Where Is It?

My manager called me after I got home from work today.

Because earlier, I'd answered a phone call.

Where a customer was calling again because the last person she'd talked to over the phone had told her that the least expensive pet training collar we had in the store was $100.
But she'd gone online and found one for half that price that we should also have in the store.

So she wanted me to go and see if we had it in stock. 

I ended up going to the aisle holding all our electronic gizmos and double checking the tags there to see if we had this 'cheaper training collar' 

I nearly didn't see it.
But I did find the placeholder for said training device.

Now I had to find out if we had it in the store.
So I went to our cabinet holding all the pricey electronic stuff and unlocked it. 
-As to avoid theft we've locked up our electronics. 

And managed to find it.

The customer said she'd be in 'soon'
And so I just gave the cashier the heads up that a customer was coming in for a training collar and it was in the locked cabinet on the right side in the door.
Keyword there is LOCKED

Because we also have a second cabinet where we keep the online orders customers have sent in. 

So I said "locked" because electronics is always locked. 

Should have known it wouldn't be easy for my coworkers to find it.
*exhales*

Because my manager called asking if I had put a remote trainer on hold.

Which I technically hadn't because I'd left it in the locked cabinet.

But I could understand the confusion because we often place items in the onlineorder cabinet when people call the store and request us to put things on hold for them.

The lady didn't request to put the collar on hold though.
So I left it in it's place.

And the manager wanted to know what I'd done with it. *shakes head*

Manager too didn't first understand what I meant by 'locked cabinet' so I had to clarify that it was in the cabinet where we keep the training collars and the flea and tick stuff and had to again clarify that I'd stated it was in the door of said cabinet. 

*exhales*

We got there in the end.
And hopefully the customer was happy with it.

But still...sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying to tell my coworkers things if they don't remember them two seconds later....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Moving Locations?

So we had the DM in the store today.

Which is always sort of nerve wracking.

Especially with the new DM because well...I've only seen them like 3 times? So I don't quite have a read on their expectations yet.

In any case. I happened to be nearby as they were talking over our reptile endcaps.

Because our store has two endcaps of reptiles instead of one.

And that's like super rare in the pet stores....

And it's kinda been more of a hassle than anything because our reptile supplier isn't providing us with enough animals to fill the cages.

Like...on a good day I still have 3 cages empty.

On bad days?

I could have up to 8 or 9

And considering each side holds like 11 cages.

That's quite the empty endcap we have.

Which part of the problem is that like a third of the cages (8 of them) are dedicated to snakes.

Ball Pythons, Corn Snakes, Milk Snakes, King Snakes.

But for the past 6-8 months...

I've only been able to get Ball Pythons into the store.

Which means those other cages...have sat empty.

There's no word on why we aren't getting them in. 

No known concept on if it's a supplier issue or a shipping issue or something else entirely.

But the point is....our cages are being under utilized. 

So the DM was talking about potential things we could to make room for all the reptiles in one endcap as the Head Manager has requested to corporate that we take the second one out.

And one of the DM's solutions was to put the aquatic turtles in one of the tanks along the fishwall.

Which really makes a lot of sense because customers are always looking for them over by the fishwall anyways. 

So why not put them where they go?

We just need to check out one of our sister stores that have the turtles inline in their fishwalls and see what kind of setup they have so we can do our best to copy their setup.

The main thing the DM cautioned about doing this.

Is to put the turtles in the top row of tanks.

Which I agreed with because the top row has larger tanks than the other two rows of fish.

Bu the DM also said to put them up there because it makes it harder for customers to steal them.

As if they're down on the other two rows (where the tops of the tanks are within reach of the customers) it's easy for the turtles to be stolen from there.

O.o

So yah.

We're going to look into it.

And see how it all goes. ^^;;

-Sarnic Dirchi

Humidity and Temperature

So one of the things that we failed when the auditor dropped by.
Was that apparently....basically none of our humidity/thermometer gauges worked in our reptile cages. 

:S 
Which I suppose isn't surprising because I think some of them were still in the cage when I started working...and I think the last time I replaced them was like 4 or 5 years ago for most of them.

It's just one of those things that you think won't well....stop working.
Like how can a thermometer stop working? I don't get it. 

In any case.
That's not good that practically none of them were properly working.
So my managers -to show that they're working to get the store in compliance- went ahead and ordered some so that we could get them all replaced. 

Unfortunately for us. The supplier caps us at a limit.
So we were only able to get 12 of each type.

Which....would have been enough...if I didn't have two endcaps of reptile cages instead of the one that most stores have. 

But those gauges came in today!!
And the manager tasked me with removing the old ones and replacing them with new ones and making sure they were all located in the same spot so they would be easy to check and consistent with each cage.

So yah, I picked one of the endcaps and went ahead and replaced every gauge in those cages.
Which was quite a process.
As some were quite firmly stuck onto the side of the cage.

But in the end. The one endcap ended up with all shiny brand new gauges. :D Yay!!
^^;; lol it's going to be 'fun' having to do the other side once the next batch shows up. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

A New Filter

My coworker mentioned today that they were having problems with their fish tank.
In that one of their fish had gotten ick.
And that they'd bought the medicine for that but hadn't realized that their filter contained carbon in it, so the medicine got filtered out before it could become effective.
So my coworker was planning to buy a new filter today that didn't contain carbon in it.

And my response was like "....Couldn't you just take the cartridge out of the filter? It still works without that in it." 

-Because the cartridge is what contains the carbon that filters the water. So you take that out and the filter still makes the water flow and such, it's just not filtering.

^^;; It was like a revelation to my coworker lol. 
They hadn't considered that.

Definitely a much easier method than buying a new filter. ^^;; 
Especially since like....a filters come with cartridges with carbon in it....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Whatcha Doing There?

I made the mistake of not asking more details from a customer before catching out the fish he wanted.

I should have realized when the customer was like "Just pick out six random fish for me that are bigger and go together."

I did go "How big is your tank?" And they pointed to our 5 gallon size.
Which for 6 fish was already a lot.
But I'd already caught the fish when I'd though to ask...

As he had asked me how often he needed to change the water.
And like....it depends on if the tank has a filter or not.

And their tank didn't.
Which more alarm bells as the fish need a filter and a heater to do well and such. 

So I showed him like everything that they'd need to get to get the fish.
And he settled on the 5 gallon size even though the 10 gallon size would have been better.
And like putting 6 fish straight into a 5 gallon tank isn't a good idea either, but like...I'd already bagged up the fish. *exhales*

So yah, I did my best to ensure the fish's survival and such.
And right before I went on lunch I saw the guy buying everything and the fish and the manager was answering more questions for him because the manager had jumped on register to help out. 

But then when I got back from my lunch....
The fish I had bagged up were sitting on the podium....

O.o
Like....Huh?

I turns out the dude had returned the fish...and I'm guessing everything else.

Which is surprisingly fast as I'm pretty certain that he was buying the fish when I went on lunch and not returning them at that point.
Which means in like half an hour he changed his mind.

I wonder if he even left the store...or even the parking lot.
Because like there was no attempt whatsoever to set up the tank or unbag the fish.....

And as I was figuring out if the fish had been returned or not.
I noticed what looked to be the same guy at the register again...
Apparently buying birds now. As he had a bird cage in his cart and two boxes with -parakeets?- inside to take home. 

That's quite the different choice going from fish to birds....but maybe he was looking for an 'easier' pet than caring for fish??

Which....both have their ease and difficulties..... 

However.
Like maybe an hour later? 

Guess what go returned?

Yep. The bird cage and the birds.

Everything still in the box.

Nothing taken out. 

Which makes me wonder....
Like....

Was he just trying to surprise someone at home with a pet and they're like "No I don't want that! Take it back and get me something else?!" 

Or....is he just really indecisive and didn't want to deal with 'work'

To my knowledge he didn't buy anything after that.

But like.
I'm so confused.
That's a really quick turn around for purchasing animals.

Like sure. A day isn't surprising.

But minutes??

I don't get it.
Not at all. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Birds?

Had a customer come into the store today wanting to know where he could find bigger parrots.
As currently I only have like parakeets and canaries and finches in the store.
(we don't get in conures for another month or two and don't carry larger parrots) 

And like I told him a couple of local petstores that he could look into getting larger parrots in as they occasionally have them.
(So I believe, I don't know for sure as I've been in one like only twice and the other one I've never been in) 

But the dude wanted to know if those stores had the bigger parrots like African greys and such RIGHT THEN.
Like. Dude. I don't know.
I can only know from word of mouth.
It's not like I actively go venturing into other pet stores.

I bet there are some people who do.
But I don't unless I'm looking for something I know my store doesn't carry. 

In any case.
The conversation somehow diverted into if I had owned any birds and where I'd gotten them and like....Dude I had birds when I was maybe 10? I don't know where we got them. *shakes head*

But yah.
Interesting conversation with him because I never quite knew what question he would ask next. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Bug Container

Had a grandmother and her two grandsons come into the store with the youngest boy toting a bug box with him.
You know, one of those mesh containers with a handle.

And the grandmother had come in wanting to find like a bug for the grandson to have.
Specifically she was looking for a Madagascar beetle.
Which I think she was looking for a hissing cockroach? As that's usually the only bug that I think of when I hear "Madagascar."

In either case we don't carry those.
Nor any other 'useful' bugs that could be fun pets.
Besides like Crickets. 
But I think she was wanting something a little...different.

In any case.
At one point she was wanting to get one of the tree frogs to put in that mesh container.
And like....
No.

It was totally the wrong setup for the tree frog as they would need a bigger space that that six inch by four inch mesh thing that they had on hand. 

No tree frogs need like humidity and heat and a lot more work than the grandmother (or anyone) ever realized.

-It's interesting how many people think that they can just stick an animal in a box without adequate bedding/heat/space and think it's okay. 

In any case. 

I told her that we basically had nothing in the store that would go in that container.

But recommended a couple other local pet stores that might carry the bugs she was looking for for her bug thing that the grandson had.

She wasn't having it though.

And after looking through all the pets came upon the hermit crabs.
Which admittedly aren't that difficult of a pet to have.
Though the container still was wrong for them, I pointed her to our smallest hermit crab cage that came as a kit and told her that that would be a better container for the hermit crab.

So in the end she ended up buying that and a hermit crab for her grandson.

Hopefully he enjoys it. 
As honestly...they don't do much.... 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Slow Opening

It was one of those days...where I seriously wondered what my coworker was up to for most of the shift.

Because I've been opening for a while, I have a good idea on how long feasibly it takes to get certain tasks done depending on the number of animals involved in said task. 

But the tasks today that I set my coworker...shouldn't have taken longer than like an hour to do?
For three different tasks....

Yet, I managed to finish my own tasks which is like a three hour thing to do....well before my coworker finished doing theirs....

And like I get it.
I know that they were busy for a bit answering the phone that never seemed to stop ringing.
And one of the tasks involved our ISO room where practically ever animal within needed to be given medication which always slows down the process a lot because not every animal is cooperative when being given medicine....

But at the same time I feel like it could have been done faster.
*exhales*

It's hard to know.

Still though, at least there's a learning curve here where I figure out what tasks are best to set to each of my coworkers where we can get things done in a timely manner....and I'm not left feeling like I could have opened the department by myself and ended up in the same spot as opening with my coworker. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Snails For You And You and You

I don't know what it was about today...I mean it was a holiday for sure.
But like...practically every customer I interacted with today when I was over at the fishwall wanted the same thing.

Snails.

Snails to help clean their tanks and get rid of the algae and such.

It was just weird.
Customer after customer wanting me to grab snails out of the tanks for them.

And it was usually two at a time too.
So one after the other it was mystery snails and nerite snails and me explaining the same thing over and over again and yah....it was a weird trend for the holiday. *shakes head* 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wings

So my new coworker seems to have this strong aversion to doing anything with the birds.

Which I can halfway understand because their first experience catching birds for a customer was rather traumatizing as the customer was one of 'those' customers that you just...wish never came into the store.

So I can get why my coworker is adverse to being near them or doing anything with them.

And today they were trying to catch a bird and requested aid because even though I'd shown them how to clip a parakeet's wings...they didn't want to do it by themselves for the first time.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to go over there and another coworker ended up catching and clipping the bird's wings. 

And my coworker told me that they wanted me to show them how to clip the wings again....

But unfortunately it was busy enough that the next time we had a customer who wanted their bird's wings clipped...my coworker was stuck on the register and couldn't come over to watch again how it was done.

*exhales*

I'll have to see if I can show them a different day, so that they're more confident in their ability to do so. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Yes I Want Him...Do I?

I had a customer come into the store today, looking to get a new hamster as her previous little buddy had passed away a little while ago. 
And she thought it was time to get another one.

Only she had troubles picking the hamster she wanted.
As basically within every cage I opened, she found at least one hamster where she was like "This is the one!" 

-Lucky me I only showed her three cages...I can't imagine the struggle she'd have had if I had shown her the other side. :S 

In any case, after some dithering and wondering if she should even get a hamster today. 

Because she mentioned that she likes to keep her house cold so she can sleep at night.
And I warned her that the hamster would be more sensitive to the cold with his smaller size. So it's best to keep the hamster warmer.

So she was like 'Oh....maybe I shouldn't then."
But of course she wanted to look at another cage...and found 'the one!' 

To the point where I had her fill out the paperwork, boxed up the hamstesr and showed her food and chews.

But just as she was getting ready to head up to the front to buy....

She had a change of heart.

Decided she wanted to wait a while. Wait until it was warmer because she didn't want the hamster being too cold. 

So in the end she went home without the hamster and the hamster went back into the cage with his buddies. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

A New Flap

Had a customer call today looking for a replacement flap for his doggie door.
A size medium.

To which he stated that he'd been to a 'couple' of petstores and they'd been out of stock on the size he needed.
So he wanted to see if I had the size in the store.

Unfortunately, upon checking the shelf, it turned out that I had none in stock either.

So the guy was like "Could you check and see if your other stores have any?" 

To which I could....but like that does take a bit of time.
Still I wasn't busy with customers so I put the customer on hold so I could track down a scan gun so I could see which of our sister stores had them.

And upon pulling up the list. 

It looked like practically every other store in the state had at least one, if not more, of them in stock. 

...Which makes me wonder what stores he did check.... *shakes head*

In any case he was like "Oh does this location have them I'll be in town there tomorrow!"
Which the scanner showed they did.
And he was like "Great. Where is that store located?" 

*shrugs*…..I had no idea.
I've been to like...four sister stores and none of them have been in the next valley over.
So his guess was as good as mine. 

Hopefully the dude finds the store and the flap replacement he needs.

-Sarnic Dirchi

To the Vet?

So I took a guinea pig to our vet today. To get him looked at.
Because yesterday after I left my coworkers discovered he had a lump behind his ear. 
So I figured that it would be best to get that looked at sooner rather than later.

Only our usual vet wasn't in today....but another vet had come in to cover that did see them.

So I figured it wouldn't be that much of an issue.

Except it kinda was.

As this vet...
Is really allergic to guinea pigs.
Any other animal and she's fine.
But she can't be near them without breaking down in a rash.

So like....she was going to do her best to look at the guinea pig and figure out a plan of action for him...

but I haven't yet got word on what that plan was.
As we took them over before the auditor arrived....
And hadn't yet gone to pick them up when I left.

So hopefully tomorrow I'll have word on what they want to do with the guinea pig....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Fix The Fish

Had a customer come into the store today with a question about her betta.

Because she said for the last little bit the betta she has has just kinda been laying on the bottom of the tank and doesn't swim around much, and seems to struggle when swimming up to the surface to get food.

So I asked her, noting the use of 'struggling' if the fish was using it's back end at all. The tail part to swim.

To which she said she didn't think it was and wanted to know what she could do to fix the problem.

Unfortunately there's nothing much she could do....

As if anything it sounded like the fish had a stroke of some sort.

I've seen it before in my own betta fish.
Where one day they're swimming fine.
And the next they're all gimpy swimming about.

And if it's a stroke...not much we can do to fix it.

I mean it could be some sort of other issue.
But with fish it's definitely a lot harder to tell.

The customer wanted me to come up with a solution...and was a bit disappointed I couldn't.

Most treatable things you see something on the outside of the fish. 
So like red sores, or white growths, or white spots, or ragged fins would help to be able to tell if the issue was bacterial or fungal or even parasitic.

But not moving the back half of the body?
Yah...not a symptom that's listed under the categories above.

Still I directed the customer to a 'general cure' that would treat everything and anything that is treatable with the fish.

Which she ended up buying.
Because her son told her to go to the store to get medicine.
And she figured she'd better try something so her son would know she at least tried to take care of the fish.

Though honestly I don't know if the fish will recover from that.

*fingers crossed* though. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Returned

I came into work today to see that our ISO tank -the tank we have to quarantine sick fish had a ton of random fish within in.
Like everthing from neons to angelfish to bala sharks to glotetras. 
Which O.o I was so confused.

I could see a few of them had ick and such.
But I thought it odd to have so many fish --around 30 or so? suddenly in our tank.

Though I didn't think much of it because yesterday was our fish shipment.
So I figured some of the fish had come in sick yesterday and my coworkers had put them in the ISO tank to recover. 

Turns out it was an entirely different story.

So apparently sometime earlier in the week. Maybe two or three days ago (when I wasn't there) 
A customer came into the store and got a brand new tank.
But also got around FORTY fish to put into his tank.
On the same day.

Which. O.o I really wish I knew which coworker bagged up all those fish because we usually strongly recommend waiting at least 24 hours after setting up a brand new tank before adding in any fish and when adding in fish only to do a few at a time. Like 5-6 at a time.

Because if you set up a tank and then add a ton of fish all in the same day,
It greatly increases the chances of the fish dying and/or getting sick from stress.

Which...did my coworker not realize this was a bad idea?
Did they try and convince the customer not to but the customer refused?
Hard to say for sure.
No one is talking.

But in any case. 
Yesterday the customer came back in...and returned all the fish. (and maybe the fishtank? not clear on that) because some of his fish had died and the other ones all had ick. 

So the dude had the fish like 2 days before returning them all and like....
O.o

So weird.
So weird. 

I honestly want to figure out how the whole situation came about....because that's just an odd one in my book.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Eggs?!?!!?

Had a customer come into the store today who was rather interested in the hayball we had in our canary's cage.
-As she hadn't realized right away that the bird within was a Canary and not a parakeet.

But apparently she'd never seen the hayball filled with hay before.
And wanted to know why we had that in the cage.

So I told her we kept the balls full of hay in specific cages so that the birds could use the hay to build nests.

To which she asked "Why would they want to do that?"

...Build nests?

Well....for one it's something to do, for two it gives them a place to sleep if they desire and three...it's so that they can lay eggs.

And her response to the laying eggs was a surprised. "You mean they naturally lay eggs!!" 

Like the concept had never occurred to her that the birds could do that without human interference or something.
But like. 
Yah? It's a bird. A female. Females usually reproduce and by doing that they lay eggs on occasion for the male to fertilize....it's a typical circle of life sort of thing.

But she just seemed so astounded that the birds would just go lay eggs.

And then was concerned because she didn't want her birds laying eggs.
Which really it depends on the bird.
Like our Finches? They lay eggs all the time it seems like.
The parakeets? Never seen them lay an egg.
I don't even remember them laying eggs when I had them growing up. 

Which there are some birds that don't lay eggs unless given the opportunity like nesting boxes and nesting material to do so.

In any case.
It was a rather interesting fifteen minute conversation for sure. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Fish Price

I had a customer call the store asking what the price of our Neon Tetras were.

So I told him $2.55.

And he thanked me....hung up.....and then like five minutes later called the store again to ask the same question.

Like....did he not realize that he called the same store twice?

Possibly he did because he then asked about other potential tetras we carried and their prices....

But at the same time...

I do wonder if he realized...

I mean I answered both times and did the same standard greeting.

So like maybe he'd been scrolling through his phone and thought he hit one pet store after calling ours and then hit ours again?

Dunno.

Hopefully he found the tetras he was looking for at the price he wanted though.

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Bowl

It was "buy a goldfish in a bowl" kinda day today.

I basically had three customers in a row.
Come up to me saying that they wanted one of the 31 cent goldfish we sell.
Two of them holding the itty bitty half gallon bowls that we unfortunately sell.

The first customer stated she had a 'large' bowl at home that she wanted to put fish in. 

And despite all my efforts to convince her that goldfish wouldn't work.
Her mind was set. 
So she got two goldfish.

The other two, however, with their half gallon bowls, I was able to convince to go for a betta fish instead.

Which is rather easy to do when you tell them they need to do a water change once a week for the betta instead of everyday for the goldfish. 

Still though.

I don't get why we had the sudden rush of people all wanting the same thing...
I mean it happens.
But it's rather odd for it to happen so closely together. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Only Goldfish

Had a customer come into the store wanting to get a fish for a 2 1/2 year old.
And of course...she was thinking of putting said fish in a bowl.

Specifically a goldfish.

Specifically a rather large goldfish.

Which I told her wasn't a great idea. 

Because a) the goldfish was too big for the bowl.
and b) Goldfish in bowls are a lot of work, you need to change the water like every other day to keep them happy and alive. 

So I suggested she try a betta fish as they do better in bowls. Needing only to have a water change like once a week in comparison to the goldfish. 

She wasn't keen on the idea at all.

Specifying that the fish was for a TWO year old.

Which....I didn't get why a goldfish was considered the better pet for a kid than a betta fish.

But she was set.
Nothing was changing her mind. 
-I think she said she had goldfish before and wanted to do them again or something.

*exhales*
I wish we didn't carry bowls.

In any case.

I showed her said bowls.
and she was like "So what kind of water does it need?" 

Uh...tap water? Bottled water? You know....almost any water would do. 

She then said "Can you fill the bowl up with water for me?"

O.o Why? "That's not something we usually do." Was my response.
Because like it's much more difficult to carry around a bowl full of water than like an...empty bowl. 

"How am I supposed to take the fish home then!" 

*exhales*
It's a question I understand more with the other animals I sell. Birds. Reptiles. Hamsters. Their method of containment for transporting them home isn't obvious.

But like....fish? It's easy.
We put them in a bag of water and give it to you.

Easy peasy.

*shakes head* 

Yah. Not quite sure what she was thinking for most of our conversation. But hopefully she's content with her goldfish purchase. 

-Sarnic Dirchi