Flying off the Shelves

 We had a customer ask us today what we do with the hamsters that don't sell in our store.

Which obviously that probably means that the customer has a snake or some other creature that eats rodents and they're looking for a cheap means to get their creature more of their food source....

But like....dude. Our hamsters ALWAYS sell.

I think he honestly forgot that there's this pandemic going on.

Or else didn't realize, like most people haven't quite realized, that buying pets has become quite the popular pasttime with people.

I mean if you're staying home all the time and not going anywhere...you'd want some sort of companionship as well to keep you company.

And many many people have turned to pets as their answer.

Even now. A year later we're still struggling to keep animals in stock.

After all, it takes time to breed animals and get them old enough to be able to be shipped out to stores to be sold.

So it's been a struggle to keep anything in our store for like...longer than a week. 

It's been a struggle to get any animals in our store at all.

And hamsters?

They're selling like hotcakes.

Like I literally only had like two hamsters available for sell when the customer asked us this question. 

The rest of the cages were either empty or had mice in them.

Our hamsters basically sell within two or three days of becoming available.

And that's when I actually get them in.

Like half the time my expected shipments end up being short at least half of the animals that we were supposed to get in.

And honestly...we're just as surprised as customers are at how quickly everything is still selling.

like you'd think after a year everyone would have already gotten their pets and be content with it.

But nope.

It's still an ongoing problem.

One that probably won't be fixed until things 'get back to normal'

-Sarnic Dirchi

I.D. Please

 A group of three teenagers came into the store today and wanted to buy a hamster.

Normally, that isn't a problem...except these particular teenagers didn't quite look like they were 18.

And with no guardian in sight...I asked how old they were.

Their leader proclaimed that she was 18. Which is great and all...but I wasn't quite buying it.

Like. I understand, having a young face myself, that she could definitely be 18 years old or older and just look young.

But to be safe I asked to see her Driver's License. To confirm that she was indeed 18. 

As in order to buy any animals in our store.

You have to be at least 18 years old or else have a guardian with you who can fill out the paperwork.

The leader of the group confidently pulled out her wallet and flipped it open.

And one of her cohorts was like "There it is." and pointed to one part of the wallet.

But the leader quickly flipped her wallet closed and was like "Oh, I left it in the car. We'll be right back."

Yah...that's not totally a red flag right there. *shakes head*

I understand people leaving their wallets in their car by mistake...but shouldn't your license be in your wallet?

In any case. A good fifteen minutes later, two of the girls come back in. No idea where the third went to.

And the girl was like "So, I left my license home apparently, can I show you my student i.d. instead?" 

Ha. *shakes head* No. I shut that down rather quickly. As I know that there are 17 year olds who go to college. I was like "Unfortunately, I need to have a form of i.d. with your date of birth on it." 

So a no go for the student i.d.

The girls were like "Oh, okay. We'll try tomorrow then." And left.

But yah...pretty sure they're not 18.

*shakes head*

We'll see if they actually come back or not.

-Sarnic Dirchi

No Hamsters

I had a customer come up to me today telling me that they wanted to buy a hamster.

Which wouldn't have been an issue....
Only I've completely sold out of my hamsters.
I have none whatsoever available to sell. 

And I told the customer this. That we have no hamsters.

To which they were like "I just want one."

To which I had to repeat myself. "We have no hamsters. We've sold them all. I only have mice."

"Only mice?"
"Yes. No hamsters."
"You have no hamsters?"
"No, I don't have any hamsters. The cages are all empty." 

It took a couple more repetitions and showing the customer the empty cages (as there was a slight language barrier between us) 
To convince them that we had no hamsters available for them to buy. 

They were rather disheartened by this.
Until they found out that we may be getting more hamsters in on Sunday or Monday.

Heavy emphasis on the 'may' because our breeders have been struggling to keep up with the demand for pets and so even though I 'am expecting around twenty hamsters to come into the store....I won't be surprised if I only get like six of them. 

Because that's been kinda the drill for the past month.
Where we really only receive in around a third or less of our expected animals because of the high demand.

So yah...
Hopefully we do have some hamsters for all the people who are wanting to come get them including this family. 

But we won't know until the shipment shows up.

So yah. It's gonna be fun.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Before We Close

I had a customer call the store about twenty minutes before we were set to close down my department for the day.
They wanted to know what kind of hamsters we had in stock.
Because they were looking for a specific kind. 

And with the increase in demand for pets recently.
It's been a lot harder to keep animals in stock.
And to find particular animals. 

It was easy to tell the customer which hamsters we had because we currently only have four left.
A Short-haired syrian, a long-haired syrian and two russian hamsters. 

The customer was looking for a 'smaller' hamster.
Which narrowed down the options to our two russian hamsters.

And the customer was like "Great!" 

Only slight problem.
We were closing my department in twenty minutes.

And they were planning to be at the store...in twenty minutes.

I had to tell them that showing up then wouldn't work.
Since we were closing the department to animal sales at that time. 
To which they were like "But if we show up right on time?"

No. Due to short staff we have to close the department at that time.
And we can't have our associate stay late because we have to keep to our hours exactly.

So the customer was like "What if we're there five minutes before the department closes?" 

Which I can sell an animal in five minutes...if the customer is decisive and on time.

Surprisingly they were on time. And decisive.
So I was able to sell them their hamster before I was off so yay. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Nearly Out of Stock

Well....this next week is gonna be fun.

Mostly because we are running low on our birds and rodents.
And my shipment today....ended up shorting us most of the rodents and birds we were expecting in.

Which wasn't too surprising though slightly disappointing.
Because I was aware that the breeders for both our hamsters and our parakeets are having issues right now.
From what I can tell it's mostly issues in that they don't have the supply available yet to meet the demand of all the stores that the breeders provide animals to. 

Which...our store has been one of those stores where people are just obsessed with buying creatures right now.
So animals are flying off the shelves so to speak.

So to have no new hamsters or parakeets available next week to bring out to sell??
Not good for the customers.

As we're down to just two parakeets. Six hamsters. One mouse.

And that's it.

I expect the parakeets will be gone by the end of Saturday.
The hamsters, possibly by Monday.

On the one hand that means less work in the mornings because there will be less to clean and less animals to feed.
On the other it's gonna mean an uptick in unhappy customers because we don't have the animals they want. 

So.
It's gonna be interesting.
To see if we run out of hamsters and birds this weekend or not. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Robos

So we have this hamster that's up for adoption.
Because a while ago he got his foot caught in the wheel and spent like a month with the leg in a cast.
It healed...but now he walks rather funny.

So we have him up for adoption so he can go to a good home.

And today I had two different customers indicate that they wanted him.

Only they didn't 'want' him.
They wanted a hamster.
Specifically his type of hamster which is a robo dwarf.

And since the hamster is up for adoption, that means that we have no return policy for him if things don't work out.

And knowing that a lot of people are buying pets for funsies currently.
I wanted to make sure he would go to a good home that would still be able to take care of him when the crazy goes away.

The first customer was getting a hamster for their sibling as a gift.

So I redirected them to a different robo dwarf cage.
As I don't think it's a good idea to give a 'special' hamster to someone as a gift if they're not expecting it. 

The second customer was a family with a child who were eager to have a pet...but struck me as first time pet owners and therefore, probably weren't prepared to care for a 'special' hamster.

So again, I redirected them to a different robo dwarf cage --actually the same cage as before as when it became empty I brought out another hamster to take it's spot. And then ended up bringing out another hamster to fill the spot again when I sold the second one.

So yah.
Sold two hamsters.
But avoided adopting out the adoptable hamster to ill-prepared pet parents.

Hopefully the adoptable hamster will find his forever home soon.

-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

He Like To Scream

It's always interesting to get in animals around Christmas time...as well...we get in a ton of them in in preparation of customers wanting to get pets for their kids as presents.

And I always enjoy getting in the small pets just to see the different colors and such.

Today we got in our animal shipment, though unsurprisingly I was missing half the shipment.

As once again we didn't get in winter whites or russian hamsters.
Which it's so weird that the company has such a shortage of them going on as in like the last six months I feel like I've only gotten them in like...once or twice?
And we used to get them in almost weekly.

So it's weird that they're still struggling to stock us up on those.
And then like with the birds we didn't get the society finches we were expecting. Again not surprising as it takes them like three or four months if not longer to get them in when they sell.
Dunno why.

And like they were randomly planning to send us a Conure. Which was totally out of the blue and I wans't surprised at all to not get it because we don't usually get Conures in during the winter. Basically as soon as the snow hits, BAM no more conures until the late spring.

But the amusing part is that we got in like six short haired syrian hamsters.
Which since I was missing half my shipment, meant that I had the space to divide them up into two cages of three so they wouldn't be as over crowded.

Usually the syrians are a pretty mellow group.
You'll get the occasional vocal one that complains about being picked up.

But rarely do we get in the screamers.

We got in a screamer today.
And a little follower with him.

As when this particular syrian would start screaming....
He had a buddy that also would take up the cry too.

*shakes head*

And it wasn't like the AH! sort of scream that the syrian was giving off. 
No it was like.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

poor buddy. He can scream for like ten minutes straight.
And i'm like O.o dude? What's your problem. I haven't touched your cage for a good five minutes now stop the screaming.

But no he's just like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*exhales*
Like you even twitch the cage open and he's at it again. *shakes head*

Hopefully he'll mellow out a bit more once he gets used to his new temporary home here in the store.
But we'll have to see. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Holding the Hamster

I helped a mother with two little boys today.
Because her oldest -who was probably around four or five years old, wanted to hold a hamster.

So I got the hamster out and after letting both boys pet it for a bit.

But that wasn't enough for the oldest.
So with a little trepidation, as hamsters can be slightly unpredictable and are more likely to bite.
I carefully let him hold it.

And it went well!
No biting. The boy enjoyed it.

But then the mom was like "Do you want to hold the hamster to." To the younger brother who was probably like two years old or younger.

And he was like "Yes!"

But then like two seconds after I let him hold it...he freaked out.

I think the claws felt weird to him or something.

But yah, he pushed the hamster off, screaming, and shied away from it.

Thankfully I was able to rescue the hamster quickly enough and get him back into his temporary container.

But the kid wasn't having it.
He wanted it back in the cage.

So I helpfully put the hamster back in the cage. 

And the little boy was like "CLOSE IT!"

So I closed it.

He calmed down after that.
Poor kid.

I don't think he liked the hamster much.
But his older brother still wanted one after everything.

-Sarnic Dirchi

To Touch?

It's interesting how little kids react to animals.

I had a little girl like three or four years old with her parents.
And they wanted to look at the hamsters/guinea pigs. 

Because their daughter was looking at them and they wanted her to pet it.

And the child seemed interested in petting them....

Until I opened the cage and first pulled out a guinea pig.
And she darted behind her mom so fast. 

It took both her parents petting the guinea pig to convince her to come forward to pet the guinea pig herself.

She didn't quite like that though.
Was more interested int he hamsters.

So I pulled out a Syrian Hamster. 

And she was still skittish about wanting to pet the hamster, would flinch away every time it moved. 
But she kept trying to pet it at least.

And finally decided that she didn't like it much and went and hid back behind her Mom. 

Not all little kids like playing with the small pets up close.
But at least she was brave and tried it. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Difference

Had a couple of customers come into the store looking to get some goldfish.
And while I was bagging the fish,
One of the customers asked me a question I hadn't been asked before. 

They wanted to know....what the difference between Guinea Pigs and Hamsters were.

Because apparently they'd been trying to explain the difference to a friend the other day and then realized....that they didn't know the difference.

….Not sure why they didn't just go wander over to the cages full of hamsters and guinea pigs...
Or you know...pull up Google and google images of them.

But it took me a moment....because like....I haven't been asked to tell the difference because usually I'm right by the cages.

But I gave a few differences.
Like the hamsters have tiny tails and guinea pigs don't, and guinea pigs get waaaaayyyy bigger than hamsters do.

But yah....not sure if that helped at all. 

At least I got them their fish. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Hamster

Had a mother daughter duo come into the store today.
Originally they were looking to possibly get a chinchilla...but I didn't have any in stock as my supplier hasn't sent any for the past couple of weeks.

So I ended up showing them the guinea pigs and hamsters instead.

Though it sounded like they still really wanted the chinchilla.

So I was rather surprised when they came up to me saying that they were going to get a hamster. *shakes head* 

Still. I made sure that they had what they needed for the hamster.

I am curious why they decided to go with the hamster instead of the chinchilla.....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Hold Me?

A while back we put up signs on a few of our cages.
Basically saying "If you want to hold a pet, ask an associate"

Which has lead to a larger increase of people asking to hold hamsters and guinea pigs and snakes and other lizards and such.

Probably because the signs give customers confidence to ask to hold the animals. 

-Which is probably a ploy by corporate to get people to handle the pets a bit more so that they'll want to buy it...and therefore spend more money lol.

In any case.
A mother with a young son asked to hold a hamster today.
Because the boy really wanted to hold it.

But like a lot of children, Once the animal is out of the cage and near them.
They get really shy about handling the creature lol.

The boy just kinda stared at it and cautiously touched it before his mother helped him hold it and such.
And once he was done holding it he lost complete interest in the hamster and wanted to go look at other things lol.

But it was fun to see him handling the pet and not squishing him or freaking out or anything lol.

I'm grateful the hamster didn't try to bite him too. ^^;;

Yay for positive experiences. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Yes I Want Him...Do I?

I had a customer come into the store today, looking to get a new hamster as her previous little buddy had passed away a little while ago. 
And she thought it was time to get another one.

Only she had troubles picking the hamster she wanted.
As basically within every cage I opened, she found at least one hamster where she was like "This is the one!" 

-Lucky me I only showed her three cages...I can't imagine the struggle she'd have had if I had shown her the other side. :S 

In any case, after some dithering and wondering if she should even get a hamster today. 

Because she mentioned that she likes to keep her house cold so she can sleep at night.
And I warned her that the hamster would be more sensitive to the cold with his smaller size. So it's best to keep the hamster warmer.

So she was like 'Oh....maybe I shouldn't then."
But of course she wanted to look at another cage...and found 'the one!' 

To the point where I had her fill out the paperwork, boxed up the hamstesr and showed her food and chews.

But just as she was getting ready to head up to the front to buy....

She had a change of heart.

Decided she wanted to wait a while. Wait until it was warmer because she didn't want the hamster being too cold. 

So in the end she went home without the hamster and the hamster went back into the cage with his buddies. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Hamster Problem

I don't have the full story for this.

But earlier today, a customer came into the store with a bunch of hamster products.
Cages, food, houses, etc. 
Basically a whole start up on getting a hamster.
But I think...maybe it was two kits?

In any case.
They were returning everything. 

-I kinda figured it was a) a joke gone wrong b) their hamster died and they didn't want to try again or c) some other situation where they ended up not wanting the hamster.

Apparently everything was in 'unsellable' condition aka -dirty/not cleaned.
So we returned a bunch of product we couldn't resell. *exhales*

And I think the customer took their refund and....left?
Maybe bought things?
But like. I don't know it wasn't that big of a deal. 

However.

Some time later. (not sure if it was minutes or hours) 
The customer came back in. (if they'd even left at all)

To complain...

I'm not sure fully.
But apparently they hadn't gotten the 'correct' refund? 
I guess they got back less than what they'd paid for?

*shakes head*

Not sure.

But this customer kept up a running series of complaints as the Manager took over the return process to help get the right amount of money back.

(I think)

But the process was taking a while.
I feel like a good twenty minutes went by.

Not helped at all by the fact that I saw the customer walk away to point at something or grab something and then come back....

At one point they even wanted the manager to return a gift card? 
Like...we don't do that.
We don't return gift cards. 
*shakes head*

But apparently....

From what my coworker tells me.

The customer had bought a ton of hamster stuff with the intention to breed the hamsters.

-Which I do wonder if they bought two hamsters from our store because like....breeding would be impossible then because we only sell males. *shakes head*

But in any case.

The customer wanted to breed the hamsters.

And then sell them back to us for a profit.

Which is a cool idea in concept.

Only it doesn't work because we don't accept animals unless it's from specific breeders that we go through.

So we wouldn't be able to take any hamsters from this customer. 


In any case.
The customer kept up like a running commentary the entire time.
I couldn't hear what they were saying.
But like I could hear their voice constantly talking for forever really.

*shakes head*

And it was just...such a weird situation.

So weird. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Scared

I had a family come into the store today to return a hamster.
Which looking at the paperwork they'd had it like a week already.

But thankfully, the hamster was still alive. 

Still. I'm always curious why people decide to return animals. 
Plus. I have to ascertain that there is no issue with the animal so I can decide how soon we'll be able to bring it back onto the floor.

So when I asked them why they were returning the hamster.
The guy and girl shared a look before the guy said. "It scared the baby." 

O.o 

I admit...that's not one I've heard.
I mean. I've had animals returned because children have been afraid of them yes.
But it's usually the 2-8 year olds.
A baby....I wouldn't have thought hamsters could scare babies.
Mostly because I couldn't see any reason why a hamster would be allowed near a baby... *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Warm Hand

I had a customer today who wanted to hold a hamster. 
Just hold one.
Which she kept apologizing that she just wanted to hold it and not buy it.
But like....that's 85% of my job when it involves the hamsters. Lol a lot of people want to hold and touch but not purchase.
So I didn't really mind it. 

Though funnily enough, she never actually held the hamster when I brought it out.
As I had the hamster in it's upturned house.
Because they're not used to being handled.
So it's usually easier to scoop them up into the house and then gently tilt them down into the customer's hands.
Only the customer got to the point of getting it to her hands.
Nope.
She was satisfied to just pet it within the upturned house.

….Which is probably a good thing.
Because ten seconds later....
I felt something warm dribbling into my hand. 

*shudders*

The hamster had peed in the house...but that had holes in the top and therefore....dripped down into my hand.
*gags*
EWWWW!!!

Thankfully the customers had no idea lol.
I kept my act together but did quickly put the hamster away after that so I could go wash off my hand. 
Because EWWWWWW

Gah. That's a first. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Sick?

I answered a phone call from a customer that I'd helped a couple weeks ago with buying a hamster.

She was concerned because she thought the hamster wasn't doing well and wanted him to be checked out.

But she was worried that the return process would take forever. Like an hour or so with extra paperwork and such.

Which wasn't the case at all. 

When returning animals it's a matter of establishing why the animal is being returned, making sure you have the receipt and paperwork with you, and then going to the register to get your money back. 

-As with animals, even if the customer still wants the creature to come back, we return the animal into our inventory and give the customer their money back. 

That way....in case while in our care it happens to die, or the customer decides in the intermin that they don't want the animal back...

They don't have to make a second trip to the store to get said money back.

The plan here was to return the hamster so we could take him to the vet and get him checked out, and then treat him if necessary and then if he gets better (because sometimes they don't) we'd call the customer back and she could come pick him up.

But when the customer came into the store...

All I saw was a healthy hamster.

He was active, his eyes were bright, he was alert, his bottom was clean --which is major in hamsters to make sure they don't have diarrhea, and yah...overall. He seemed fine to me.

The customer though, had been concerned because they came in to find him sleeping on his back. Legs spread out. And just staying that way for a really long time.

Which. O.o Yah....that does sound a little odd.

But I have seen hamsters sleeping in rather weird positions before.

And since he was moving food around, and drinking water, and being a really active sweet hamster that allowed me to manhandle him without once trying to bite me....

I saw no reason for concern. 

So the customer ended up not returning the hamster because I didn't see any issues with him.

*fingers crossed* that the hamster remains healthy. :S  

-Sarnic Dirchi

Awwww

It's always nice to be appreciated. ^^;;

Had a customer come into the store today, one that I recognized as having helped before. Though with how time works in the store I couldn't remember how recently I'd helped her. Whether it had been a couple of days ago or up to a week....

But she'd come in to find a house for the hamster that she'd bought as the one they had had was too small. 

And she was super complimentary to me. ^^;; 

Lol she was telling me that she and her kids look forward to coming into the store while I'm working because I've been so helpful to them and that they never want me to leave the store and that one of her daughters wants to work in a petstore now.

And it was just like.... An Awwwww moment. 

To know that there are people out there who like to see me at work and look forward to me being on shift when they come in. :)

It was a heart warming moment. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wrong Shipment

So a unique thing about work (Idk if other pet stores do this or not actually so it may not be unique) is that when it comes to our rodents -hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, chinchillas etc. 

Each store location will only carry one gender. 
So one store will only carry boy rodents. (mine) 
And another will only carry girl rodents. (our sister store up the way) 
Etc.

So that we can make sure that no breeding happens within our stores and that customers can be certain of which gender they bought. 

However....
Mistakes do happen on occasion.

Where our supplier accidentally sends the wrong gender to the store. 

Which is what happened to one of our sister stores in the next valley over.
They carry only females, 

But apparently, when their animal shipment was delivered a couple of days ago....
They ended up with some males.
Which they can't sell in their store because they only carry girls. 

And even though they had closer stores in their valley than us....
For some reason they called us....

Having not handled the call directly (my manager took it) I can only guess that a) they'd tried the other stores in their valley first and then called us. 
Or b) because they know that our store gets animals before theirs (as the supplier moves south to north in their deliveries) they figured they'd check in with our store first and see if we'd ended up accidentally getting females. 

We hadn't. We'd gotten boys. 

But thankfully we can do a store to store transfer -meaning they go into the system and transfer the inventory of an item (or animals in this case) from their store into our store. 

So apparently sometime today...or maybe tomorrow...
We're going to end up with 12 more hamsters. 
Of the Longhaired and Shorthaired Syrian variety. 

Which I don't mind much. ^^;; lol. I love the Syrians.
:S I just hope we can sell enough of the rodents this weekend that we can bring the new arrivals out onto the floor sooner rather than later. 

-Sarnic Dirchi