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

Chameleon Fascination

 Had a homeless guy come into the store today and become fascinated with our chameleon. 

As the chameleon had come to the front of its cage and appeared to be interacting with him as he put his finger up next to it. 

As I was walking past, he turned to me and asked if he could hold the chameleon. 

I had to tell him that due to the pandemic, we aren't allowing the handling of pets unless the individual is planning to buy the animal that day.

To which the dude went on a spiel of how he had worked for some institute of health/science/something and he and his team had eradicated viruses so they no longer existed.

*shakes head*

No...pretty sure you didn't get rid of all viruses. Especially since my state broke a new record on reported covid cases today. 

And even if he had destroyed all viruses...I still couldn't let him hold the pet per our current policies. 

He didn't like that much...

And a little while later he wandered by our fish wall asking if we had any crickets. To which I showed him them and he asked if the chameleon would eat little crickets.

I could see where he was heading. Either he wanted to buy some crickets to feed to our chameleon, or else he wanted us to feed the chameleon so he could watch. 

I had to shut him down again though by telling him that we'd already fed the chameleon this morning.

It didn't dissuade him though. He mentioned coming back tomorrow then to feed the chameleon then.

I wonder if he'll actually come...hopefully I'm not around if he does. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Your Information

I had a guy come into the store today wanting to buy one of our anoles.

And per our policy customers have to fill out some paperwork before buying any animal in the store -with the exception of fish- 

That paperwork usually is just a physical copy of our guarantee which explains to customers that if there's any issues with their pet within a certain time frame they can bring the animal back to us so long as they have the animal, the receipt, and the white paper that they filled out.

But the other portion of the paperwork is the customer filling out some information about themselves.

Namely their name, address, phone number, and then an email address if they want to.

And overall, nobody really questions having to fill out this information. 

And in all honesty we don't use the information on the paperwork at all. If a customer brings back a pet for a health check and wants to buy it back then we'll need the customer's phone number in order to call them when their pet recovers.

But the rest of it...not really needed. And honestly I think we only have it on hand 'just in case' like something needs to be mailed to their home or something. But it's not something I've ever had happen. 

And I think earlier...I don't even know if this is still a thing, but back when I first started we would need to mail all our copies of the paperwork to the home office....but I don't think they did anything with the information there either. So like it's mostly just an old safeguard just in case we have to reach the customer somehow.

In any case.

The customer was really against giving us his address.

He wanted to know what we were going to 'do with this information' and upon hearing 'nothing' wanted to know 'why' he needed to fill it out in the first place if it wasn't 'doing anything'

Yah. It sucks to be told 'it's required per policy' but that's really the only for sure answer I had for the guy. We just need the address just in case. But we don't do anything with it.

Still. It's weird to have those paranoid types come into the store.

The ones who don't want to use a chip reader, or give us their email, or phone number, or address....

Like in this day and age...it's just weird. To have someone so against it. 

Like I get some of the reasoning. But at the same time....it's just weird.

-Sarnic Dirchi

All the Texts

I had two of my fellow managers contact me today, on my day off, to ask questions about 'what should we do' when it came to taking care of some of the creatures in the store that were showing signs of not doing well.

Which...it's kinda amusing in a way because both managers have been in my department before. One of them used to be the manager over my department....

And yet both of them wanted to check in with me first to see what the 'proper course' of action should be.

It makes sense in a way, because I have waaaaay more experience in Petcare than they do. 

But at the same time...I do hope that this doesn't become a 'thing' because I want to be able to enjoy my days off without having work follow me home....

-Sarnic Dirchi 

I Need Bigger

Gotta love the paranoid customers. 

Like I can't tell if it's a good thing or a bad thing to over explain things at work. 

But I often ask customers how long their drive home is when I am bagging their fish.

And this is so I can make sure I grab the appropriate sized bag to put their fish in. As I have customers come from up to 4 hours away and the small bags really are only good for an hour and a half while the larger bags can be good for that 4 hour distance.

So I ask to check. And then I'll be like "Okay this bag is good for an hour and a half, if you had a longer drive I'd give you a bigger bag."

Most people are like "Okay cool."

But there are some individuals who get like....paranoid?

idk if that's the right world. I also feel like they get 'me centric' in that they feel like they should receive 'special treatment.'

But the customers get paranoid about the size of the bag and insist I give them a bigger bag...even though they indicated to me that their drive was only a short distance away.

A lot of the time it's the customers from the southern end of the valley -a 20ish minute drive from my store- that end up being like this. They feel like they need a large bag in order to get home in time...when the small bag that's good for an hour and a half would be enough for them.

That was the situation today.

Where a customer decided that they wanted to get some fish.

Mind you--I'd already talked to them once about over crowding their 10 gallon tank, but they insisted that they wanted to add 5 more fish to their tank when they already had 4 other fish at home and we only recommend having between 5-6 fish in a 10 gallon tank.

But they insisted that they'd read on the internet that they could have more fish without problem.

In any case.

I asked them the standard question on if their drive home is under an hour or over.

And the customer said under.

So I grabbed the small bag that's good for 1.5 hours and as I'm writing on the bag explain that they're good for 1.5 hours and that I'd give you a bigger bag if the drive was longer.

And the customer was like !!!! Oh, I need a bigger bag!

And I'm like O_o?? Because they just told me their drive was under an hour. So I reiterate that they have plenty of time to get home in the hour and a half period.

"I have a lot of fish" came their next response. 

Which 5 fish is not a lot of fish. And I tell the customer that the small bag is good to hold 6 fish in it so the small bag should still be fine.

To which they were like "I just don't want them to die, can you put them in a larger bag?"

*exhales*

Like...dear customer. What are you planning to do? WALK home in the cold and take three hours to do it? The fish would have been fine in the smaller bag. *shakes head*

Plus I'd already written on the smaller bag so like...thanks for nothing making me waste a bag because the odds of having someone want the exact same fish aren't that high. 

But yah...I gave the customer their bigger bag. Even though they truly didn't need it. *shakes head* Giving you a bigger bag won't ensure that the fish won't die. Especially if it's a short distance away.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Stay.

I never quite understand the people who walk away.

Like when I'm trying to help a customer and I tell them to "stay here, I'll be right back." only to find them gone when I return to where I left the customer and I end up having to hunt all over the store for them to either find them somewhere else or that they left the store in the two minutes I left them to wait for.

*exhales* It's irritating. Like I can get being bored and not wanting to stay in one spot.

But it does make it difficult for the worker to find you if they can't find you where they left you.

It makes even less sense to press a button requesting assistance...and then walk away from the button.

Which is what happened today. As I had a customer press the button on our cricket podium requesting help.

But the ten seconds it took me to get from behind the fish wall to in front of the fish wall to help the customer...they'd completely vanished. No one was in sight.

No, I ended up finding the customer five aisles away looking at water bottles meant for rabbits and guinea pigs and other small pets.

And like...he needed crickets as well.

But he didn't stay by the podium to get those crickets.

And he's lucky that I went hunting for him, otherwise the dude may have never gotten his crickets...because it's not like we know exactly who pressed the button until we get over to the podium to see who was standing there.

I could see the guy probably thinking that it would take a couple of minutes for somebody to get over to him and he probably remembered that he needed to get a water bottle and thought he could grab the water bottle and then come back to the podium before anyone got to him....

I could see that happening.

But still. If you press a button....it's a good idea to stay by the button.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Time Frame

Gotta love it when I can guesstimate right.

As I needed to come into the store today after we closed in order to participate in our annual animal count. 

And I guesstimated that it would take me and my coworkers around 2.5 hours to count everything and input it into the computer.

I was right. 

So ha!

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Logo

We had a customer come up to the register wanting to know if we carried masks with the store's logo/name on them because the customer saw one of my cashiers wearing a mask with our store name on it.

And like...I see people walk into our store all the time wearing masks with other store's names or logos on them. But I have always assumed that those wearing those masks work for the store shown on the mask.

Like I can see why people would want to support stores that they like by wearing merch with their names on it. 

At the same time...it's weird. I could see it for a sports team or a specific college or something along those lines.

But wearing merch for a retail store? I don't understand why people would want to.

I mean yes we do sell masks and people do buy them to wear them...but none of them have our logo on them to my knowledge...or if they do it's rather small and not noticeable. 

Maybe the dude was wanting to add to his collection of masks?

Who knows.

Though I can see why stores wouldn't want to have their names visible on masks that don't belong to their workers. 

Especially with all the protests and civil unrest and political events happening this year. I don't think any store would want their name shown to be worn by an individual if an event the individual was in were to end up public or headline news. 

I can see stores wanting to tread carefully that way. So as to not appear to take sides one way or the other in various things.

But yah...I don't think the guy ended up buying any of the masks we did sell....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Semi Aquatic

 Had a customer today who called the store asking if we had Red Claw Crabs and Guppies in stock.

Which we did have both in the store at that moment.

And when the customer came in for them, I asked if the customer had land for the crabs to come out on as they do need to have land access to do well in tanks.

To which the customer said yes they did.

Though I do have to wonder if they misheard or misunderstood my meaning as when I was finishing the final touches of getting their crabs ready to go...the customer asked me if they would be okay in full water.

Which no. They would need to have some land access.

The customer was surprised at this as they'd done some research and had thought that they would be okay in full water.

From my understanding they do need some land access to do well, but i haven't done any research online to confirm or not.

But yah the customer decided to be safe and not get the crabs.

Which I'm glad they did, but at the same time I'm rather annoyed that I ended up wasting paperwork and such because they didn't hear me the first time. *exhales* 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Beep Beep

So this morning was fun in that my fellow manager was late to work. 

Which isn't good when they're the only person with codes to disarm the alarms and such currently as I still haven't received my own codes.

Which means that even though there were other people there who could come into the building with me and I had keys to unlock the doors...I couldn't exactly enter the building because I couldn't disarm the alarms as I had no codes.

And if I opened the doors and didn't disarm the alarm within a certain time frame....that would send a security alert and send the police over to the store to investigate.

So yah.

Not fun not being able to enter a building.

Thankfully after a little bit we were able to enter, but still rather stressful wondering just how 'late' we were all going to clock in. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Persistent Customer

Most of the time when we get calls from customers, they're quick conversations. As alot of them are just asking if we have certain animals or products in stock.

But occasionally you get those 'difficult' customers on the phone that end up keeping you on the line for a good ten minutes or longer because either they have a ton of questions or they feel the need to tell you their whole life story before actually stating while they called.

So it's always a bit of a Russian roulette answering the phone, especially if you're in the middle of a rush or trying to help another customer at the register.

Because it's easy to multi-task if the customer just has a quick question.

It's much harder to help two needy people at once.

And unfortunately I took the gamble and lost when a customer called.

As I was in the middle of trying to help a customer in the store who had come in for a training class....when we'd cancelled all our training classes over a month ago because our dog trainer left. And the customer should have been called and informed of this so that they could come in and get their money back. But the customer was claiming that they never received a call and so I'd gone off to try and find a record of their paperwork so I could figure out how to give them their money back.

But I wasn't able to find it.

And so I was going to head back and tell the customer that i couldn't find their information and request their phone number and additional details so I could have a different manager look it up on the morrow...when the phone rang.

And since it was the middle of a rush...my cashier was busy with customers and my petcare was also busy with tasks and I had the phone on me.

And not knowing how long it would take for me to finish helping the training customer, I took the chance to answer the phone because i was hoping that it would be a quick question.

-_- It wasn't a quick question.

It could have been but the dude on the other line was....difficult.

Like talking to a man who has to feel he's always correct and everyone else is wrong sort of interaction.

*exhales*

The conversation started off simple enough. He wanted to us to check a price in the store on an item to see if it was the same price as the one he'd found online as he didn't want to spend more money in the store if it was cheaper on our website.

To which I informed him that we will price match our online store as usually our online store has different prices/sales going on than our in store locations. So if he would bring in his phone and show us that the price was lower on our website we'd price match it in the store.

Easy simple solution.

But the dude wanted to know if we had the product in stock.

Said product being the 12 count filter cartridges of our store brand filters.

I know the brand well. Knew I was looking for the PF-L version. So I wandered over to the fish section to check real quick to see if we had it in stock.

We didn't. Not in the 12 count. We only had it in the 6 count.

Again. This should have been a good point to end the conversation. We didn't have the product he wanted. We only had the six count.

But he wasn't happy that we only had the six count because he wanted the 12 count because the 12 count was cheaper online than the six count. *exhales*

So he wanted to make sure that I was actually looking at the right product.

He was like "It's the one with the PF-L on the box" and I was like "Yes that is the location I am looking at and I don't have it on my shelf."

"But the website says you have a few left!"

Well...its probably an inventory discrepancy because I have none on the shelf.

Again, he didn't like me saying we didn't have any so he was like "Tell me the short sku. I want to see if it matches the online website so I know if you're looking at the same one."

By this point I'm annoyed. Because like dude I've told you at least six times now that I don't have the item on my shelf. And this phone call is taking more time than I wanted it to and considering I was in the middle of trying to help another customer, this wasn't a good thing.

It didn't help that when I told him the short sku....it didn't match the online sku. So the customer wanted me to track down that online sku in our store.

And I was like "That short sku isn't on my shelf. And the PF-L is the only 12 count large that I carry in that brand. It's possible that the short sku online is an old one as the packaging has changed recently and sometimes the skus change when a new package design comes out."

He didn't like that and proceeded to ask me if he could order it online or not.

Which if he ordered it for store pick up I would have to decline that pick as we still don't have the product on our shelves, but if he was able to order it for delivery to his home, he would be able to get his filter cartridges that way.

As our warehouse isn't connected to our store so if he orders it for delivery the warehouse would send it to him if they had it in stock.

The customer then voices concern of wanting to make sure that if he ordered the product online he would get it for the online price.

Which...yes dude. Whatever price is shown online would be the price you would pay to buy the filters. There's no way the website would know which store location is closest to the customer's location or the prices in those stores. *shakes head*

Like yes prices in stores vary between locations because different cities have different tax rates on products they sell and such. But online? Nope. If you order it online you get that price you see.

It was only then that the customer was finally satisfied and hung up.

Unfortunately though he took long enough on the phone that the customers I was trying to help with their dog training problem....walked out of the store. Before I could get their phone number or any further information from them.

So there isn't a way I can refund anything because I have no paperwork and no contact info....

So yah. Failed the training customer at that point.

But it left me feeling irritated at the guy on the phone for sure.

Like dude. You made a two minute conversation into a ten minute ordeal in the middle of a rush when you didn't need to.

I get wanting to make sure that we don't have the product in stock.

But there comes a time where it just goes into overkill. Like just believe the worker that we don't have it. *exhales*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Cold Water

Had a customer come into the store wanting to get new fish because all but one of theirs had died. And they'd tried multiple different kinds of fish in their tank...only to have them all die.

After talking to the customer a bit. It sounded like they'd neglected to put a heater in their tank. Which considering all the fish they'd mentioned buying were tropical fish...and we've been going through a bit of a cold snap where it gets colder at night than normal...more than likely it was the temperature of the water that was causing the fish to die. 

Though there is also the possibility that the customer was also putting in too many fish too soon. 

After showing the customer the heaters and recommending that they buy that and warm up their tank first before getting anymore fish.

The customer chose not to do that. Insisting that their one single fish needed a couple of friends to go with it since it's a community fish and likes to have other of it's kind with it.

But not only that the customer tried to buy four more fish on top of that...after I recommended that they didn't buy more than two or three fish. 

*exhales* 

So I had to reexplain that that would be a bad idea.

It felt like I had to tell this customer two or three times various bits of info to try and help them keep their fish alive. *shakes head*

Hopefully this recent batch the customer bought does better...though if they don't have a heater I doubt they'll last long. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Entitled Much?

Gotta love it when customers are self-entitled. 

Had a customer come into the store today not wearing a mask, but nobody noticed him until he was already in line for check out.

And since he was already in line to leave the store, I would have left it alone, but my coworkers kept commenting on it, so I approached him and asked if he needed a mask for the road as we had some up front for him to wear. 

And he pulled a mask out of his pocket....Which like dude....if you had it with you why not put it on? Especially since there are literally signs all over the place in our store -on the doors on the floor on the cages- telling you masks are required. 

And I was like "Cool. Anything else I can help you with?" 

And he was like "Well could you check me out now? I'm kinda in a hurry."

Which...I get being in a hurry. I've been there too...but like there were only TWO people in line in front of this guy. 

The person checking out. Another person. And then him.

Which is what a maybe five minute wait because none of the customers had a ton of items?

And like yes...the line was moving slightly slower because we had a new cashier on the register...but it was literally only one person in front of the dude because the cashier was finishing with the person at the register.

Plus like our policy currently states that we don't need to call a second cashier until there are five or more people in line.

Though I was already pretty certain the customer wouldn't be happy hearing that.

But it wasn't like I could let him cut in line either because that wouldn't be fair to the other customer who was waiting to be checked out.

So I said "I can help the next customer in line because he was here first."

to which the customer was like "That's fine, I'm just in a hurry."

*shakes head*

If you're in a hurry don't go places that will make you wait?? or with unknown wait times? *exhales*

In any case I helped the other customer in line and the dude was able to go up to the other register and get checked out.

But yah...like...dude...it was only two other people. Not that long of a wait.

-Sarnic Dirchi 

The More The Merrier

Had a customer come into the store today who I recognized because their voice has a slight lilt to it that is distinctive enough to remember.

I also knew that this customer was the sort to ask more questions and to drag on things from indecisiveness.

Which proved to be the case today.

Though honestly, I wasn't expecting them to buy any pets...as I knew they already had one or two....for some reason I pictured them having some leopard geckos though since I found the customer and their kids near the fish wall...they could have ended up with fish too....who knows.

All I knew is that I knew the customer.

And apparently....they decided that they wanted to get a bearded dragon.

But not A bearded dragon. No they wanted two bearded dragons. So two of the kids could each have one.

Which I'm guessing one or two of the other kids had the leopard geckos? Not sure.

In any case, I proceeded to warn the customer that if they got two there would be a chance in the future that they would need to buy a second cage because if they ended up with two male bearded dragons then they would need to separate them out to prevent fighting from happening.

After a bit of dithering on the size of cage to get while they were waiting for sales...

The customer again confirmed that they wanted two bearded dragons.

Only...the kids ended up picking 2 bearded dragons that weren't their 'original' choices according to the customer.

Leaving one of the original 2 picks still in the cage.

And the parent didn't like that....

And so decided that instead of getting 2....they would get 3 bearded dragons so that they would have one as well.

Which again, I warned that if they had ended up picking 3 males -as they're too small/young to tell right now their gender- they would have to look into getting 3 separate cages to house them all.

The customer brushed off the concern, basically stating they'd cross that bridge when they got to it.

Which....honestly I do wonder if they'll end up keeping all 3.

As apparently no one had told the spouse about this venture....and customer and kids decided it would be a good idea to drop by the spouse's work after they left the store to show them the 3 new family pets....

:S I can't imagine how that will go over.

*shakes head*

Guess we'll see if they end up keeping all 3 or not.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Broken Nail

Had a customer come into the store looking for stypic powder for their dog's toe nail. Dunno exactly what happened, but the toe was bleeding when they brought the dog into the store and unfortunately they did it right as the Vet was closing so they couldn't help them and so the customer went searching for help in the store.

Which when I showed them the powder that could help stop the bleeding, they tore it open right then and there in the aisle and put it on the dog's foot to stop the bleeding from the nail...which I think may have helped a little.

But we couldn't do much for them here in the store besides show them where the bandages are and tell them to wrap up the foot.

Like I had them follow me to the grooming salon as they were still there and got their help on the situation.

But basically all the groomers could recommend was to go to a nearby emergency vet that would be able to help them more with the issue because the nail was damaged badly enough that they couldn't safely do anything here in the salon.

So yah....

I hope that the customers were able to find help for their dog....but that late and close to closing...it's hard to know for sure.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Return the Right Amount

Had a customer come into the store today to return their bearded dragon so that we could take it to the vet as they said that the bearded dragon was doing 'death rolls' where it was rolling in their hands.

Which isn't a good sign and often points to some sort of neurological issue happening whether through infection or some other cause.

It was also concerning that they said they couldn't get the bearded dragon to eat for the past few days...maybe up to a week.

So I said that we'd return the bearded dragon and get it to the vet as soon as we could.

And proceeded to give the customer their return aka their money back.

As we give customers their money back when they bring animals back to us to take to the vet just in case, if something happens to the animal that prevents us from being able to give the animal back to the customer...they don't have to come in a second time to get their money back. 

In any case. 

The customer in this situation didn't have their receipt with them, just the sales record, so I had no idea what they'd bought the bearded dragon for.

And considering they were on sale for the month, I assumed that the customer had got the dragon for the sale price.

But no after giving the customer their money on a merchandise card -because they didn't have their card or the receipt-

The customer later came back to complain that they hadn't gotten the money back for the full price of the bearded dragon.

Which I can understand why they would want to make sure they got the correct amount back, especially considering this is their second bearded dragon that's had issues....

But at the same time, without the receipt to prove the amount they actually paid for the bearded dragon....we had, per policy, to assume that they got the bearded dragon on sale and paid them back accordingly.

It took a bit to get the customer to understand that if they found the receipt proving that they paid the full amount for the bearded dragon then we could definitely get them the rest of the money back to them.

But we needed the proof. 

Funnily enough, despite 'not being able to find it' earlier the customer came back like five minutes later having found the actual receipt in their car.

So the other manager on duty went ahead and made sure that they got the entire amount back for what they'd spent on the bearded dragon.

Hopefully we can get the little guy recovered and get him back to this customer soon as they seem to be the type to check in constantly with us to see how he's doing.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Cricket Traps

 We had the pest control guy come into the store today to check the traps he'd set around the store to...well trap the pests that could potentially enter the store.

Namely bugs like spiders, or ants, or larger animals like mice--though that hasn't been an issue...really.....

I mean he did end up catching a mouse in one of the traps...but it was one of our 'for sale' mice that had escaped from his cage and vanished.

Y_Y;; kinda wish we'd found him before he died. *exhales* Note to keep in mind if one escapes again. Check the traps daily just in case.

In any case.

The dude mentioned that he was surprised at how many crickets he could catch in our store. Like 50-60 each time he comes in.

Which wasn't that surprising to me because like....we sell crickets....and said crickets get loose all the time.

However....

The pest control dude hadn't known that lol.

He just thought we had a high influx of crickets in the store randomly.

*shakes head* lol it made more sense to him when I showed him where we kept our crickets and told him that we sell them and that they escape.

He was like "Oooooh"

Yep.

So yah. Finding crickets in the traps? Not surprising at all. lol

-Sarnic Dirchi

Busy Busy Busy

It was one of those busy Saturdays. 

Which pre-pandemic is pretty normal.

Like the typical 'need 3 registers going' throughout the day sort of busy. 

But with the pandemic...it still feels quite weird to have so many customers in the store.

Especially since we're not yet officially into the 'holiday season' where tons of people venture into the store to buy pets for their kids and such.

However, I suppose it's to be expected that we'd see more customers coming into the store as the pandemic drags on and more and more people decide that they need to have a pet of some sort.

And with a pet you need the supplies for it....hence why they come to us.

Still.

It's kinda stressful seeing an uptick of customers coming in when we have an uptick of cases happening currently in our county.

*exhales*

Makes me dread the upcoming holiday season even more.

-Sarnic Dirchi

How Many Fish?

Had a customer come into the store today trying to figure out what type of fish he should get for his tank as he'd been trying to keep glofish but he'd bought at least five or six or so and had had them all die but like...one of them.

After doing a bit of homework...it mostly just sounded like he was overcrowding his tank and potentially overdosing on the water connditioner.

As the tank was a 5 gallon.

And he thought he could have 5 fish in it.

Which not with the glofish usually glofish a five gallon tank you can get 2-3 to do well in that size.

So I recommended buying only two more glo fish and sticking with just three total.

But I also showed him the water conditioner and how to properly measure it out as well as suggested that he get a thermometer so that he could double check that the temperature of the tank was correct as he wasn't sure the heater was working right. 

So yah....I hope his fish do well now....but we'll see.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Next Trend

It seems to be the season of goldfish as I feel like 9/10 times if a customer has needed my help this past week, it's because they're wanting to get a goldfish or two.

Which...I know that animals go through phases in the store.

Where suddenly everyone wants the same creature.

So it's not surprising that it's the goldfish's turn to be the 'in' creature for the week.

At the same time though...it is rather weird. Because like...why a goldfish? Why not a betta fish? Especially if you're trying to keep a fish alive in a bowl. Bettas will be a bit more hardy than goldfish will ever be. Especially if it's a kid's first pet.

Like why not set the kid up for success and help them keep an easier creature alive than a goldfish.

*shakes head*

I don't get it. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

That's Not the Sale You Think It Is

It continues to amaze me just how many people can't read when it comes to sales happening in our store.

Like currently we have a sale where it says on the tag "Buy 2 get the THIRD 50% off" on treats/chews.

And I had a customer come up to the register today with four bags. And I told them that the current deal is "Buy 2 get the third half off" so if they wanted to go grab two more treats they could to have the deal apply twice, otherwise it would only apply once.

And the customer was like "Isn't it buy one get one?"

Like...did you not listen to what I just said customer? It was Buy TWO get the THIRD half off." Which means you have to have THREE items for the deal to apply. Since they had 4 items that meant the deal would only apply once, instead of twice like they were thinking.

It took repeating it another time or two before the customer comprehended that they would need to go get two more treats in order to get the 50% off deal to happen twice within their transaction. 

And then it wasn't a matter of 'oh let me go grab these two real quick' no the customer spent a good five minutes looking over the treats leaving me hanging at the register waiting to finish their purchase.

Thankfully no one else was waiting in line but yah....how much more clear do the signs have to be where it says 2 and then THIRD? like....is it that people can't read? Or they just can't count? *shakes head* 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Adopt?

I ended up playing trainee to my sister store today.

Which is so weird because like...it's my sister store...I shouldn't need to be training anyone over there as I don't work over there.

But one of my coworkers transferred over to that store, and found themselves alone in their department, confronted with a situation they never had to deal with directly when they were at my store...at least I don't think they did.

It's hard to know who knows what with all the crazy of the pandemic.

As my coworker was calling me in relation to the adoptions.

Which due to the pandemic, we've only recently begun doing cat adoptions again and haven't yet started dog adoption events in my location. So it's been since like...March? 

And my coworker called asking if it was alright to put a dog in one of the cat kennels as apparently the adoption group had brought one in?

Uh...no. The adoption center is for cats only. To my knowledge none of our locations keep dogs up for adoption on the premises because we don't have room for them nor the man power to care for them as they'd need to be walked and taken outside and such.

At the same time I don't know how the other stores work. We each do our adoptions slightly different so it could be that the sister store does allow dogs...but since it was like the first occurrence that I'm aware off...I think there was probably a miscommunication there.

In any case, my old coworker later called again...well like three more times? Just asking for clarification on the adoption process. Because even though we've started adoptions up again...it's the adoption group in my location that needs to handle all adoptions instead of us doing them. So this coworker probably never needed to learn the adoption process as we haven't had it for most of the year....

Especially considering that they weren't sure exactly what forms needed to be filled out...I ended up needing to walk them through the process. 

*exhales* Hopefully it all got done right and correctly....guess we'll see.

But hopefully the experience gives my old coworker more confidence to handle future adoptions without needing to call for my aid. 

-Sarnic Dirchi