarnic Dirchi

All Messed Up

So as part of my morning routine at work, I have to face the entire department.
Which basically means I need to make sure all the products in my section are lined up neatly and are actually sitting in the right spots.
Some mornings it's easier to face the department than others.
Mostly because it depends on if my evening crew managed to do facing before they left for the night.
Still, it's always interesting to note which products are almost always messed up.
Like without fail, the items will be moved about/ in the wrong spot.
One example is in our Reptile section.
We have a shelf that has Dinosaur skeleton heads on it.
And without fail almost every morning when I come into face, I have to move them back to their correct spots. *shakes head*

But then there are the days where customers just go crazy with our things.
Particularly the fish decoration aisles.
There are some days where the place is totally trashed. Ornaments everywhere.

And that was the case today.
But not this morning.

No, it was around lunch time when I was helping out a customer. A mother with three kids. She was wanting to get a small tank with fish, and was taking forever to decide on which fish she wanted to get.

And while she was dithering.
She had a daughter who was very tactile.

I caught her putting hermit crab shells in the feeder goldfish tanks.
But hadn't thought much of it.
I mean she had a couple other ornaments in her hands, but I hadn't seen them placed in fish tanks so I figured she was just holding onto them for when they would buy them and set up the tank at home.

However,
I discovered differently.
When after they finally left, I took a jaunt down the fish aisle.
And discovered that this girl who liked to touch everything.
Had found her way down the ornament aisle.
And proceeded to rearrange basically the entire section. 
>.< 
It took me 20 minutes to put everything back in its place.
Because entire shelves full of ornaments had been shoved onto other shelves.

*exhales*

I really wish that the customer had paid a bit more attention to their children.
Because while it gave me something to do between customers.
It's honestly annoying to have to put everything back into it's place.

Honestly, I don't mind things being touched in the store.
But if you pick it up...put it back exactly where you found it.
It's not that difficult.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Eye Problems

There I was. Minding my own business as I was working on getting all the perches and bowls out of the bird cages so they could be cleaned today.
When one of the birds, or maybe more than one of the parakeets took off into flight. 
I felt something hit my eye. 
Blinked.
and kinda felt like there was something still on the edge of my lashes even though I couldn't feel anything nor see it. 

So I ignored it, doing other things,
Until our small animal delivery guy came to deliver our weekly shipment of animals.
And while he was situating himself, I blinked.

And suddenly I was in agony.
As something got into my eye.
But I had no idea what! 
Yet it was there. It was painful.
And I couldn't just dash away to get it out because the guy was there and needed to get the animals into the store.
So blinking as much as I could to get it out, failing, then trying to not blink as I acted as normally as possible to the delivery guy, I waited until he left before I dashed to the bathroom to check out my eye in the mirror.
And could see nothing.
Like my eye was red from being irritated but I couldn't see anything. There was no eyelash or anything visible that was irritating me.
So I pulled out my contact lens, wondering if something had somehow got underneath it. 
But when I put it back in the irritation was still there -with the lens in or out- 
So I set myself to just working to ignore this irritation. Hoping that my eyes would forget it or flush it out on it's own. 

So I suffered for a bit, before I went on break.
And while on break I looked in the mirror again.
Happened to pull down the bottom lid of my eyelid a bit just to see if I could see anything.
And discovered the shell of a birdseed hiding underneath that bottom lid!!
No wonder my eye was irritated!! Gah!

And the stubborn seed piece Would. Not. Come. Out!

Because I guess the moisture in my eyes was helping to hold it in place or something.
As it took me a couple of minutes to finally get it out of my eye.

and Oh, what sweet relief to have that irritation finally gone. 
Such a relief. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Overslept

It's been a while since I've pulled into the parking lot to see no manager car already there. 

I mean, occasionally the managers will be dropped off at work so they won't have a car.
But I knew this morning that wasn't the case because I could still see my other coworkers waiting in their cars. 
Which meant, the manager hadn't shown up.

And unfortunately for my coworkers, they didn't have the manager's number that was supposed to be there letting us in.

Luckily. I did. 
So I gave the manager a call to see where he was at.

Turns out he was still asleep. 
Even with like six alarms set, he'd still managed to ignore them all.
lol so it was a good thing I called him, otherwise he would have still been sleeping....
and our store would have remained closed with no one able to get inside. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Your Other Left

I was in the middle of scrubbing tanks when a customer walked up to me and asked "Do you have any Oscars?" 

Not meaning the award, but the a type of Cichlid, that we do sell.
So I responded with "yah," I straightened enough from scrubbing to point them in the right direction. "They're in the tanks right there, top row last one."

So the customer looks....at the wrong tank, one tank to the right of where they should be looking. 
So I correct them. "No, it's to your left."

The customer moved a step to the right.
"No, the tank is to your left."
They step to the right again. 

I had to correct them again. "The other direction." 

To which the customer was sheepishly like "Oh, sorry." And finally found the correct tank. 
*shakes head* 

Not sure what they were thinking when I said "to your left...." but it wasn't what I meant....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Overscented

I hate the smell of cat litter.
It's just something that doesn't sit right on my senses. 
But thankfully for the most part, the litter we use at work for the cats there doesn't bug me too much. 

However, someone in the last day or so since I cleaned the cat cages grabbed a new container of cat litter.
And whatever brand they chose wasn't the usual brand we use.
It was sooo heavily scented it filled the entire room. 
Ugh.

It made cleaning there a bit of a pain because the scent irritated my senses. *exhales* 

And it's so strong that I can still smell it....hours after my shift ended. XP 
Ugh. Why does cat litter have to be sooooo smelly?!?!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Many Many Many Fish

We were rather low on our feeder goldfish. 
Which wasn't on purpose. 
*exhales* We just ended up with a bad batch of them this time around.
So most of them ended up dying off over the past week or so.
Due to who knows what for sure. 
I did everything I could think of to help them out. *shakes head* 
In any case. 

We were low on feeders.
When this gentleman and his grandson came into the store.
And wanted to know how many of my small goldfish we had.
I glanced at the tank and said "Oh around 200" 
He said. "Give me 150 of those then, and then 100 of your Large" 

()_() 
I mean, I'm used to fishing out big numbers of goldfish.
People buy a ton of them to fill their ponds all the time.
But I really dislike fishing out that many fish when our tanks are more on the empty side because I can't catch as many fish at one time which means catching 150 goldfish takes a bit of time.
Luckily the Large goldfish tanks were basically full so it was a cinch to catch 100 of those.
But the 150 took For-ev-er to catch. 

And it turns out I only had like 136 small goldfish. Y_Y Foo.
So I ended up fishing out the other 14 from the xsmall tanks since they're basically the same size and the same price as the small goldfish. 

Unfortunately. 
As I was midway through catching the gentleman's fish, a woman came up also needing help with fish.
Specifically Goldfish.
She wanted a hundred of them as well.
And I definitely did not have 100 more small goldfish since I was now pulling from the x-smalls.
I would be lucky if I had 50 xsmall goldfish when I was done grabbing the rest of the gentleman's fish.

So she was like "Just give me what's left." 
and what was left was like 38 small goldfish. That my coworker fished out for her, because I was still working on the first gentleman's order of fish.
And she proceeded to get 50 of the large goldfish as well.

But it was just kinda interesting that two people who needed a lot of fish both came at the same time.
Like if the woman had been earlier than the guy then she would have gotten all the fish she wanted and he would have had to settle.

*exhales*
Hopefully I get more fish in early next week.
Because come Monday, I expect to walk into work and see the feeder goldfish tanks completely empty.

-Sarnic Dirchi