It's Online!

 Gotta love the customers that see something for sale on our online website and then assume that it's also sold in the store.

Like...I too have been victim of this mistake. Though I have learned better since.

But I had a customer come into the store today asking if we carried a specific medication for chickens in our store.

Which our supplies for chickens is extremely limited, especially since we drastically reduced what we do carry, limiting it to basically just food. 

So I told the customer that we didn't have it.

And they were like "But your website says you do!"

...Does it though? As our online website carries a ton more product than what we actually sell in store. And each store doesn't carry all the same product as each store is a different size and can hold only so much per shelf.

So I asked the customer if they could pull up an image of the product so I could see it so I could tell the customer if we had the product here or not.

The customer pulled up the product on our website and showed it to me on their phone. 

I scrolled down the webpage.

And there in big letters was "ONLINE ONLY."

Yah. The customer wasn't too happy to have that pointed out to them...but yah....not much I can do to help them find a product when it's only available online.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Counting Issue

My fellow opening manager was having issues with the safe count this morning.

In that they were off from what the amount should have been. And they couldn't figure out how they hadn't counted correctly.

I ended up glancing over the paper they'd printed out and comparing it to the cash we had on hand.

And realized that they'd accidentally inputed the right number of bills...in the wrong spot.

Where they should have put the number of $100s we had on the $100s line in our system.

They accidentally put it on the $50s line instead. 

And because we didn't have any $50s at that point...they hadn't realized that they'd inputed the count wrong.

So yah.

Thankfully it was an easy enough fix. lol. As it would have been concerning to be $$$ off in our count between last night and this morning. :S

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Less Expensive Tank

There's nothing worse than a dithering customer.

Because you end up spending a ton of time with them. A ton of wasted time with them.

Because you could have ended the conversation wtihin like five minutes.

But because of the customer's inability to make a decision....it ends up being expanded out to like four times as long.

Today I had a girl come up to me asking for help loading up a reptile tank.

As she needed to get a bigger tank for her bearded dragon.

And wanted to get one of our tanks that opens from the front.

The tank she indicated was on a pallet by our training center. As we had overstock placed there from all the Christmas supplies we got in tank wise. 

So I snagged a coworker and a flat cart to go get the tank and we moved it down onto the cart and got it ready to take up to the front.

And that's when the customer was like "By the way, how much is this tank?" 

*exhales* Because the tanks were extra and a variety of them were stacked there on the pallet, we hadn't priced them out. And knowing that we hadn't yet gotten to the point of refilling the reptile aisle where the tanks usually go. I'm pretty sure the customer couldn't have seen the tank on the shelf because there wasn't one on the shelf to go with the price tag there.

But like. Lady.

Why not check the price BEFORE you have us move it?

*shakes head*

So I went and checked on the aisle what the price was and came back to tell her it was $200. 

Of course the customer was like ()_() "Don't you have any tanks this size on sale for less?" 

*exhales*

You know...you'd know if you would go check the aisle and LOOK at the tanks there.

But no the customer made no indication of moving to go look herself.

And I probably should have been like. "Nope."

But I had seen a 40 gallon starter kit that was on sale. 

For $220 

So for like $20 more she could get everything needed for the bearded dragon and the tank.

But nooo.

She just wanted a tank.

Wanted a tank on sale.

For less than $200.

So I went and checked a third time on the aisle to see what sales we had and then had to go wander around and see if we had any of the sale tanks on pallets anywhere that were less than $200.

And while we had a tank on sale for less than $200.

We didn't have it in stock.

And of course the customer didn't expect to be spending $200 for a new tank.

*shakes head*

I don't see why not. It's a BRAND NEW TANK.

Of course it's gonna be expensive.

If you want a big tank for little money go look on the online classifieds and find people giving away their tanks for $50 and such.

I don't know if this customer ended up getting the tank she had originally had us move.

Or if she ended up leaving to go find a better deal.

As I was done with her dithering at that point and needed to go to lunch.

So I left my coworker to deal with her and went to take a much needed break from people.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Printing Prices

I was called in for another early morning work shift involving pricing.

Though because I got distracted at the wrong moment by my coworkers when I was clocking in. I didn't see the note left for me by my Head Manager on what I needed to do this morning.

And so assuming that the tasks I'd been expecting to do had gotten done on Sunday.

I went ahead with helping the early morning stockers with the truck instead.

Only to find out later, when my other manager pointed it out to me, that I had been left a list of pricing changes and tags I needed to print out and put up.

*exhales*

While the already printed tags were easy enough to put up.

Printing the new tags out was a trial and a half as our 'new system' as of like 5 years ago sucks.

It's difficult and unwieldy and much more difficult to use compared to the original system we had.

And it's a nightmare figuring out how to scan the tags to get them onto the system and then print out those tags in the correct sizes....

Especially when the printer decides it doesn't want to cooperate and pull from the proper tray.

It was frustrating.

Extremely frustrating to waste so much paper.

And made more difficult considering that I got only like 3 hours of sleep last night.

So yah.

It was fun this morning trying to print out and do all the various price changes.

Definitely not what I wanted to spend my entire shift doing. At all.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Split the Line

I had a customer give me such the dirty look today at work.

Why? Because I was trying to direct him to move to the next blue dot in order to divide out the single long line that had formed into two separate lines.

Really...I don't understand why customers can't comprehend how to split into different lines.

Like we have this spacing dots (like many other stores) on the floor. Two in front of each register. And then off to the side we have a line of dots that start near a pillar leading back down towards the back of the store.

So that customers can keep the spacing as they move up to the registers.

But like...every single time they reach the pillar....they just end up standing there.

When there are at least two more blue dots if not three or four that they could move over to in order to divide up the line.

Oftentimes it takes an intervention of one of us workers directing people where to stand and then telling the next few customers down the line to move to the next free blue dot to get the lines moving smoothly again and keep them split up. 

But this customer gave me such the dirty look.

Because I had the gall to tell him that he could have moved to a closer blue dot (than the blue dot by the pillar where he'd been lurking) sooner. That it was possible to stand on the next series of blue dots closer to the register and actually split up the lines so that there are actual two or three lines instead of one.

He felt that this was horrible news. Because he hadn't realized it himself. Because he had been doing what everyone else was doing before I was able to break free and split up the lines, and standing at the pillar that marks where the dots can split into multiple lines for each register.

And he felt that he could have moved through the line much faster if 'only he'd known sooner' that he could have moved to another dot and created more than one line.

Like dude.

I don't know what to tell you.

I only approached to help the line move faster, it's not my fault you didn't realize before hand that if there's an empty blue dot you can move to the next empty blue dot. Like it should be clear and we have no idea how to make it clearer to customers. 

But yah.

Fun Times. Dealing with customers who don't want to stand in lines. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Flooded

I came into work today to a minor disaster.

As our aquatic plant tank -the one holding our hornwort plants- had clogged up. As it tends to do because Hornwort likes to shred and get little pieces of itself everywhere.

And nobody noticed in time.

So water kept flowing into the tank....but no water was flowing out of the tank because the strainer basket got all clogged up. *exhales*

And when the water levels reached the top of the tank...it overflowed. Dripping down into the tanks below that one.

And one of the tanks below that one...was our Hermit Crab tank.

Our LAND Hermit Crab tank.

Aka the tank that shouldn't be filled to the brim with water. 

But it was.

The tank had filled all the way to the top and was dripping the excess water onto the floor.

And the poor hermit crabs within it were just like at the edge of the glass waving their claws around like "Help me!!" 

Honestly, I was surprised they were still alive.

I frantically grabbed a small container and scooped out the Hermit Crabs I could see. 

And then set to work scooping out the water from the tank into a bucket and rescuing more Hermit Crabs as they became visible in the swirling dirty mess.

At least five of the poor things had come out of their shells.

But surprisingly...I think all of them may have survived.

Time will tell though.

But yah. It looks like they all managed to survive their deep water bath. 

*shakes head*

What a way to start out Christmas Eve though. Yaaaaay early morning stress lol. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

15 Minutes Before Close

 I had a customer call the store a couple of hours before we closed asking if they would be able to return a fish tank that they'd purchased from us yesterday because they decided that it wasn't gonna work for them and what they needed it to do.

-Apparently these customers are known to one of my petcare people as they live in my petcare worker's parent's neighborhood...and are well known for being difficult people in general as they had helped them out last night and had told them that what they wanted to do for their tank wouldn't work for them.

From what I gather they have turtles and were trying to give them a bigger tank but ended up deciding that the tank they bought was too deep for them.

In any case.

I told the customer that they could bring the tank back so long as it was in a clean dry condition and they included everything in the box along with the receipt.

I had a niggling thought that they might try to return said tank today.

But had hoped that it was late enough in the evening that the customer would decide to return the tank tomorrow instead.

No such luck.

FIFTEEN MINUTES before we closed.

The customer and their spouse come into the store to return the tank.

And I hear over the radio that they need help getting the tank into the store, so I grab a flat cart and bring it up to help them out though I wasn't sure what these people looked like and while I was trying to figure that out the cashier flags me down saying that they need an override for a return.

Which...upon checking it out...the customer doing the return was the customer who was returning the fish tank.

And said fish tank was not yet in the store.

So I was like "Ha. No." 

(not literally) but I told the customer that I would need to see the tank inside the store first before I could do the return. (silly cashier for not saying the same but they're new) and so the customer had to go track down their spouse so they could take the red cart and then go grab their tank and bring it in.

And once I was able to establish that yes the tank was there...then I did the return to give them their money back.

But it was semi-frustrating to have this occur like right at closing time.

Because other people were trying to check out and such and this just ended up holding up the line and yah....

The people who decide to try to return things right at closing need to rethink their lives. Because it's not fun to have to do that when there's a closing rush. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Take Down Put Up Again and Again

I got scheduled the early AM shift today so I could help put up the new sales that were going up for the week for our preChristmas Sales.

And ah.

It's annoying.

So annoying that for the past like...two years or three, who knows at this point.

We've basically been putting up and taking down the exact same sales. With the only differences being how much the item is on sale.

It's been even more annoying this past month because we've had to take up and put down like six different sales...only to discover when we go to put up the new sales....that we're basically just doing the same product again. The price is just different. Sometimes it's half off. Sometimes it's a buy one get one 50% off, sometimes it's 25% off.

And it just bugs me.

Like if you're going to make us do multiple different sales in a month at least do sales for DIFFERENT product.

Because honestly, it's a waste of time and resources to make us to the same sales.

Like whoever is in charge of creating the sales for the stores needs to branch out. 

And I understand that there's probably agreements with certain producers of certain products that their items can't go on sale. Or that the company refuses to put on sale because they would lose money if they did instead of still making a profit.

But like....It would be nice to see different things go on sale for once.

Not the same old same old same old same old thing.

Especially if I'm gonna be scheduled to work shifts involving putting up the same stupid sales again and again.

-Sarnic Dirchi

No Waiting

So it's the Saturday before Christmas right?

Like one of the busiest days of the year.

Because everyone is out doing their last minute Christmas Shopping.

And our store was no exception to this.

Like even with up to three registers going we still had lines reaching the back of the store.

Which is crazy. Like I know with social distancing that the lines seem longer than they actually are because people need to stand further apart from each other.

But I've never seen lines that long.

And like...if you're shopping the Saturday before Christmas...you kinda have to expect to wait in a line no matter where you go.

People are everywhere.

There are gonna be lines everywhere.

But we had one customer today decide that they didn't want to wait in the line to buy their doggie nail clippers. 

And so went to our adoption group. 

Which the individuals there who do the adoptions in no way shape or form work for our store.

They just come in to adopt out cats (and rarely dogs).

But they don't interact with our registers at all.

But the customer decided to go to the adoption group that was here today to adopt out kitties for Christmas...and gave them the approximate cash amount that the nail clippers would cost to basically give to us later.

Like...seriously?

Honestly the adoption group could have pocketed the money and we would have not been the wiser.

But thankfully our adoption group people are honest and so when they saw one of us -aka me- flagged me down and explained the situation.

And I ended up having to go stand in line at the register with the same product that the customer took so that we could ring it up through the register and then use the cash the customer gave to the adoption group to buy the product to buy the product.

*exhales*

Like...i get it's not fun waiting in line. I know the trials.

But seriously. If you didn't want to wait...you could have just ordered online and done a curbside pick up. You would have a much less of a wait time doing that if you didn't want to stand in line. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Return the Tank

 We had a customer come into the store right at 8 am this morning when we opened at our holiday hour time to return a reptile tank. 

Which you gotta admire the dedication of a person who decides to come into the store that early to return something.

I originally thought it was because the customer had changed their mind on the pet they were planning to purchase. 

But no.

It was because they didn't need a second tank.

As they had ordered the tank online earlier in the week for pick up....and their spouse had come into the store yesterday and saw the same tank on sale and thought that that was an excellent deal and bought it.

So yah.

The customer had to come back to return it lol.

Silly silly people.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Dove Return

We got Diamond Doves in today in our animal shipment.

Which is notable mostly because it's been like...two years since I last got them into our store. 

I'd actually thought we'd never see them again despite them still showing as 'active' on our planogram for the birds. 

Do I know why we had such a long gap between receiving them in?

No. Though I'm guessing it's probably just a breeding issue. 

Or perhaps we were put in a 'lull' period of not selling them so that there could be a stronger demand for them when they eventually came back.

Regardless.

We got them into the store today.

And I had the fun task of explaining the doves to my new coworkers and what sort of care they need and how they can be dumb enough to break their wings from flying against the glass too hard.

So yah....hopefully they do well. We'll see. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Closed

A customer called the store exactly at 9pm today.

Like literally as I was gonna go plug in our phone so that it could charge overnight, the customer called.

And I did consider for a split second of not answering the phone and letting it ring.

But the last time I got a call like right at 9pm, it was a manager from our sister store needing a question answered really quick. 

So, hoping that this was the case and that I would know the answer...I answered the phone.

It wasn't a manager from a different store.

Nope. It was a customer.

And they wanted to know what time we closed.

I was like "We closed right now, but we'll be open again tomorrow morning at 8am." 

The customer wasn't happy to hear that. Because they thought we closed at 10pm and wanted to know when we had changed our hours.

Which is...funny. Because like the only time we actually close at 10pm is during the Christmas season which can start as early as the beginning of December, but recently it's only been like the two weeks before Christmas that we've closed at 10pm.

The rest of the year we usually close at nine. Unless it's sunday then we close a couple of hours earlier. And like...if it's a holiday we close at 6pm instead. (Though during the beginning of the pandemic we closed at 7pm and that was amazing) 

So it's rare for us to close at 10. 

And this year we're not staying open late for the holidays. While we are opening an hour earlier (which is pointless really who wants to be out shopping at a petstore so early???), due to the pandemic we aren't staying open late. We're closing at our normal times. 

Guess we'll see if the customer ends up coming in tomorrow or not....

-Sarnic Dirchi

And They Come

 It's always hard to judge how busy the store will get when it comes to bad weather.

As usually it's expected that the bad weather will keep people home and the store will be dead all day.

Yet half the time I feel like the stormy weather brings in the crowds...people who just need to 'get out of the house' and feel that going to a pet store is the best solution for that.

In any case.

Surprisingly enough the snowy weather this morning did keep the store pretty dead. At least for most of the morning, I don't know if it got busier towards the afternoon, but it felt like a lot less people came in today, for which I'm grateful since I was dealing with a migraine for most of it and it's easier to survive work if I'm not constantly having to interact with people.

Though I did notice a trend with the customers that did come into the store this morning.

They were all 'old'

Like grey haired old. Old enough that I would worry about them being out in the snow and the ice because they could potentially slip and fall and hurt themselves.

So it was rather surprising to see them all coming into the store when the roads were hardly plowed and our parking lot definitely wasn't plowed at all because we hadn't had enough snow fall yet to warrant plowing even though it did risk slippage. 

But come into the store they did.

lol I had to wonder if the old adage of old people saying "We had to walk uphill both was to school in ten feet of snow!" had any truth to it and that's why the older folk were in the store this morning. Because a little dusting of snow wasn't gonna stop them from doing their shopping. lol.

Definitely stopped the younger generations for a while from coming into the store, i didn't really start seeing them in until nearer to noon. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wanted Dead

 So there's this customer that comes into the store.

That is rather obsessed with well...'saving things'

Pretty sure they come from the great depression era where you use a thing until it's completely dust and save everything 'just in case' it comes in handy later.

For a long while this customer would come get the eggs that our Finches and Canaries would lay and would ask us to save them so that they could then take them, freeze dry them?? do something to them to make them 'collectable' and like make dioramas or whatever to give to schools? I honestly don't know.

But it's been around a year or so since we've done that for that customer.

Mostly because we started selling the birds in our store faster and therefore didn't give them time to lay eggs. But also because the customer stopped asking for them. It could be that they had enough of it...or else enough new people are now working in the store that don't know about this that the customer gave it up.

In any case.

I've also seen this customer try and save cardboard images of like dogs and cats that were headers on displays we were no longer needing. And yah....basically if they see anything getting thrown away they want to double check and make sure they can't use it or repurpose it in some way first.

It's about 50/50 with this customer on their success rate of convincing us to give them things. Some items we're like 'sure have at it' but others we're like 'no we can't do that.'

Today's event included our crickets. 

As apparently the customer is now caring for a spider and needed to get some crickets to feed it. 

When I found the customer they were peering into our small cricket bin. Like lid up head stuck into the bin peering inside.

And I was like "Can I help you?" 

And they were like "Do you sell the dead crickets?"

Because I'd received in a cold shipment of crickets earlier and hadn't yet swept up the dead that had come in as I was waiting to see if any of them would come out of hibernation as sometimes the cold doesn't kill them just makes them sleep.

But most of the time customer want the live crickets because the creatures that eat them like to hunt for their food.

So I was like "No we don't sell the dead ones."

I mean...we do sell the freeze dried dead crickets. There's canned versions and bottled versions of them that customers can buy.

But sell dead ones from the live cricket bin? No. We don't do that. 

Mostly because it can be a biohazard? As we don't know what the creature died from and we don't want to risk getting a person sick from handling the dead creature, or have their pet get sick from eating the freshly dead creature. Plus like...the ammonia that the dead crickets give off can stink rather bad. 

And the customer wasn't fazed at all. They were like "Oh, if you don't sell them can I just have some? My spider will eat them."

Again no. For the reasons stated above. It's a safety issue. 

*shakes head* It reminds me of the people who want to buy the dead goldfish on occasion. Most want it for filming but occasionally they want them for other reasons and like....No we don't sell them and we don't give them away just for safety and public image and such.

So yah, this customer didn't get their dead crickets.

But I did catch them like 5 live ones to go feed to their spider. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wrong Wrong Wrong

 It was a day for weird animal shenanigans apparently.

Mostly because like ALL the animals came into the store today. *shakes head* 

Like usually on Friday's I only expect to get in our Fish Shipment...if our Truck is in on time. Which surprisingly it was for once. It arrived before 10 am which is a miracle honestly because the trucks have been showing up towards the late afternoon for the past little while. 

But it was great news as it would give me something to do during my shift.

And overall putting out the fish went without hassle....except I got in a bag of fish that were labeled "4 bolivian ram cichlids" and when I looked at the bag to see if there were any dead within it...I could immediately see that 2 of them were not in fact bolivian rams. No they definitely were 2 blue acara cichlids instead.

And while the other 2 cichlids in that bag appeared at first to be the bolivians....upon placing them in the tank and seeing them with the other bolivians we had already there...I realized that the other two were convict cichlids instead.

So they sent me 2 blue acaras and 2 convicts....instead of 4 bolivians. *shakes head* 

But we also got in our reptile shipment today as well and the paperwork said we were only getting in 1 ball python....but there were 2 in the box. O_o 

I later discovered that there was a second invoice behind the first that showed this second ball python on it.

But it was weird to look at the first invoice and realize that they sent us one snake extra.

*exhales* I notified the company about the 2 ball pythons before I realized that there was a second invoice for the 2nd python....so hopefully we don't end up with 3 in the system when I should only have 2.

In any case. 

We also ended up getting a cricket shipment in that was supposed to have 7,500 large crickets in it. But in typical fashion 4,100 of them were missing. 

And we also received in our small pet/bird shipment today too because the delivery ended up having truck issues and couldn't deliver them yesterday. And for once all the animals in our shipment showed up.

One of them being a chinchilla. 

And I'm used to them being a certain size.

But the chinchilla we got in today is like twice the size of the one already in the cage. He has to be fully grown and he's giant!! lol *shakes head* 

So yah...it's just been a weird day when it comes to animals. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

$1.99

Had a customer come up to the register today demanding to check the price of a bully stick because he'd found it in one of the $1.99 buckets and wanted to make sure that it was actually $1.99.

Upon checking the price, however, it was discovered that the item had been misshelved and was actually $9.99.

The customer asked if I could give it to him for the $1.99 price, to which I said no, but I'd be happy to help him find a bully stick that was $1.99.

So he randomly picks out like two other bully sticks (without looking at the prices below them mind you) and hands them to me to go check.

Which I do and the first one rings up at $1.99 while the second one rings up at $4.99.

Obviously, after double checking that it is indeed $1.99, he takes the first one and I put back the second item and then proceed to try and find where the $9.99 bully stick goes.

I can't find the location.

And the customer is standing nearby waiting in line watching me. And when he realizes that I can't find the location he's like "See! There's no location for it and it's the last one! So can I get it for $1.99?"

Ha. No dude. As you see the UPC is still ON the bully stick which means we can still SCAN it which means it will still RING UP at $9.99. With the product not having any defects or issues. (you know besides being placed in the wrong spot) there is no reason to give such a discount to the customer.

I end up taking the $9.99 bully stick to the back of the store and placed it there to be reshelved later on when the customer isn't watching my every move.

However, that's not the end of the customer's shenanigans. As apparently he also picked up a 50 cent dental treat from a bin while waiting in line that he also wanted to buy.

When he finally reaches the register, the cashier rings up the $1.99 chew and the .50 cent dental treat and tells him that the total is gonna be $2.67 (because you know there's like an .18 cent tax on top of that)

And the guy was like: "BUT IT SHOULD ONLY BE $1.99!!!"

Like dude...you're a grown man. How do you not get the concept of MATH? If you buy one item at one price and buy a second item at a different price you add up the two prices together and get a new price that you pay. You don't just get to keep the original price of the first item the entire time.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Online Pick Up

So usually after 7pm we don't check to see if more online orders have come in because we stop doing curbside pick up at that point for the safety of our associates. 

Though since currently it gets dark at like 5pm....that's still two hours of us walking outside in the dark....but anyways. I think we mostly have the 7pm cut off so we don't get inundated with pick up orders right at close when we're trying to get people out of the store and could be dealing with rushes and such. 

In any case.

It was after 7pm when I get a call from a customer asking about an order she'd placed online as she lives further down south and placed the order to get delivered to her parents here in Happy Valley. 

But after placing the order she discovered that our sister store near her had the item in stock and so she planned to get it there and then bring it up here to her parents when she came to visit.

But she wanted to know if we could cancel the order as it was scheduled to be picked up and delivered tomorrow via DoorDash.

And while I'm not certain how canceling things goes on the end of DoorDash, since we hadn't yet picked the order it should be easy enough to cancel it on our end. Though I don't know how to do that personally as only the Head Manager and maybe the VP Manager can cancel orders. 

So I left a note for tomorrow and informed my managers to not pick the order so we could get it cancelled. 

Easy enough so long as people follow directions and not pick things lol. 

In any case. I noted that there was this customer's order and then one more order that had come in.

But since it was after 7pm I decided to leave both for tomorrow.

However.

It seemed like pretty much after I hung up with the first customer I get another call from a customer who stated that she too had just placed an order for pick up, but she hadn't realized that we stopped doing curbside at 7pm and she needed the item she ordered tonight instead of tomorrow.

Which since it was slow, it was easy enough to assure her that I could pick her order and have it ready for her. But since it was after 7pm she would have to come into the store to grab her order instead of us bringing it out to her car. 

Thankfully the customer didn't throw a fuss about that and was quite willing to come into the store. And thankfully she was able to come in before we closed. As that's always semi tricky when it's heading towards closing time. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Bonus

It's interesting being a 'bonus person' at work.

Because like...I'm used to being 'needed' in some area. Usually petcare because that's been my main duty for years now. If I'm in the store it's because I'm needed for Petcare. To do the opening tasks that sort of thing.

So to be assigned as a bonus person. An individual who is just basically free floating around the store helping where ever help is needed.

Is weird. 

I mean it's kinda been fun to get a break from doing my usual tasks. To help out in other areas of the store and learn more about other duties that the managers do. 

It can be stressful too though because I feel like I'm a lot more proactive wandering around the store. Helping with stocking and pick up orders and back up cashiering and back up petcaring.

There's a lot of potential things I can do.

It's just...different. A good different.

Though I am glad that I still have more time in Petcare than elsewhere as I do prefer that lol. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Tell Me About The Bird

I had a customer come into the store today, who got it into their head that they wanted one of our parakeets.

And I'm pretty sure that this customer only 'wanted' the bird for their 'grandchild' because the parakeet was by itself in the cage.

Does this grandchild actually want a bird? Who knows. 

But yah...the customer wanted to know 'why' we had this parakeet by itself when there was another cage that had half a dozen parakeets in it.

The answer is simple.

We have 3 types of parakeets we sell.

Greens. Blues. and Fancy Parakeets.

And we usually keep the Fancy parakeets in separate cages from the blues and the greens because the fancies can be blue, green, yellow, white or any combination and shade of them. 

And that can cause for confusion in which 'type' of bird we're selling if they're all mixed together.

So we keep the fancy's separate.

And unfortunately for the single Fancy Parakeet...all it's friends got sold a couple of days ago.

Honestly with the pandemic going on, we usually sell through parakeets within the week. 

I was actually surprised that the single fancy was still there this morning as the Fancies tend to be more popular than the blues and greens.

In any case, the customer decided that they wanted to get the bird....only they know like nothing about birds.

Okay. That's probably a lie. They probably had had birds in the past because this customer kept asking me about things that most beginner customers don't think about. Like things to help keep the nails on their feet trimmed and their beaks trimmed and the right kind of diet food and asking how long we quarantine the birds before bringing them out onto the floor and how old the birds are.

*exhales*

Most people you tell them "Pick a cage. Grab some food. Grab a cuttlebone and millet. Grab some toys. You're good to go." 

But this customer had me walking back and forth -as our bird section is stupidly divided up into three different aisles. *exhales* So it was like "Walk to the bird cages, walk to the bird food, walk back to the bird cages because the perches are there, walk back to the bird food because the cuttlebone is there, walk back to the bird cages because the customer asked about seed guards."

-_- Gah. I walked back and forth with this customer like a dozen times because I had no idea what thing they would ask me about next and they only seemed to remember the question they needed answering after I had left the area to show them the answer to their other question.

*exhales*

It would have been fine if the customer actually ended up buying the freaking bird.

But nooooo.

Basically the only thing, after all the relentless questions, that stopped the customer from finally purchasing the single parakeet....

Was the fact that our smallest and cheapest cage.....was white.

*exhales* The customer didn't want to spend $10 more to get a cage of a different color.

Nooo the customer wanted our cheap $20 cage.....but didn't want it in the only color it comes in.

So I basically wasted a good 45 minutes of my time with this customer who wanted to get things for the bird as cheaply as possible (surprise surprise) 

Only to leave to go 'find a better cage' with the intention to come back later. 

*exhales*

I never saw the customer come back.

Who knows if they will actually come back or if they ended up changing their mind after all about this 'gift' for their grandchild. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Let Me Put My Stuff Down First

 So there I was, coming out of the clock in room, having just clocked in for my shift.

But I was still 'undercover' in a way as I hadn't yet gone back into the breakroom to put my purse and my jacket hiding my uniform from view away. 

Like nothing about my look would indicate that I 'worked' there and wasn't a fellow shopper besides the fact that I had just come out of a door that wasn't marked.

And this customer standing nearby was like "Do you work here?" 

Which...yes..I do work here. But like dude....can you not see that I just got here?

I'm literally standing there with my purse over my shoulder and a jacket hiding my work shirt.

Does it look like I work here? No. No it does not. 

Honestly....I don't know why the guy would assume that I worked there when I still had my purse with me. Like has he ever seen us wandering around this store with our purses over our shoulders? No. 

*exhales*

But he wanted to know if we had more of a certain type of canned dog food in the back.

Which easy enough to check. (We didn't) 

But still. I wish he would have waited to ask for help until after I put my stuff down or asked someone wearing a visible uniform. 

*shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Training Class?

 Sometimes you gotta wonder about people's sanity.

So today is Black Friday right?

Crowds of people thronging everywhere hoping to find good deals on things to buy for Christmas.

It's been even more...well...stressful with the pandemic going on. Since tons of people gathering together could mean another uptick in cases in the next couple of weeks. 

So it's expected for it to be like a really super busy Saturday.

And like...I'd hope that people would choose to shop online instead of coming into the store.

But towards the middle of the day. 

One of my coworkers asked if it was okay that someone was holding a random dog training class within our store.

Which we have people come in all the time for like general obedience sort of training. Usually one on one stuff to get the dog used to interacting in the real world, so we don't really mind that.

But apparently it was a whole group of people (unsure how many people but more than the one on one) holding a training class in the back of the store.

Which A) you can't do that in our store. We only officially allow training classes to be taught in the store by our own dog trainers. 
And this is mostly done for safety purposes. Because if a dog gets hurt within the store we can be liable for that. So to decrease any potential issues we don't allow random people to hold random classes in our location. 

and B) Why would anyone think it would be a good idea to hold a class on Black Friday? Like aka the BUSIEST day of the year? With so many people thronging into the store... it's gonna be loud. People are gonna be wanting to access product and if the class is blocking said product That's not good.

But also like. C) We're in the middle of a PANDEMIC.

Why in the world do you think it's okay to hold a class on the busiest day of the year in a pandemic especially when we have cases skyrocketing? Like No. No. No.

Our Dog Trainer ended up telling the unofficial class they had to leave.

But like still....I don't get it. Why would anyone think that it's a good idea to hold training this day? *shakes head* 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Ads Ads and More Ads

I ended up clocking out over an hour late tonight.

Because it took my coworkers and I longer than expected to set out the black friday ad after we closed today. 

Though I wasn't surprised it took us a couple of hours as that's how long it took us to put out an ad a couple of weeks ago. 

And if we'd been able to start the ad a bit before closing it probably would have gone quicker.

But nope.

Took us 2 hours to get it done.

So we all clocked out an hour later than expected.

*exhales*

So tired.

So very tired. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Can't Press That

I got stuck on register helping customers for a bit. And I had a customer come through the line who wanted to pay for a nail service that was done for their dog. 

Only they weren't happy because they'd been told on the phone that the service would cost $13 but they were being charged $15 for it.

After checking with the Head Manager, I got the okay to adjust the price. 

And it should have been a simple transaction after that point.

Only the customer apparently was a germaphobe.

Because they refused to touch the pin pad in order to complete their transaction.

But like...I couldn't see why they were being so paranoid about it because I had literally cleaned off the pin pad seconds before they were to use it because the customer in front of them hadn't been wearing a mask so to be safe I was doing a deeper clean on everything that customer had touched.

But this customer was like "No one ever cleans the creases though!!"

Like...because people don't have to? MOST people just touch the middle of the button. 

But the customer was acting like a stubborn 3 year old 'trying' to press the button but 'failing' to press the right one to finish the transaction.

I finally had to press the button for them in order to move the line along.

But like if you're that paranoid about touching things why come into the store at all? Were you like this when you touched the door of the grooming salon to enter and exit it to get your dog? Why weren't you wearing gloves if you were so worried about it?

*exhales*

It was annoying. So very annoying. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Grooming Appointment

Gotta love the stress of a Saturday morning.

I had a customer call the store wanting to know if they could get their dog into the salon for grooming.

Today.

And well..the groomers were quite busy and even though I informed them they had a call on hold like twice...they couldn't get to the phone. 

But I already figured that they wouldn't be able to get someone in for a groom today.

Because this is the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and from what I was told by the Groomers is like the busiest Saturday of the year. -i would think around Christmas would be busier...but who knows.

So I ended up getting on the phone with the customer and telling them that there were no openings.

But instead of being uncomplicated and going "Okay." and hanging up they were like "What about tomorrow? What about next week?"

*exhales*

I ended up telling them that the groomers were booked out through at least Mid December.

Though the Groomers themselves were like "til the end of the year!" 

So who knows.

But basically it's kinda amusing that people think they can get their animals in for a groom on the same day right now.

As due to the pandemic we can't have as many groomers in our grooming salon to ensure that social distancing is being done.

Which means we can't schedule as many appointments....

Sooo many people have to schedule their dogs to be groomed months in advance. 

Yah....I don't envy the people who want to try and get their dogs groomed last minute. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Guinea Woes

So we got in some guinea pigs yesterday from our supplier. Just like three...which is semi concerning when we have Black Friday around the corner and who knows what sort of animals people will be wanting that day.

In any case, upon opening the back room this morning, I noticed that one of the guinea pigs was acting...off. Very lethargic, hardly moving from it's spot.

Picking him up, I knew right away that this guinea pig wasn't doing well as he was pretty limp in my grip. Hardly struggling at all. And I noted that when he tried to move, it was rather shaky, like he couldn't stand up straight. 

It wasn't a good sign.

And I was already semi preparing for the worst case scenario being that he wouldn't last the day.

I took him over to our head manager and they agreed that we needed to get him to a vet.

So I called our regular vet asking if they could see him today...but they couldn't.

So I tried calling our back up vet...only to discover that they no longer had an exotics vet at their location...

So last resort was I took the guinea pig to the vet in the store, which they don't normally see exotics because none of the vets there are familiar with their care, but it was better than nothing.

And the vet on duty decided that we probably should try and get some baytril into him, but he would need time to create a dosage specifically for guinea pigs.

So I took said guinea pig to our iso room to wait for the meds...but checking on him a little bit later, like I don't think an hour had passed...I noted that he was lying on his side now...barely moving. Kinda struggling to breathe...and I figured that that he probably wasn't going to make it.

Like if he lived the hour I would have been surprised.

I ended up flagging down the vet and informing him that I seriously doubted he was going to live.

And the vet was like "Well maybe we should just inject him with straight baytril, bring him over."

I didn't think it would do much, and upon bringing him back over to the vet and seeing the state he was in--which the vet was shocked at how quickly the guinea pig had gone down hill, he agreed that at this stage -where he was lying on his side barely moving and hardly breathing....that we should go ahead and euthanize him because he'd passed the point of recovery.

*exhales* :( I hate it when we have to euthanize pets...especially when this guinea pig had been in our care under 24 hours. Like...that's quick for him to go downhill especially when he'd looked okay in my brief glimpse of him when he came in yesterday.

*exhales* Not easy...but hopefully he's resting easier now. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Spider!

 Kids can be funny sometimes.

I had a little boy come into the store to look at the fish and such and pick out ones that he wanted---which turns out the fish 'tank' they had was like a 'fish bowl' instead and they wanted to put 2 glofish and 2 goldfish in that bowl...so I ended up talking the parent into buying a bigger tank with a heater ad filter to help the fish live better.

But while they were looking at the fish, the kid happened to glance over to our wall of care guides -just pamphlets on how to take care of various fish/creatures/animals.

And he proceeded to scream and freak out (in a none serious way, kinda having fun sort of way) over an image of a tarantula that was on one of the pamphlets. *shakes head* 

lol the parent was less than amused by the kid's antics, but I found it rather funny.

Especially when the kid was like "I told the lady I talked to earlier that I hoped I wouldn't see any spiders here and she told me we wouldn't but I just did!"

lol....probably a good thing I didn't point out the cage where had the actual live tarantula sitting. *shakes head* The kid probably would have screamed a lot louder. XD lol. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Three Bearded Dragons

 So we had a customer buy three bearded dragons from us over a month ago. And it was the sort of situation that just had me like...trying to not raise my eyebrows because who would want to buy three bearded dragons at the same time? It's just...not something that I would recommend doing. Especially when you're not sure that your spouse will approve of it. 

And like this customer, I'm pretty sure, had already bought a couple of leopard geckos from us like the month before that. 

Which...feeding 5 lizards can get rather expensive. Especially when 3 of them are bearded dragons where an individual one could eat 60 crickets at a time. 

So I wasn't going to be surprised if the customer ended up returning the bearded dragons at some point.

Which the customer ended up doing.

Only not because they didn't want them any more.

No all three bearded dragons appeared to have some sort of 'tail rot' happening to the tips of their tails, and the customer was concerned and wanted them checked by the vet.

Which is a service we offer as part of our guarantee. We'll take the animals to the vet within a certain time frame of being purchased if there's a health issue.

So we took the three beardies to the vet. And one of them ended up being fine. No issues that the vet could see.

So I called the customer to let them know they could take that beardie back home. But the other two would need to be on some medications to help with their tails for a couple of weeks.

Since we got results rather quickly, the customer wanted us to observe the 'healthy' beardie for the weekend to just double check that it was healthy.

Which I did.

And I called the customer and left them a message that monday that the could come get the bearded dragon.

No response.

I think I called a few days later, to again let them know that the bearded dragon was healthy and ready to be picked up.

and it sounded like the customer was going to come get the healthy one....

But more days passed...and no customer.

And then. Tragedy. One of the other two bearded dragons we'd been treating ended up dying on us. Y_Y Which is never a good thing and especially not fun when you have to inform the customer that one of their pets didn't survive.

*exhales* But they still had the other bearded dragon that was still healthy and ready to be picked up, while the last beardie on medications still had like another week to go at that point.

Fast forward and I've been gone for a week on vacation, but the medications are done with for that last beardie...and the original one is still there waiting to be picked up.

Like....the fact that the customer didn't come get the healthy bearded dragon right away should have been a sign.

But I called the customer again to inform the that both bearded dragons were healthy now and ready to be returned to them....

And the customer was like "Cool!......we actually no longer want to buy them back." 

O_o.

*exhales* Honestly i should have seen it coming when they didn't grab that first bearded dragon.

So yah. I mean if enough time passes we have had customers decide that they no longer want their pet back. So it's understandable.

but still. *shakes head*

I do wonder if the customer will come back on black friday...in the hopes of getting the bearded dragons half off then because they are going half off that day....guess we'll see.

-Sarnic Dirchi 

Doggy Door

I had a customer come up to the register today wanting to know if they could return a doggy door they'd purchased 'a while ago' because they finally got a guy in to install the door in their home...only to realize it was the wrong size. So they wanted to return it. 

And knowing that the pandemic made it so that we couldn't do returns for a few months, I was willing to check into the possibility of returning the item....but first I needed to see the receipt so I could check the dates.

As usually our return policy is 60 days.

Which we continued returns back in May...and we gave people a 2 month grace period to return items they'd purchased between March and May. 

But this customer?

The receipt that they showed me was from December. 

December of 2018.

You read that right.

2018.

They'd bought the doggy door TWO YEARS AGO.

O.o Like...how does it take a person TWO YEARS to install a door? *shakes head*

I honestly don't know.

But I definitely couldn't do a return on something that old. 

Like again, our return policy is 60 days. 2 months. That's it. 

But the customer was like "Can't you make an exception?" "Can't you just exchange it out because I'm buying all this other stuff?" 

No. No I could not. Because it's TWO YEARS OLD.

The customer wouldn't be dissuaded though.

"What if I brought it back 'later' without a receipt. Would you be able to return it then?" 

Ha. Like I'm gonna tell the customer yes. *shakes head* No. I informed the customer that the item is considered a high theft item (plus expensive things need to have a receipt regardless) and that in order to return the product a receipt has to be shown to do the return.

So yah.

I was actually surprised the customer went ahead with buying their other purchases as I half expected that they'd just go "oh well nevermind then" and leave everything at the register and call it a day.

They didn't though. They bought their other items. And took their doggy door back home.

Hopefully the customer can find somewhere online to sell it.

But yah no, not returning it to our store. Not after 2 years. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Chameleon Customer Continued

It's been an adventurous week with our homeless dude and his chameleon.

I'm not sure, honestly, how many times he's been in the store.

I know of at least three instances when I was there. But who knows if he's come in at times when I wasn't. 

In any case it started before halloween with the dude randomly coming into the store and becoming obsessed with the chameleon we had.

Because the chameleon was actually being social and coming up to the glass and attempting to reach the dude's finger.

He wanted to hold the chameleon but due to covid I couldn't allow it and he left the store promising to come back the next day.

I never saw him the next day.

But he did come in on Monday. 

Wanting us to discount the chameleon for him because he didn't have enough money to buy it at the moment but he really wanted to get it.

I denied the sale because 'i really want it' isn't good enough grounds to put a discount on anything in the store. 

And if the dude can't afford to spend $60 on the chameleon.

He probably can't afford to spend $200+ to get all the proper gear for the chameleon's cage, heat, decor, and food. 

 Considering the guy was asking if he could keep the chameleon in a critter tote....

Yah no. Not gonna fly.

So I gave him a care guide on what he needs to care for the reptile, showed him the cages he would need. 

And he left the store claiming he was gonna get more money to get the chameleon.

I was hoping still...that he would drop it.

But considering he's already been in twice...I wouldn't have been surprised to see him again.

And like I said before. I'm pretty sure the dude is homeless. like he's wearing a heavy coat and pants, has a backpack, has the typical 'homeless look' to him....and with him riding a bike away instead of a car...i doubt he'll be able to transport a tank anywhere....

*exhales*

But today, while I was on lunch...the dude came in again. To buy the chameleon.

My coworker did their best to ensure that the guy had his cage and everything ready.

But neither of us had seen him come into the store to buy a tank.

Like it's possible he'd sourced everything elsewhere. Like people give away tanks online for far cheaper than we sell them....

Though considering the guy doesn't have an email address.....idk if he knows how to use the internet.

But it's not like we can tell the guy 'sorry we think you don't have a proper cage and therefore we can't sell the reptile to you' just because he looks homeless. 

If he says he has a cage...we have to take him at his word. And the coworker had asked him to describe the cage and such.....and like...his answers passed muster. 

*exhales*

Though since the guy couldn't really provide an address for the paperwork....i honestly don't think he has an actual home to take the chameleon back to.

...At this point I won't be surprised if the chameleon ends up dying.

Because if he doesn't have the proper cage for the reptile....I highly doubt it will last long. Not when a cold snap is expected to hit this weekend where we're gonna drop into the 40s and 30s. 

Far too cold for a chameleon. 

Gah. I kinda wish the dude had just lost interest. 

But I guess we'll just have to see how the dice fall...

-Sarnic Dirchi

Learning

 I understand that greenies can't learn everything the first day.

I get it. Truly I do. 

There's a lot of information to take in no matter what position you hold in the store.

And with the variety of questions we get from customers, new associates aren't expected to know everything. That's why we're all connected by radios. So if we don't know an answer we can ask and see if someone else knows. 

However...there is a point where new associates are expected to have a basic knowledge of the store.

Like...the layout. Where they're likely to find the common things that customers often ask for.

Like collars, cones, dog foot, cat litter, fish, shampoo...etc. 

It should come to workers pretty quickly to direct people to aisle 4, 7, 15 for the items they're looking for.

But I have this one greenie, who's been in the store for a couple of weeks now...not quite a month but they've been in the store for a while...who is still acting like it's day one.

Constantly asking questions that they should already know the answer to.

*exhales*

And I get the fear of not wanting to be wrong. Of wanting to be sure that you direct the person to the right spot.

But if we've told you ten times that something is located on such and such an aisle...then you really should remember for the next time a customer asks you that question. 

And it could be that the new worker has been stuck on the register for practically their entire time they've been working here.

So they haven't really had time to go look about and figure out where things are. 

Though...I am halfway surprised that they hadn't taken the initiative and like...maybe explored the store on their own so they could figure out where things were. 

Thankfully, we were able to give the greenie time today to wander around the store and familiarize themselves with things. Though I don't know if they took as much advantage of the time as they could have...

*exhales*

Guess I'll find out tomorrow as I believe I work another shift with the greenie.

We'll see if they're on the radio every five minutes again...hopefully not. 

But considering that that's been the trend of the past couple of weeks....I may just have to brace myself for many more questions.....we'll see.

-Sarnic Dirchi

All The Puppy Food

I had a customer call the store today wanting to know if we carried a certain brand of refrigerated puppy food that comes in rolls and if we did have some if I could tell them what size, how many, and how much they were. 

It seemed like an odd request. As most people only buy one or two rolls. 

Though I have had people buy an armful of the fridge food before.

In any case, I did indeed carry the food that the customer wanted. We had seven 2lb rolls that were $13 each.

Upon confirming the information I'd told them, the customer proceeded to ask if I had a specific brand of puppy food in the cans. The Instinct brand.

Which thankfully the Instinct brand was right next to our fridge, so I was easily able to find those cans and tell the customer that we had 16 of them in stock.

The customer seemed in a bit of a hurry and I could hear dogs whining in the background, so I was wondering if they'd unexpectedly ended up with puppies or rescued some dogs, or just ran out of food....

It wasn't the end of the conversation there though. After confirming again the price and the amounts of the food the customer wanted to know if they jumped online and ordered the food, if we would deliver it to the customer.

Which we don't, though we do online pick up so the customer could order online and do a curbside pick up outside so long as it occurred before 7pm. 

The customer promised to put in the order asap and I told them that I would keep an eye out so that when the order came in I would be able to pick it quickly. 

Though I ended up having a cashier keep an eye on the pick up orders while I could finish other tasks. 

It wasn't that hard to pick the order when it came in as I already knew where and how many were needed.

But I was rather surprised to get a call from the customer just as I was pulling the invoice off the printer.

I hadn't even gotten the order to our pick up order cabinet yet.

But the customer was like "Hey! I just got an email saying my order was ready. I'm waiting outside!" 

Like O_o dude. How long were you waiting outside in your car for me to pick your order? 

At least I was able to get their order out to them quickly. 

Hopefully the food lasts them a while. 

-Sarnic Dirchi 

Discount It

 >_< The chameleon customer came back today. 

I'd been hoping that I had missed him Saturday and that he'd forgotten all about the chameleon.

But no, who knows if he came in Saturday, but he definitely came in today.

Apparently he's decided that he really wants the chameleon and approached our cashier to ask if it would be possible to discount it.

Which we were all like ??? hearing that request over the radios.

Because we don't discount animals. It's rare to discount them honestly. Like if there's something wrong with the creature we usually adopt it out to a customer who will be able to care for it and its special needs.

And I wasn't aware of there being any issues with our chameleon.

But no, when I rounded the corner to investigate who was wanting a discount...it was the homeless guy from Friday. *exhales*

Though honestly...I'm not completely sure if he's homeless. He says he has a home...but at the same time, you usually don't see people wearing heavy pants/coats with large backpacks come into the store unless they are homeless or hitch hiking. He gave off the 'homeless aura' so to speak. 

In any case. The dude wanted to know if we would discount the chameleon for him because he wanted to buy the reptile but didn't have enough money to do so.

Which kinda sets off red flags because like...if you can't afford to spend $60 on a chameleon...when it's already on sale (saving you $10 cus it's usually $70) then you aren't likely able to afford ~$200 worth of gear/cage/equipment/food that the chameleon needs to survive. 

And I was pretty sure the dude had none of this stuff. Especially when he asked how long he could keep the reptile in a temporary container. 

And I had to show him all the cages and such that was required because chameleons are one of the more delicate creatures and that they wouldn't do well in the cold without heat.

To which the customer responded that he wasn't going to be 'in the cold' as he would be 'taking the bus' 

To which I reiterated that the chameleon would need heat because they need to stay warm. I ended up giving the dude a care guide, pointing to the "Needs 90-100 degrees in it's basking spot" portion of the guide and again showing him what cages he would need to buy everything.

Like reptiles aren't cheap. They have a pretty expensive start up cost if you don't already have all the stuff.

I left him to look at things down the aisle and he ended up leaving the store without buying anything.

Though when I went to go take out a curbside pickup he was standing outside the store with his bike and he told me "I'm going to go home and get more cash." before riding off.

Which...I hope he has another mode of transport because there's no way he's carrying a cage on a bike to his home....like sure I could see him transporting the reptile...but all the gear? Not likely. :S 

I didn't see him again before the end of my shift....so I can only hope that he changed his mind and didn't come back....but I guess we'll see when I go into work tomorrow if the chameleon is there or not. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

It's Not Hard. Wear a Mask.

It's amazing how willfully ignorant people can be.

Like we've had signs up practically everywhere in our store from the very front doors to the registers to the cages to the floor to the doors to the bathroom...stating that masks are required to be worn in the store.

You literally have to walk past at least six of these signs to get anywhere in the store.

And yet I constantly find people claiming that they "didn't know about our mask requirement"

Which...we've had these mask requirements for months now. Since JULY. 

Practically every major retail store has had these requirements since JULY.

And yet customers still come into the stores not wearing masks.

Like I get some people get distracted and forget to put it on. But there are a bunch who just do a big Question Mark when I tell them about the requirement.

Even though both our sliding glass doors have "Masks are Required" signs on them for both our store and the vet. And then we have this large podium we've set up in front of those doors with a large sign that says "MASKS ARE REQUIRED" and have masks visibly set on top of the podium for the individuals who forgot.

But today at the fish wall I encountered a couple who wanted to get some fish. 

And neither one was wearing a mask.

So I was like "Before I grab you your fish, can I grab you guys a mask? As they are required to be worn in the store."

And they were like "They are?! Since when?!"

Since JULY people. JULY. 

I honestly don't know how they 'didn't know about it' (though I suspect they were purposely playing dumb) when we had signs all over. *exhales*

At least they were willing to wear the masks once I offered to get them. So that's a bonus. Far better than the people who give you the stink eye before pulling their masks out to put on their faces.

-Sarnic Dirchi