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