Lost

 There are trends that happen at work.

Where suddenly you have three people in a row buying the same dog food, or two people asking the same hamster care question in a row, or four people wanting the same combination of fish in a row.

It's amusing most the time when it happens. Confusing too. Like what are the odds multiple people would want the same thing in a row. 

Today was a slightly odder coincidence.

In that we had two people lose their wallets and call to ask if we had found them -which we had- and come pick them up.

Like it happened a couple of hours apart.

But loosing wallets...isn't that common of a thing at the store.

So to have it happen twice in one day?

Well...I blame the heat mostly lol. Makes people distracted. Forgetful. 

It's just a good thing they caught the mistake in time and that we had found the items in time and kept them safe until the customers could come back and pick them up. 

-Sarnic Dirchi 

Decide Before You Get Help

 Gotta love those customers who ask for assistance at the fish wall before they're actually ready to get the fish.

*exhales*

It's really annoying really.

To get called over to the fish wall because a customer 'needs help with fish' only to find that the customer had basically just gone to the cashier and said "I need fish" before they had even had a chance to look at the fish on the wall so they actually have no idea what they want.

Like...I get people wanting to make sure they get help.

But I for one, would want to 'know' what I'm getting first before I drag someone over to help me.

Like it's just...irritating to stand there awkwardly hovering near the customer as they stare at the various tanks still deciding on what fish they want to get. 

I could be finishing other tasks. I could be helping other people. There's nothing useful in me just standing there while you try and figure out if you want to get a tetra or a molly or a goldfish and take an age and a half to make that decision. *exhales*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Talking To Who?

 It's funny...how entitled people can be. How customers can think you're a mind reader. Or think that because they speak you're listening.

Like...there I was. Bagging up fish. 

I wasn't looking up. I was focused on the task at hand.

When I hear a voice say "Can you get me some crickets when you're done?"

I look up in time to see two girls passing by. Not even looking at me. And they continue walking along the fishwall to the front of the store.

A glance around shows me that I'm the only worker in the area.

And that there are other customers nearby.

But I had no idea who this girl was talking to.

Like I knew she was talking to me.

But like she didn't even wait for me to acknowledge if I'd heard her or not before she kept walking. 

It was just weird. I mean...I can't read minds. Saying that you 'want crickets' doesn't mean I automatically know what size of crickets the customer wanted nor how many she wanted me to get.

*shakes head*

So I just pushed it to the side and continued on with my task and finished helping the customer I was helping and then helped the other people who were still at the fish wall because again...the customer who randomly walked by and told me to bag her some crickets...wasn't around. Therefore her 'need' became a lower priority on my list because again, I couldn't even be sure she was talking to me when she didn't even stick around long enough to ensure that I had actually heard her and would help her.

She did come back eventually and I did bag up the number and size of crickets that she wanted after I asked her what amount and size she wanted.

But yah....kinda a weird occurrence that. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Make Up

 I had a customer come into the store today claiming that they were here with their little dog to do a make up class because the customer had missed their last session.

Which, okay fair. It's not an uncommon occurrence as life happens and customers who sign up for training classes can struggle to make it to every single one.

But today was more notable because well...my dog trainer wasn't scheduled to work today.

They usually have today off.

So to have a customer claiming that they had a make-up class for today...struck me as not correct.

Because I'm pretty confident my dog trainer wouldn't schedule a make up class on their day off. They know their schedule well enough to not do that.

Which made it more than likely that this customer had misremembered the day.

Unfortunately...I couldn't tell from the dog trainer's records....when exactly this customer was supposed to have a makeup class....which meant I needed to call them and leave a message and ask when this class was supposed to be.

Yah.

The customer ended up being a day early. Their makeup class is tomorrow. Not today. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Flipped Signs

 It's kinda funny how customers think that if they don't 'see' a sign then it doesn't exist. That it will magically make whatever policy the sign is informing you of go away.

Like we've had the 'mask required' signs torn down when they went from recommended to required in my state. 

We have also had our "Bathroom Out of Order" signs torn down because the customers probably thought that the bathrooms were closed because of the pandemic and not because they were literally out of order and we couldn't use them. *shakes head*

And this week I haven't had signs torn down per se.

But we do have signs up in the store saying that our fish sales are suspended this week -as we're doing a deep system clean as a preventative measure for potential zebra mussels (though my store hasn't seen any signs of them)- and we aren't able to sell fish because of said treatment and how we're not sure how it will affect the fish.

But the fish sign has been 'flipped over' a few times this week.

Like...just because you flip the sign so you can't see the words saying that we aren't selling fish this week doesn't mean that we'll magically be able to sell you fish because you flipped the sign over. *shakes head*

It doesn't work like that.

Especially because the SKUs we use at the register to sell the fish have been deactivated this week so even if we tried to sell the fish...we wouldn't be able to because the register wouldn't let them show up. 

*shakes head*

Silly people.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Reset

 Gotta love it when things go wrong at work. *exhales*

Our Register 2 ended up giving me major issues today.

Which isn't surprising. Register 2 ends up being the problem child most of the time out of our 3 registers we have up and running.

In this case.

The pinpad on the register stopped working.

Which honestly....I probably should have given it ten minutes to calm down and then seen if it would work again.

But instead I was like "Oh, let me just shut it down and start it back up again real quick"

Ha. Real quick.

No. Somehow the register decided that the shut down start up process wasn't it's thing...and refused to go beyond a certain point.

And like...I couldn't just leave the register to sit there like that.

As I would eventually need to pull out and count the till when we closed for the night...and I couldn't exactly do that if I never got to the point where I could open the register back up again.

So I ended up having to call our solution center ---and be on hold for forever---in order to talk to a guy on the phone about how to fix the issues.

Thankfully it wasn't a major task to fix once the dude finally connected with me.

And the register got back up and running easily enough once the Tech dude worked his magic on the other end.

But yah...having to go be all official on the phone is....stressful.

Hopefully I don't need to make that call again anytime soon. 

But knowing our registers...it's only a matter of time.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Walk Down the Aisle

 I had a customer call the store tonight to rant at me that he'd just experienced the 'worst customer service ever' from us because a coworker who took the phone call -according to my coworker it was a girl who called us so I'm not sure why the guy called back super upset- told the person on the phone that we don't do stock checks currently due to short staff and that our online store should be accurate in telling the customer if we had said product they were looking for or not.

Which the customer did not like at all. They didn't like being told to 'look online' when we should be able to 'walk down the D*** aisle and check ourselves'

Like nevermind that the automated voice message the plays when you call our store tells you right off the bat that we're not doing stock checks right now.

The dude was furious.

Ranting at me about our lack of service.

Like dude....being told no isn't the 'worst customer service ever' I'm pretty sure you've had worse than that.

And honestly, we had been in the middle of a rush. We had been busy. While we can still do stock checks while it's slow in the store, it's not that easy to break away when we're helping the customer in front of us.

*shakes head*

Especially when said customer on the phone was going to be a complicated customer. Where they were looking for a specific size dog gate with specific dimensions.

Like it's one thing to take two seconds and see if we have a product in the store.

But if you're wanting us to tell you the height and the width and the length and the price and all this extra stuff...then it becomes more difficult and time consuming and you'd probably be better off looking online anyways since the dimensions of doggie gates should be listed with the product.

*exhales*

But yah. Dude just ranted at me and hung up. Didn't give me a chance to talk or anything.

Which if he'd been a bit more levelheaded then I could have informed him that I was free at the moment to go look for whatever item he was looking for.

But he never gave me the chance. 

*shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Rotating Fish

So work is trying out something different apparently.

We rest our fishwall recently. Added in a couple of tanks of new fish and such.

And I figured those fish would be part of our system for at least the next six months. As we tend to add and remove fish at least twice a year.

But apparently two of the tanks might be switching a little more often?

As I put up a couple of tank clings today. Saying that the fish in the two tanks were only available for a limited time. 

And the info graphic thing said that they were something like 'one time fish' where they'd only be available for a bit before being switched out for other fish. And these fish would be 'uncommon types' ones that are 'typically found in mom&pop' stores. 

So that's fun.

Though it does put slightly more pressure on me to buy them. XD lol. As we got in a couple of fish in that I want to try having in my tank. And I was going to wait to get them for a while...

But I don't know how long the fish are going to be there now. Is it just for the month? For three? For 6? Who knows. 

But yah...I'm curious as to what other fish we'll be getting in. And when we'll be getting more in. 

-Sarnic Dirchi 

Something Wrong

 So the other day I had a customer come into the store with a couple of dead fish.

And in typical customer fashion, they wanted to know 'why' the fish had died.

So I asked about their tank and such, trying to see if there were any notable things mentioned that could cause fish to die. 

And the customer told me that they originally had the glofish in like a large 36 gallon tank. 

But because they had goldfish in the tank....the associate who helped them said that the fish should be in a different tank.

Which was...technically true.

Goldfish are a cold water fish. 
Glofish are a warm water fish.

Goldfish get 10 inches at least.
Glofish stay around 3 inches.

But at the same time....the rules aren't as applicable to bigger tanks as they are to smaller tanks. 

Goldfish are fine being in tanks that are heated. And if there's only one or two in the tank in a 36 gallon...then other fish can be fine with them for a while...until they get larger.

But the associate helping this customer said that the glofish should go in a different tank so the customer bought a different tank. A glofish specific one with the blue lights and everything and they set up the tank for the glofish...moved them in....and then the fish all died. 

It could be the transfer to the new tank. 

But it was only 3 fish in a 10 gallon tank. That's not a bad amount of fish to have.

But it did turn out that the tank didn't have a heater in it. So the cold water may have been the cause of the glofish dying.

So the customer bought a heater and a couple of new glofish.

Though I did suggest that they could just put the glofish back in the bigger tank with the goldfish.

As there were other fish besides the goldfish in the tank. A shark. Some other tetras and such. So the glofish would have been fine. Especially because that tank had a heater already.

But the customer wanted to try again in this smaller tank. So I caught them a couple more glofish to try and see if they did well.

And like the glotetras tend to be hardier than the other glofish. So I wasn't too concerned. 

But the customer came back today with the two fish. Dead. 

Apparently they died within two hours of being put into the new tank. 

O_o 

It's just....how? 

If the fish died that quickly....it sounds like it could be a chemical issue. Like the customer put in too much water conditioner. 

As the heater was new....so that shouldn't be on the fritz....and unless the water changed temperature quickly....an overtreated tank was the only thing I could think of as a cause...but the customer denied that that was the case. *exhales*

*shakes head*

I'm not sure what's going on with it but I suggested that the customer just get their money back today and wait a bit and let the tank cycle and see how it went from there....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Significance?

 A customer approached me today and asked me "What is the significance of a betta fish?" 

Which...I was rather confused by.

What did the customer mean by 'significance?' 

Like...it sounded like they wanted to learn about bettas and such....but I wasn't certain.

It was said in such a philosophical type of tone like one would ask "What is the meaning of life?"

Still...I did my best to answer the customer's questions. Like where they're from and why they live alone and what sort of care they needed.

Dunno if I actually answered what they were wanting me to answer....but hey I tried. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Last Minute Shopping

 I will never understand customers that decide to go shopping at the last minute.

Take tonight.

I had customers right at 9pm when we closed asking me questions.

Two guys were wanting to know if we had another specific dog bed in stock as the one they found appeared to be stained.

I told them we didn't.

So they then wanted to know if they could get a discount on the bed because it was stained.

Which I said they could get 20% off.

But they were like "What is the stain?"

Like dude....I don't know. It's a brown stain. More than likely it's dirt. Who knows. It may not even be a stain at all. Just buy the thing and get out of my store we're closed. 

But nooo they then wanted to know if there was a specific dog food that I would recommend for their dog. 

And at the same time another customer needed help at the dog collars....right at close....wanting to know if there was a specific bark collar that worked better than another.

*exhales*

Like...how do people live like that?

Trying to shop right before a store closes?

Keeping the workers working after the store closes?

I don't get it.

I never will.

-Sarnic Dirchi