To the Mouse!

I had the oddest call come over the intercom today.
I was in the back behind the fish, where it's not always easy to distinguish what is being said over the intercom. 

And I thought what I heard was "Petcare to the mouse please. Petcare to the mouse."
And I was like. O.o First off I have more than one mouse so it should be mice. Second...why did you not just say small pets?

So I came out from behind the fish wall to double check that I'd heard the call correctly.
And as I approached the cashier, he hung up the phone and pointed upwards. "Wait for it." 
Sure enough I then heard. "Petcare to small pets please, pet care to small pets." 

Which, good to know lol. I was right in guessing where I was meant to be.

But it was interesting to note, that the head manager seemed to take this small slip up -which happened because the cashier had never needed to call anyone over to the small pets before- as something really funny.

Because after that point, anytime the Head Manager would see me, while the Cashier was in earshot he'd call out. "Sarnic! Petcare to the mouse! Petcare to the mouse!" 

lol. *shakes head* Alrighty then.

Still. It was kinda funny. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Clocking In

There are times when I get distracted at the wrong moment.
Usually if I forget to clock in, it's because I got distracted by a customer or my mind was going to a different place as I was getting off of lunch.
But usually, I'm rather conscious of clocking into work.
I don't really remember ever forgetting to clock in...
If I did...it was only like five minutes before I remembered.

But today, my mind wasn't obviously in a conscious place.
Because I totally forgot to clock in this morning when I got into work.
And only realized it when I tried to clock out. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Attacked

So there I was, kitty in my lap, petting her after I'd finished cleaning her cage at work. 
It wasn't anything to think about really, I often pet the kitties to give them a little bit more time outside the cage.
But all too soon I had to put her back. 
So I tried to pick her up to put her back.

And all of a sudden, she attacked. 
Biting down hard on my hand.

I have no idea what I did, if I jarred a tender spot, or held her wrong, or if she just randomly decided she didn't like the position...

But thankfully, I was wearing gloves when the kitty decided to go all feral and bite me.
So I didn't end up bleeding or anything. 
Luckily.

Because yeow. That would have been waaaay more painful if I hadn't been wearing gloves. :S 

*shakes heads*
No idea what I did to trigger her...but hopefully it doesn't happen again.
I already have one other crazy cat to deal with currently at work, I don't need a second one. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Hinge Problems

So forever ago. Like possibly even a year ago, the lid to our large cricket container broke off. 
Which happens on occasion. The hinges just feel too much pressure/stress and end up snapping off.
Mostly from people forcefully shoving the lid back to keep it standing up and not fall back down on us while we're trying to get crickets.

So for like the entire year, we left the lid off the crickets.
Because it was broken anyways, and the crickets couldn't jump out as well as it helped to give a bit more air flow so that the crickets inside the box wouldn't get too humid and kill them off.

So it wasn't an issue for us to leave the lid off.

It was an issue for customers though.
Because they didn't know that the crickets couldn't jump that high to get out.

So at least six times a day I would have to explain to customers that the crickets "Can't jump that high." or "Yes, the lid is off because it was getting too humid in there for the crickets." etc. 

Which got rather tedious. 

However, finally. Finally.
We ordered new lids -that have vents in them to allow the crickets to breathe.
And they came with hinges so that once more we could have the lid connected to the cricket boxes....

Only, my manager put the lid of the large cricket box on too loosely.
So it didn't stay up.

His reasoning?
He thought tightening the hinges all the way create too much pressure on the hinge which was why it was breaking.

Uhmmm No. I corrected him.
The hinges snap because workers are putting too much force on the hinge in an effort to try and keep the lid up. 
If the lid stays up, less pressure is put on it.
If the lid doesn't stay up, more pressure is put on it.

It doesn't matter if the lid rubs against the box and creates pressure that way on the hinge.
I didn't see it as the issue.

And so I was like "I'm not going to be surprised if the hinge breaks within the next week or so." 

Guess what?
Yah. I came into work to find that one of the hinges was broken. 

It hasn't been a full week yet, I'm pretty sure. 

*shakes head* 
My manager wasn't happy about that discovery.
And I was like "Told you so." 
Because if the lid stays up the hinges last longer.
It's only when the lids don't stay up that we end up breaking them.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Making Water Flow

This morning when I came into work, I noticed that our feeder goldfish tanks weren't looking quite right.
Well...considering they're all empty right now...that's definitely not right.
But I noticed that each tank seemed to have a different level of water, when usually they're all at the same level.

I hadn't thought much more on it though, since it's common for the locklines (that bring water into the tanks) to get clogged up (like with snails cus those things are everywhere) and so I figured that the locklines in those tanks had clogged after a coworker had gone through and gravel vacuumed the tanks to keep them looking nice. Which meant that the water levels had remained lower.

However, later, once the lights to the fish tanks had turned on when the store officially opened for the day, I noticed that it wasn't just one or two tanks that weren't flowing in the feeder goldfish section. ALL of them weren't flowing. 
O.o 
Now that's just...weird.

Could they all be clogged?
I twisted off one lockline to see if there were any debris trapped behind it...but no water whatsoever flowed. 

That was...concerning.
But I halfway figured that the cause was probably due to an issue in the back behind the fish wall.
As the goldfish tanks run on a different water system from the rest of the fish wall. And that water system, doesn't replenish it's water in the sump (holding tank) in the back that filters the water. So if the water levels in that back holding tank get too low...no water can flow into the goldfish tanks up front.

A check in the back proved this theory to be correct.
The sump was nearly empty.
Which meant that whoever had gravel vacuumed the tanks recently...had done quite the thorough job. As usually a quick sweep through the tanks doesn't affect the flow that much.

Thankfully.
Fixing it was a simple thing.
Which involved adding more water into the sump in back so that water could flow into the tanks up front.
But because I was adding in a ton of water, that meant I then had to go out and clear out all the locklines to ensure that no debris were constricting the water flow. 

Luckily its all flowing smoothly now. 
And thankfully...we had no goldfish in those tanks when this happened.
because I probably would have come into a ton of dead fish this morning if we did. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Good Experience

I had a bit of fun today helping a couple of guys out in buying a fish for their apartment. 
Originally they wanted to try and do a betta fish in a bowl. 

But were totally game to upgrade to a small tank with a filter when I told them that they'd only need to do water changes once a month instead of weekly on their betta fish. 

And it was just a fun experience overall.
Because they were receptive and willing to listen and were totally on board with what I suggested.
And it was fun for them to decide on a tank, and then for me to help them decide on decorations and to pick out the fish that they wanted.

And...I just liked the experience overall.
It's great when you can tell people are genuinely wanting to take good care of their pet.
And these two guys definitely fell into that category.

I hope their new fish does well with them. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Which Fish?

So things got a little bit busy while I was on my lunch break.
And when I got back to my department, one of my coworkers who usually doesn't help in the department was attempting to help bag some fish for some customers. 

Sensing that I would probably be able to do the job faster, and to allow my coworker to get back to their department, I took over. 

And my coworker had done the thing where they wrote down the UPCs of the fish onto the bag before catching the fish.
Which is something I usually don't do because all too often, customers end up changing their minds about type and quantity of fish they want. So I usually wait until the end after I've caught all the fish before I write on the baggy which fish I caught.

My coworker had told me that the numbers were for platys and mollies and left to go help out elsewhere in the store.

The problem?
I don't always recognize the type of fish needing to be caught just by the UPC number alone. 
After all there are some fish I catch more often than others. 

But I didn't think it would be that difficult to find them.
After all, the customer was right there.
I could just ask them.

So I was like "Alright, which fish are we grabbing?" 
And the customer was like "Your coworker wrote them down on the bag." And then promptly got distracted picking out other fish.
But it's not like I knew which fish they were just by the number.
So I tried again. "Which fish are we grabbing?"
"They're on the bag." Was her response.
"There's just numbers on the bag, and I don't recognize them, so which fish were you wanting?" 
-I mean, I could have figured out the fish from the number, but it would have saved me time and effort and searching if she'd just respond.

But what was her response? "I don't know."

O.o
How can you NOT KNOW which fish you were wanting?
Did you not STARE at the Tank and PICK them out and tell my coworker I WANT TWO OF THESE? 
Therefore.
How can you not know which fish you were wanting??

*throws hands up in the air*
Sometimes I don't understand customers.
A simple "I wanted the black and white fish, the black fish, and those sunburst ones." Would have given me so much more help then. "I don't know, they're on the bag!" 

Ugh. Customers.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wrong Store

I saw a customer wandering around the store with her phone out, looking kinda lost.
Which usually is an indication that they're trying to find a certain product...and are failing to do so. 

So I went up to her and asked if she needed help.
To which she replied yes.
She was looking for a certain brand of dog food, and did we carry it?

Turns out...we don't. Though I had heard of the brand before.
But she was like. O.o You don't!! But the brand's website said that you do! I looked up the location and everything.

And then she shows me her phone, where yes she has a bunch of store locations pulled up that state that they carry the brand of food she's looking for.

The problem?
The store she thought was us....
Wasn't us.

The address and the name of the store was of our Rival Pet Store. 
-Which happens all the time honestly. People often confuse the two. Thinking that they're both the same store. We're not. Two different stores under two different names.

I pointed it out to her.
That the store listed was the Rival store.
And she's like "That's here right?!"
Uhmm...
Nope. I told her she was in a different store lol. 

The Pet Store listed on her phone was actually over on Center Street, while we're located on Main Street. 

lol. And her reaction was: ()_() Oh....apparently I didn't read today. 

Heh...nope. No you did not. 
But at least I was able to turn her around and direct her to the right pet store so she wouldn't go home empty handed. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

It Begins with a T

I had a woman wandering around the department looking confused. 
So I asked her if I could help her find anything.
And she said that she was looking for the Thomas Hay. At least she thought it was called Thomas Hay, but all she was finding was the small endcap that had a little bit of Timothy Hay on it.

So I led her to the aisle that had more Timothy Hay, 
And also told her that we only carried Timothy Hay....I'd never actually ever heard of Thomas Hay.
Which thankfully she didn't try to argue me on the topic. 
She just accepted that she probably remembered the name wrong and that it was Timothy Hay she was supposed to be grabbing. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Biggest

I had an older woman try to return some feeder goldfish today.
Dead feeder goldfish.

Which...unfortunately we usually don't do. Because they're feeder fish.
They're meant to be fed to other animals as a food source.
So therefore, they aren't always the...most long living....
Which is why we don't guarantee them.
Because they aren't expected to live for long.

However, people do buy them as pets to put in bowls, tanks, ponds etc. 

And this customer had bought a bunch of them.
The bag probably had at least twenty dead goldfish in it.
Which.. :S Is rather depressing.

And my coworker who was dealing with her at first, was like "Can we return these?" And I was like "You gotta ask a manager on that, because we usually don't."

Unfortunately for the woman, the managers wouldn't return the dead fish for her.
Mostly because she'd come in after about 2 weeks.
Which is what the rest of our fish are guaranteed at..is a 2 week guarantee.
But with feeders with no guarantee.... no such luck.
If they'd died within 24 hours or even 48 the manager may have been more willing....but 2 weeks... *exhales*

Poor woman, I felt bad for her that she spent money on the fish only for them to die...and not get her money back on them.

And I could totally understand how she wanted to 'get her monies worth' with the new goldfish she was buying.
So when I stepped in to help her get some new goldfish she was like "I want the biggest ones you have."

Which since I only had about 20 goldfish left (we hadn't been replenished yet) didn't leave me many options.
"How many did you want?" I asked her.
"The biggest ones" were her response....which didn't tell me if she wanted all of them or three of them or half of them... *shakes head*

So I just started fishing them out, the largest ones I could get.
And stopped at seven and asked her if that was good.
To which she finally decided that she wanted ten goldfish.
So I fished out three more. 

*shakes head*

I hope that batch lasts a bit longer than the previous one. :S 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Turn Down the Music

So I had a customer call. 
But I was so confused when I picked up.
Because all I could hear was music playing.
Kinda like the "you're on hold" music that you get when you're waiting for someone to pick up at an office.
And I was like "Hello?"
To no response for at least thirty seconds.
I mean, it was loud music.
Loud enough that I had my coworker listen for a second.
Before I decided to try one more time.
"Hello?" I asked.

And finally someone responded on the other end.
Confirming that it hadn't been an accidental dial. 
It was an older woman, interested in buying a fish tank.
Which...I halfway feel like I've talked to her at least three other times...because it was the same series of questions I'd answered for other women on the phone...but for other sized tanks. 

In any case.
It quickly got frustrating on my end, because the music on her end never got quieter.
Like...why would you try and talk to someone on the phone in a loud place?
Either turn down the music or go to a different room.

Honestly...I don't know why she didn't.
She kept asking me "What?! Can you repeat that? I didn't get that? What?" 
So. very frustrating. Because It's not like I can be like "Well if you turn down the music on your end then it may be easier for you to hear me." *exhales* 

Thankfully, it wasn't too long of a phone call.
Though it did feel like an eternity before she was satisfied and ended the call. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

To the Side

There was a woman who came into the store today who had a large fluffy GoldenDoodle puppy dog.
She was needing assistance with harnesses.
As she was tired of her dog pulling her around.
And she wanted to get something that would prevent him from doing that.

Well...harnesses in of themselves don't help with the pulling problem, they actually make it worse. 

So instead I recommended her to an Easy Pull Harness. One that hooks the leash to the front of the harness instead of on the back like regular harnesses do. Which means that whenever the dog tries to pull away, they leash will pull them to the side because the hook to the harness is in front...if that makes sense.

In any case.
The customer wanted to try this particular harness on her dog right there in the store.
So I helped her get it onto her dog and fit it to him, and then we tested it to see if it actually worked.

It did!

Woot! :)
Yay for being able to suggest a simple solution to a customer's problem. :D 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Why Are They Dead?

"Why do you have dead fish in your tanks!?" The customer exclaimed like it was the greatest mystery on the planet. 
Like he couldn't believe that such a thing would happen. 
Like he didn't comprehend that there was such a thing as a dead fish.

And my brilliant response to this?
"...because they died?" I said slowly. Like...why else would I have dead fish in the tanks? Because they were obviously alive earlier, but had died sometime after I'd already swept through all the tanks. Because I do do that. I go through the tanks every morning to pull out the dead, because obviously we don't want customers seeing dead fish. 

Unfortunately the fish don't cooperate and stay alive during store hours.
So it's not uncommon for me to get a customer saying to me "You have a dead fish in this tank." 
*exhales* 

So yah. I told the customer "Because they died." but did manage to say "And I haven't had time to fish them out yet."....which who knows if that's a good way to add to that statement. *facepalm* 

In any case, it seemed to satisfy the customer as he asked to get some fish from that tank anyways....Hopefully those fish stay alive...

-Sarnic Dirchi

Shrinking Cages

I had a customer call on the phone today. 
Saying "Hey I have a weird request, but I'm looking for something in particular, and I'll try and describe it to you and if it doesn't make sense just let me know and I'll try to find a better way to describe it okay?" 

To which I was like. O.o Okay?
It's always interesting to get these sort of calls. Because sometimes I have no idea what the person is talking about. And other times. It's really easy to know what the person is referring to. 

This particular customer was like: "So I'm looking for a crate, but it's a crate that you can make bigger and smaller so that if you have a puppy you can grow the cage to fit the size of the puppy." 

lol, now while we don't have 'growing/shrinking' crates that can expand out like that....
I do carry a particular type of dog crate that has a divider within the cage. So that you can make the cage smaller at first by putting in the divider, and as the puppy grows you can move the divider back until the dog doesn't need it any more.

So I told her that.
That we carried a particular brand of crate that can divide it smaller.

And she was rather happy to hear it.
As she'd just googled it, but wasn't sure if it was an online only thing she'd have to buy or if she could buy it in a physical location.

Lucky for her she could come into the store and buy it.

Yay for being able to help her with her question! :D

-Sarnic Dirchi

Not that Blue One!

It's hard to deal with customers when they're....easily distracted. 

I had a girl come into the store today, wanting to get some fish for her tank. 
And she ended up going with a couple of frogs, a blue glodanio, a black molly, and a blue guppy. 

She was easily distracted. Flittering from tank to tank trying to decide on fish and such.
Which was halfway amusing and halfway exasperating because she'd be like "I saw a black fish on this wall I swear!" And the fish she was looking for would be in a different section from the one she was looking at. 
*shakes head*
That happened multiple times.

The one thing that she was insistent on when she was picking out her fish was that she definitely wanted a blue guppy. 

So I fished that out a blue guppy and proceeded to grab her other fish as well, before showing them to the customer to make sure I'd grabbed the right ones. 

And she pointed to the blue guppy and was like "This isn't the fish I wanted! I know there was a blue fish over here somewhere."
And she moves over in the direction of the blue guppy tank. "It was blue!" 

So I was like "It was this tank you were looking at, which is this fish, the blue guppy, and that's this fish here." and I pointed to the guppy I'd fished out for her already.

To which she kinda did a look between the fish and the tank and was like. O.O Oh. You're right! 

*shakes head*

I don't get it....like how could you want a fish and then not remember what it looks like two minutes later?? That just seems...weird....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Rejection

So I answered the phone today at work.
And there was a young man on the other end. 

What did he want?

Well, he'd put in a job application a little over a week ago, and he'd just gotten an email back saying that his application had been rejected. For the reason that 'he didn't meet the requirements necessary' I believe it was.

And he wanted to know what requirements he hadn't met.
Because he had a "High School Diploma what else do I need?!" 

I couldn't help be semi...well sympathetic to his plight. And I did admire him for calling to ask what requirements he hadn't met.

But honestly, none of us in the store would have been able to tell him anything specific.

Because we don't see the person's application unless it's been approved through the online system.

And the online job application has a little questionnaire thing that applicants have to fill out.
Which basically gauges your ability to do well in the store. I.E. Can you interact with customers, be friendly, do well with animals, do well under pressure, be willing to learn.

And it calculates if you will or won't be a good fit for our store.

It's not like the system is perfect or anything. We get in workers from time to time that really didn't mesh as well as we thought they would when we hired them.

But there's nothing we can do on our end if an applicant doesn't pass the application process. :( The only solution is to try and apply again, unfortunately.

I would be curious to see if he actually figures out how to not get his job application rejected though..... 
It is going to take more than a high school diploma though.... 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Did I Do Something Wrong?

We have this regular customer that comes into the store.
A grandma aged lady who I interact with almost every time she comes in because we save the eggs our birds lay for her so that she can dry them and then give them to schools/museums and such for learning and the like. 

Unfortunately, I didn't have any eggs for her today. 
But I'd gone into the back to double check, and when I came back to tell her no we didn't have any, she kept the door open, effectively blocking both of us from the view of the register.

And she leaned in. 
Asking me.
"Did I do something wrong?" 

O.o Huh? She hadn't done anything out of the ordinary yet. I mean...besides holding open the door to the back room where customers shouldn't be. But...that wouldn't equate with wrong as I hadn't said anything.

She then continued.
"I was at the register, paying for my food." 
-She had a large bag of food in her cart, as well as a single plastic cup of dog food in a bag.
"And I just picked up this container." She pulled the plastic cup of dog food out of the bag.

And I'd halfway been expecting her to say that she actually hadn't paid for it and was it wrong of her to take it, to which I would have been like yes? 
"And while the cashier was ringing up my order I placed tossed it in the bag." 
So I was like...had the cashier not had the opportunity to ring it up? 

"And the cashier was like. >.> Ma'am. I can bag that up for you." 
She said it in a way that was just borderline rude. So it made it sound like the cashier had been like. "Don't do my job! I can bag up the items for you! Don't touch your things! Don't bag things yourself!" 

To which she then gave me the puppy dog eyes and was like. "Did I do something wrong?" 

*exhales* 
"No, no you did not." I reassured her. "You're fine." 

It's not like I could say "Yah, that cashier sometimes rubs customers the wrong way." to the customer. As I didn't want to talk bad about my cashier. As that particular cashier...has their good days and bad days when interacting with people.

*exhales*
I don't know if I convinced her that she was okay, trying to bag her own items. 

Honestly, I felt like she'd been traumatized by the experience. 
Y_Y which I feel for her. I mean...she's a regular customer, it's probably really disconcerting to be 'snapped' at. 

Hopefully next time she comes in, she has a better experience at the register with the cashier.
Though it wouldn't surprise me if she tries to avoid being helped by that particular cashier next time. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Correct Change

So I'd hopped on register to back up cashier for our main cashier.

Which isn't bad. 
I was helping an older lady out with her purchase.

And she'd given me cash.

And I'd put in the amount she'd given me and already hit enter....
When she was like "Oh I have two pennies I can give you!" 

>.< Can I just say I don't like it when people give me change after I already put in the first amount of money they gave me? 
Because I don't.

Because it means I then have to do quick math to make sure I give the customer the correct change back.
Most of the time it's easy. They just gave me the change so they wouldn't get any change back. Therefore I just give them bills. 

This time though.

I owed the woman 53 cents. 

And she was like "Here, I have two pennies."

And I was like. O.o 
Well...crap.
(keep in mind I'm also tired from not enough sleep and a long work day) 

So I couldn't figure out if I now owed her 55 cents or 51 cents.

I figured it was the 55 cents. 
But was still processing to make sure I was adding this correctly.

When the woman was like: *exhales* You kids and your dependence on technology! It's Fifty-five cents you owe me now! 

....well....excuse me for liking having things easy. *shakes head* 
Though seriously. It was more of the fact that I'm tired than anything else.
I can do math.
Most days. 

Just not  in that moment. lol.

But hey.
She got her change.

Though I am still wondering if I gave her the right amount.....it makes the most sense....but still I do wonder...

-Sarnic Dirchi

Stay SMALL!

Customers are weird.
In that they don't always comprehend that animals...well they grow. 

The tiny cute creature you see in the cage is just a baby.
It's going to get bigger.
It's not going to stay small.

*shakes head*

I had a customer call today about our Tortoises asking if we had any 'baby ones' 
Which is a pretty common question with the Tortoises/Turtles.

And I had to give the usual "No we don't sell tiny turtles as it's illegal for us to sell them when they're smaller than four inches." 

And they were like "Oh, well how big are yours?"
"About 4-6 inches in diameter" 

"Oh, well...I know it's just a couple of inches. But I really can't care for a large tortoise right now! I need one that stays small!" 

O.o Like lady....6 inches is small...the turtle doesn't get larger than 8 inches when it's full grown....so idk what your definition of 'small' is. 

But seriously...all small things grow large.

She wanted to know if I knew of any place that would sell them.
to which I said no.

As honestly, it's illegal in the state. *shakes head* 

I do wonder if she found one though. I'd be curious to know.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Too or Tiel?

I had a customer call on the phone today.
Asking if we carried Cockatiels.
Which we don't. 
And I told her so.
To which she hung up.

But then she called like two minutes later.

Wanting to make sure I heard her correctly.
That she was looking for Cockatiels. 
Not Cockatoos
But Cockatiels.

To which I had heard her correctly the first time around.

and I told her. "We don't carry either one of those." 

Soo....she hung up disappointed once again. 

I hope she found someone that carries those birds. :S

-Sarnic Dirchi