Renting Out

 So we have these carpet cleaners at work that we rent out to customers. 

And like...I've been well aware that we have carpet cleaners at work.

And that there's extra forms the customer needs to fill out in order to rent out the carpet cleaners. 

But in like the 8 years I've worked here....I've done like...three forms with the carpet cleaners?

Aka I'm not familiar with them at all.

And unfortunately....a customer decided to rent a customer....right when I was the only manager on duty.

And none of the workers were familiar with renting out the cleaners either. *exhales*

So yah.

Fun times figuring out how to do all that when it's been a long while since I've had to fill out the form.

Especially when I had to figure it all out when also trying to juggle like ten other things at the same time in the middle of a rush. *exhales*

At least it seemed to get rented out okay...hopefully the return went without a hitch as well. 

-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

Wrong Food

While opening our back rooms today I discovered that our Guinea Pigs had ended up receiving hamster food at some point.

Which is kinda amusing because I don't know if I've ever seen that before.

And my automatic assumption is that one of my new closers for the department had placed the hamster food in the bowl without realizing that they needed to put in guinea pig food.

But at the same time, it's totally possible that I could have been the one to do such a thing when I had opened yesterday morning.
As I'm not sure how much my closers pay attention to feeding the animals at night.

And if I get distracted at the wrong moment I find myself doing the wrong thing.
So it's possible that I got distracted and placed the hamster food in the guinea pig cage instead of the guinea pig food.

Though it doesn't quite seem like something I would do as usually I need to take the guinea pig bowl out to scoop in their food.

Still.
It was amusing to find the wrong food in the cage this morning.

At least it was an easy enough fix.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Upsidedown?

Training people is always fun at work.
Well 'fun.' 
Because it's just interesting to see how the newbies process things. Like how they solve problems. Or what they come away with after I spent like the entire shift teaching them different things.

It's a great way for me to learn what works and doesn't work for them too.
Like some people can remember multiple things that need to be done.
While others I can only give one task to at a time.
Or I need to show them how to do the task instead of telling them. Etc. 

So today, I was telling/showing my coworker how to clean the cages of the small pets.
The hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, chinchillas etc. 

And I had mentioned at one point that when the cage is empty we turn the little house inside of the cage upside down. That way it indicates that the cage is empty to us so we don't open the cage and discover that it's empty when trying to show different hamsters to customers.

Which my coworker ended up selling a hamster to a customer towards the end of the day.
And just to check in I was like "Which hamster did you sell, is the cage empty?" 
To which they said yes.
So I was like "Okay turn the house upside down to show that it's empty."

And my coworker....they were like "You want me to turn the entire cage upside down?" 

O.o
Uh.. No.
That would create a huuuggeee mess if you did that.

So I was quick to stop my coworker and go "No the little house inside."

To which they were like "Oh...that makes more sense."

Mhmmm it does indeed.

Like I can see if you thought that entire cage was the 'house' that my words would mean to turn the cage upside down.

But at the same time....if something seems extreme....it's probably not what I meant. lol.

At least they asked before actually turning the cage upsidedown. :S 

-Sarnic Dirchi

So Many GloFish

I wasn't there for most of this as I happened to be on lunch when the customer came in.

But I'm guessing it's partial inexperience with my new coworker that allowed this to happen.
As like...we usually don't recommend having people buy a ton of fish at once.
And if they want to buy a ton of fish at once we usually manage to talk them out of it by explaining exactly why that's a bad idea.

But having not trained my coworker personally....idk what training they've had on the fish wall. As to what to do when certain situations arise.

All I know.
Is that when I got back from my lunch break.
My new coworker had just finished catching like all the glotetras in one of our tank.
A good 45 of them. O.o

Like there's no good reason whatsoever for that many fish to be bought at one time.
Not unless the customer is stocking up on multiple fish tanks.
Because like that's too many fish to add at once.

But from what I heard, the customer had like a hundred gallon tank at work that needed to be restocked and so he was restocking it with glofish.

But like. O.o How crazy rich is this guy? Or like...how much money was the work willing to put in for the fish?

Because the glofish aren't cheap.
The tetras themselves are like $9 each. 

And when you multiply $9 by 45 individual fish.

The customer just casually dropped like $400 on fish.

O.o It's crazy.
Like that's rent money for me.
I wouldn't ever want to spend that much money on fish at once. It's crazy.

I ended up taking over for my coworker in the bagging of the fish.
As they'd caught them all...but hadn't kept track of how many of each color they'd caught.
So I ended up separating the three different colors of tetras the customer wanted -orange, green, and pink--and then counting them out to make sure we had the correct numbers for our inventory.

*exhales*
I hope the fish don't all die.

Guess we'll see in the next week if the customer comes back.....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Teaching Again

So, I have a new manager.

As my previous manager decided to step down and switch to a different position in the store. 

Which means...
With the new manager knowing very little about how my department runs.

I'm once again put back in the position of playing teacher to my manager lol.

Basically showing them how the department works and how to do the counts and such.

Today was our fish count day.
Which meant teaching my manager how to count the fish.

Which I thought was a rather simple process.

Scan the fish tag, count the fish, add or subtract the difference in the scanner, move onto the next tank.

But then again.
I've been counting the fish for like...the past 7 years. 

So maybe I had a similar struggle when I first started.

Though I feel like I didn't struggle that much...

But teaching my new manager?

Yah...I'm thinking it will take at least two or three more times before the manager gets it....

Hopefully they get it quicker than the other manager did, as I feel like it took them a while to catch on.

*shakes head*

Time will tell.
But yah.
I thought it could be like a quick five to fifteen minute teaching moment.
But no, I spent like forty minutes or so repeating myself again and again and again as the manager was having some slight issues remembering which buttons to hit in which order. 

Hopefully they were able to manage after I left for the day....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*exhales*

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

Short Tasking

I don't like shifts that have me working past 3pm. 
Because most of the time....if I work a shift after that point in time.
Then I spend forever too long being bored at work if there's no customers in the store to delay me.

Today was one of those days of boredom.
Because I was scheduled to come into work half an hour before we opened. 
Which meant I got to stay at work until dinner time. XP Nothing like spending your entire day inside a building. *exhales*
In any case.
I knew it would be a quick morning with opening because Thursdays tasks aren't the most difficult. 
But I hadn't realized how quickly it would go.
Because I didn't know that my greenie coworker was opening this morning.
And I didn't know that she's rather...quick with opening tasks. 
*exhales*
Which means when I came into the store, she was already nearly done with the bedding change of the day.
And that was like...what I had been planning to do.

I mean...I had to give her a few pointers and correct her on parts of the cleaning procedure she'd missed as it was her first time.

But still. 
It meant that not even halfway through my 8hr shift....
I'd run out of things to do.
Because she'd already done most of them in the 2 hours she was there before I arrived. 

Gah. >.<
I hate not having things to do.
It makes time go by so much slower. Especially because due to the crazy weather outside...there were hardly any customers in the store.
So I was left basically wandering in circles, looking for things to keep me occupied for hours and hours only to find relief in helping customers in like the last half hour of my shift. *shakes head*
Why do they always come when I'm almost off?
No idea.

In any case.
I admire my coworker for her gumption to get things done quickly. 
As it's great that she wants to get things done and doesn't wait to be told to do things in order to do things.
But still....I kinda like to be able to have things to do while I'm at work. ^^;;

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Teaching Moment

Admittedly I was caught a bit off guard. 
When one of our new cashiers came up to me stating that I needed to teach her how to catch fish. 

I mean, it is part of training that everyone in the store learns how to catch fish and bag crickets.
So that if my department gets a bit overwhelmed, the people who aren't trained/work in my department can come over and help a bit whenever there's a rush. 

But that doesn't always happen....or if it happens it's like months later down the road. 

This particular greenie hasn't even worked here a month yet. 
So it was surprising that they came to me wanting to learn. 
Like I didn't mind.

I did wonder if it was on their own prerogative that they learn this....or if one of the managers told them that they needed to learn how....
I'm thinking the latter really. 

and it makes sense because my department is still shorthanded. (because hiring is taking forever and a day) 
So having anyone being able to help. 
Is a real blessing really.

So, while juggling helping customers....lol as the greenie happened to ask to be taught about catching fish right as I got hit with a rush of customers....I taught them how to catch the fish. :D 

And then when they were done, they sent the other cashier (as both are cashiers and both are basically new) over to learn as well. 
So yay! ^^;; I have two people who can come help me with at least the catching fish part of my department if things get a little crazy. ^^;; Woot! 

Next...teaching them how to bag crickets. XD lol. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Numbers?

Interacting with new cashiers is always fun.
Just to see what sort of questions and problems they come up with.
because being new....they don't know much. So it's always interesting to see what they figure out on their own and what they ask for help on.

Today our new cashier had an issue returning some deadfish.
Mostly because I don't think they'd done it before.
but they came up to me wanting to know which fish the customer was trying to return as it wasn't pulling up on the screen.

So I was like...well did you put in the UPC on the receipt?
And they were like "I scanned it, but it didn't do anything." 
"Did you do the numbers by the fish name?"
"Yes!"

Somehow I doubted it.
As when I went over there. 
And put the numbers of the upc in for the return.
They all ended up working fine.

*shakes head*
Not quite sure which numbers the cashier was trying to put in....
But they weren't the right ones apparently. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Flashing Lights

So. 
Because we come in to work before the store officially opens. 
-To clean, to feed the animals, to stock the shelves.
The front door is often locked to prevent customers from coming in and wandering around before they're supposed to.

Usually it's not a big deal, because we have a doorbell that allows us to notify people within the store that someone is waiting outside to be let in.

Only....one of my newer coworkers didn't know this.
And he was showing up for his first stocking shift. 
-He's usually a cashier.

So when he came to work and found the door shut...and found that knocking on the door didn't get our attention, and that he couldn't access the store....

Decided to grab his car and pull up to the front of the store and sit there, with his headlights flashing at the store. 

Which....was rather creative of him.
Though while a few of my coworkers and I noticed the flashing lights....
We didn't think to go open the door.
I mean...it's kinda creepy to have this car sitting in front of the doors with flashing lights. 

*shakes head* 

Eventually someone let him in.
And he discovered that we had a doorbell.

But honestly...he could have solved the problem by calling the store....and asking to be let in. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Differences

It's interesting training my different coworkers. 
I had to do that today, a bit of training with a coworker who'd come into help open the department with me.

And I was going to have them do the cats, only I noticed as I was showing them the ropes, that my coworker was getting more and more sniffily.

And I already have one coworker who's allergic to furry creatures...
So I was like "Are you allergic?"
"I think so."

But instead of begging off cleaning the cats, like my other coworker does.
-Because my trainee today came in not expecting to be working in my department-
My coworker decided to go ahead and clean the cages.
Despite them having the sniffles and such.

And I was just kinda impressed...and grateful really.
That there was another coworker willing to deal with 'difficult' things instead of finding ways to avoid it.
It made opening a lot easier knowing that if needed, they're willing to do the things. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Where'd the Water Go?

Ah. I gotta love my coworkers. :)

So, I was in the middle of...well I think it was helping a customer,

When my coworker came up to me and said. "We have a problem with one of the fish tanks."

Which isn't ever a good thing to hear.

And I glanced over to the fish wall as my coworker explained. "The water in this tank suddenly disappeared, it's so low, and there's hardly any water coming in through the locklines..."

Indeed. :S It was.

The tank in question, which held some guppies and catfish.

Was indeed almost completely empty.

Like only a couple of inches of water remained in the tank. :S The other 90% of the tank was now dry. O.o

How had the tank suddenly gotten so empty?

First thought was that there was a crack or a leak and we were so screwed, but then I figured that couldn't be possible because a) the tanks haven't broken yet and they're ancient and b) there was no huge amounts of water on the floor. lol.

But I quickly did see what the culprit could be.

Because in the tank above the 'suddenly empty' tank....was the gravel vacuum. Also hanging out IN the tank...with no one actively using it.

So I asked my coworker. "Did you leave the gravel vacuum in the tank and go do something else?"

To which they were like. "...Yah?"

Solution found. lol.

I told my coworker to Not. Do. That.

Because the gravel vacuum would continue to suck water from the tank if you leave it in there and don't watch it.

If you have to leave off the gravel vacuuming task, you always. ALWAYS take the gravel vacuum out of the tank first, and then go do whatever you needed to do.

That way, if you're taken away for longer than anticipated....the tank won't suddenly loose most of it's water.

Thankfully, my coworker noticed before the tank was completely empty, so the fish were still fine. :)

-It's not the first time this has happened either. Other greenies have made this mistake too, just not recently. lol.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Flying Free

I do have to wonder what goes on in the store when I'm not at work.
Because when I call into work the next morning....
And see that one of our $350 birds is flying around loose in the store....

Obviously something happened and whichever coworker was involved in the bird's release...is probably not having a good day. :S

It's deepens into a further mystery when no one who worked the shift the day before....knows what happened. So you get a timeline of how long the bird was in the cage still as people report it still being there when they get off their shift...

Until finally.
Finally I find a coworker who knows the story.

*shakes head*

What happened?
Our greenie coworker had been left alone to close down my department.
And they had only closed once before, and therefore....had no idea what they were doing.
Cue. Our next newest greenie who was there in a different department, stepping in to show the newest one the ropes.

So both my coworkers walked into a bird enclosure.
And greenie coworker shuts the door.
Inspiring less-than-green coworker to open up the bird cage to work on handling the bird.
Because they want to tame down said bird and get them used to being handled.

Only....
Greenie coworker forgot to latch the door.
So while the bird was out of it's cage, but in the enclosure....
The door fell open.
The bird somehow got loose from less-than-green coworker's grasp.
And due to it being in our store for basically the whole winter...it's clipped wings were no longer clipped.
So off it took.
Up into the air.
Twenty feet above us.
To hang out in the rafters there.

*exhales*

Where it hasn't yet come down.
Sure it flys about the store.
But as of me leaving work today...
Our $350 bird was still loose.

....I really hope we catch it before it gets the 'bright' idea to fly out of the store....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Don't Eat That!!

Boys are weird.
My coworker guys are weird.

So I was sitting in the break room, on break.
When one of our new coworkers comes into the room to also be on break.

And after a bit he gets up and starts going through our fridge there, just to see what random stuff is in there I suppose.
And he happened to see some of the readywhip cream things that you put on icecream, that we got who knows when for...well whenever we have ice cream parties.

Well, he examined the dates on them and apparently they'd expired like a year ago. O.o

Shows you how often we clean out our fridge. lol.

So he took the canisters and I thought he was going to just throw them away.
But then I hear this odd sound...
Like he was actually spraying out the cream.

I looked up from my phone,
And that's exactly what he was doing.
Spraying out the cream from the canister....
Into his mouth.

()_()
WHAT ARE YOU DOING CRAZY PERSON DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!?!!?

*shakes head*
I actually don't know when or if whip cream expires...
but apparently even though it was old, it still tasted good to my coworker.

Crazy.

If he's sick tomorrow, I will know exactly why he is.
Because he ate that cream stuff.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Nightly Chaos

 It's funny, sometimes how clueless my managers can be about the state of my department.

Apparently, last night, Head Manager got a taste of the 'chaos' that is the closing shift.

It's not surprising that the night shift isn't well done.
Because a) I haven't been able to properly train my newest coworkers.
They've just kinda been thrown in and trained by whoever is on duty.

Which means they pick up the habits of the people already closing.
Chaos begets Chaos.

And with basically like all of the closers now being greenies with hardly three months under their belts....It's not surprising things are difficult.

In any case.
The Head Manager apparently had trouble keeping my coworkers in the dept and have them helping customers.

One was focused on the task of feeding the snakes -as that is a night task.
The other one would wander away.

So apparently HM had to spend most of the shift wrangling my two closers to keep them in their spots.

*shakes head*

This isn't surprising at all.
I know that newbies have a hard time multitasking. They get focused on one thing. I had that struggle when I first started work. Get focused on one task, forget about the fact that I needed to help customers. So I understand that. It's something that can be adjusted with time so long as there is somebody there to correct them. The longer it goes uncorrected, the more likely it is to become a habit that you can't break.

The fact that my coworkers wander away from the dept also isn't new. I currently have three wanderers on the night shifts. Those who just disappear to elsewhere in the store.
They don't realize that they need to stick around, and if a customer takes them from the dept they need to go right back to the dept.

In any case.
This whole realization process resulted in this sort of conversation:

Head Manager: We can't have the closers feeding the snakes anymore. They get too focused on that task and forget to help the customers. So can you feed the snakes in the mornings?
Me: No, policy says to feed them at night. Plus we don't really have time to do it.
Head Manager: But what does it take? Like two minutes to feed the snakes?
Me: Something like that.
Head Manager: The night people don't know how to multitask like the morning people do.
Me: *thinking* Because you don't give them the opportunity to learn how to do tasks and help customers at the same time. Me: It's because they're new.
Head Manager: Well, it's already too late to relearn it, they can't be feeding snakes and expected to help customers.
Me: But policy says to feed them at night because they shouldn't be handled after they're fed. So you'd basically be taking them off the floor for the entire day.
Head Manager: Fine... Well they can't feed the snakes until after we close then!!
Me: *thinking* Great....then they're never going to get fed.

Honestly.
The easiest solution to this problem would be to have me work a few evening shifts with everyone to make sure that they're doing tasks correctly, staying in the dept, and helping customers. They need a guiding force that isn't being given to them because none of the other managers care about my dept unless something goes majorly wrong. *shakes head*
The easy solution would be to have a meeting for everyone and go over the expected tasks, but the Head Manager shut that thought down. Saying that we should do "more one on ones" ....like we have time for that. >.< *shakes head* Ugh.

There's also talk of switching to feeding all the snakes on one day. Sunday when it's slow.
Which originally, was how we were doing it.
But we stopped doing it because Special Coworker wasn't doing well on feeding the snakes, as he was focusing on that task more than the customers. So we switched to doing a couple every night.

*shakes head*

What I really need is a one on one with the managers and go over what is expected and what we can handle.
As we had no problems feeding the snakes before closing...until we hired the new people. It's a matter of proper training. Teaching them. Not just letting them loose in order to see how the pieces fall into place.

Guess we'll see how that all turns out....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Greenie Leading Greenie

You know the saying of the 'blind leading the blind?'

I had to leave my coworkers in that sort of scenario today.

We have a new manager over me,
One who hasn't been in my department before. He was over in the stocking department, and has had very little time or training in my own department.

Basically he's still pretty green, I don't even know if he's had a proper shift in our department yet.
-As he's still been doing stocking shifts because we're short on stockers as well. And I can manage the department well enough without a manager over me.

In any case.
He was scheduled to finally have a shift in the department.
Only....

We had just hired a new greenie.
Like literally it was her first day on the floor.
And she only came in an hour before I was scheduled to leave for the day.
Which meant....
I only had an hour to train her in basically everything.

Before my manager showed up......
Who also still needs to be trained in basically everything.

*shakes head*

I had to leave them in the department, two greenies, by themselves for a few hours before our next coworker came into the department. :S

Not the best feeling in the world to leave work on.
Hopefully they don't burn down the store....or get customers angry at them....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Switched on the Truck

I really wished that I worked Fridays....
Because it seems like once the managers stopped scheduling me to work then....
Is when all our problems in the store started to happen.

This Friday was no exception.

Though, it wasn't totally my coworker's fault.
As they had no control over it.

You see, with Starsmet, multiple stores' supplies and orders are placed in the same truck.
So one truck may stop at two, three or even four stores to drop off different shipments.

And it just so happened....
That our Sister Store (the next Starsmet nearest to us.)
Gets their shipment before us.

And somehow or another.
The people there....
Took our fish shipment off the truck instead of theirs.

So when the truck got to us.
We had their shipment of fish.

I mean, there has been occasion where a box or two of fish gets left at the other store...I've known that to happen, and it's had to be sent to us.
But a whole shipment?!

And apparently nobody noticed anything was wrong....
Until my coworkers started pulling fish out of the boxes....that we don't sell.

As each Starsmet sells slightly different fish. -I'm guessing it's because certain kinds of fish sell more successfully in some areas than others.
We all have a majority of the same fish, but there are always a handful of differences. *shakes head*

In any case.
Since the shipment was already majorily placed in the their tanks...
We couldn't really just pack the fish back up and send them to the correct store.

No what ended up needing to be done was that we had to transfer via computer our shipments to each other.
-As we had our correct paperwork, but the wrong fish pallet-
So one SKU at a time, we had to transfer the numbers between the stores, so when we would need to go through and count the fish later on in the week, it would be correct.

Which meant, when I came in, that we had random fish....that had no tags.
So I had to go hunt down those tags so that we could actually sell our fish. *shakes head*

It didn't help the confusion at all, as we had one of our Greenies training on putting out the fish shipment....and she wasn't the best at paying attention to the tags on the fish. Which meant the wrong fish were placed in the wrong tanks.
Which can be a simple mistake to make I mean we sell "Dalmatian Mollies" and "Dalmatian Lyretail Mollies" So if you're not looking closely you could end up putting the wrong fish in the wrong tank.
Which she did.
*sighs*
Hopefully there isn't more chaos with the next shipment we get in....

-Sarnic Dirchi

A New Crew

Gotta love training the Greenies.
Some are better than others, admittedly.
Some pick it up with hardly an troubles.

....and then there are others....where it's like trying to chisel through marble to get your point across.

Apparently, the head managers decided that our new hires need to be cross trained in departments.
So that they know how to cashier, how to stock, how to work with the animals in my dept.

Which, honestly, is a no brainer in my book.
It's great to have all the help we can get, especially if we get super busy in one section of the store and are dead in a different section.

People can jump in and out of departments.
It's great.

Only....
that only works if the person being trained is a good fit for the dept.

The Greenie today.... *exhales*
I originally thought he was just going to be a cashier.
Which is fine, he seems like a good cashiering sort. Eager.

Very eager.
Eager to the point where his questions come out faster than he listens to the answer.
To the point where he's not listening at all.

:(
Which when I only had like 15 minutes to try and train him before I got off my shift today....
Makes things difficult.
because it felt like I could literally see my words bouncing off his head. Not penetrating into the brain at all.

As he'd ask me a question.....
that I had already answered.....
And then would stare at me like he couldn't comprehend what I was saying.
*sighs*

So, hopefully my other coworker had more luck with him since she got to spend hours with him instead of my brief 15 minutes...

*shakes head* Hopefully training the other greenies will go easier than this first one....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Onto Lunch

It always seems to get the busiest when you try to go on lunch.
Which, today, didn't look like it was going to happen.
It had actually slowed down a bit when I was finally able to go take my lunch.
-Because I finally had a second coworker come into the dept to be able to cover me.
Yay.

But.
Like all good things.
They're delayed. >.<

I was nearly to the break room, about to clock out for lunch.
Unfortunately, the clock out area is right by our cat adoptions area.

And as I was heading to finally get food.
I was waylaid by my manager and greenie coworker.
Who wanted me to help a customer out with deciding if they wanted a cat or not.
Because they were interested in was a bit sneezy.
So they weren't sure if they wanted to adopt it or not.

So I spent some time talking over the pros and cons with them.
And they decided to think it over.
But before I could get away....
I ended up getting stopped...
Three more times.
By people wanting to see other cats.

So I ended up being delayed by like half an hour.
Which meant I wasn't able to take lunch until 2 hours before I was off.
Boy was I glad to sit down and get away from customers for a second.

In the end, we ended up adopting out three kitty cats today. :) Yay for them getting forever homes!

-Sarnic Dirchi