MLAARE -Loose Cat

There was another first for me at work today;

We had a cat get loose in the store.
A customer's cat.
Not one that was waiting for adoption.
But a cat that actually belonged to someone.

O.o
I mean people bring in their cats all the time, but none of them have gotten 'loose'
Because most of the time they're contained in a carrier, on a leash, or held in arms because they're small.

And this cat had been contained, in a carrier.

But for some reason, while the owner was waiting to go into grooming -I think they'd shown up early and were just wandering the store.
The customer had opened the carrier....Not sure why. But opened it they had.
And the cat had slipped out.
Escaped.
Disappearing underneath our steel shelves holding a ton of Dog Beds.

:S
That's a problem.
One. Because if the cat chose to climb up out of reach....it would be super difficult to get her.
Two. We have steel racks all around the store. There were a gazillion places for her to hide!

Basically, it was a nightmare in the making.
How to find a cat.
That was Black mind you. (so she could blend into the shadows really well.)
That disappeared out of sight. Wasn't making a sound.
While there were dogs in the store (on leashes) roaming about with their owners?

Honestly, I thought we'd have to wait until the store closed hours later, and lure the kitty out when all fell silent with some food and somehow trap it while everyone was gone.

Thankfully, that didn't happen.
I don't know what the owner would have done if that had to be the case, or what we would have done if the owner had left and we'd found the cat.

Who knows.

Basically any coworker that was free to help in the store went looking for the kitty.
But they weren't doing more than glancing about. Looking under things. As the owner wandered around the area calling out her name, and searching herself.
After all.
She could be anywhere.

But I wondered...if she would have gone so far away from where she slipped under the dog beds.
There were beds that had fallen between the steel shelves and the wall.
Maybe she'd stayed there.

I had no idea how terrified this cat had been when she'd escaped.
Had she been panicked by a dog?
Had she just wanted out of the carrier?

No idea.

But. I glanced at the space between wall and shelves.
And I was thin enough to slip in the crack there.
To look behind the shelves.

I mean the cat wouldn't just be sitting pretty in front of everything.
She'd be behind something.

I moved towards the first dog bed.
Nothing.
Moved to the next, moving it aside so I could search further.
And there she was.
The little black kitty.
Having made a little nest for herself between that bed and the wall.

I gently picked her up.
And thankfully she was calm, she wasn't scared out of her mind.
So I was able to easily maneuver the two of us out from the shelves, clambering over the dog beds on the bottom shelf to do so.
And returned her to her owner.

Yay for happy endings!

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Over Dramatic

I came into work this morning.
To find that one of my coworkers had left a note.

One that's a bit over dramatic really.
*shakes head*

It reads:
"Fancy Beardie has toe rot on left back foot. Toe will fall off on its own scaring small children and/or rot may spread if not amputated."

Really.
Really?
Scaring small children?
Highly doubtful.

I mean, if the whole limb was shriveled.
Yah.
It could be scary.

Possibly.
Though most children automatically think that most things that are 'disgusting/scary' are cool.

But this.
This note?
Totally over dramatic.

Yes, the toe will fall off on its own.
But I doubt it will spread.
I don't think its a serious thing to be amputated.
Its a Toe.

That will fall off on its own.
And rot...doesn't usually spread.
*shakes head*

Being over paranoid.

I looked at that Beardie's foot.
And if anything.
It looks like the foot got stuck underneath something. Pinned.
So yes.
It will fall off. Because toes do that if they're pinned and no blood flow is given to them.
Will the rot spread?
Most likely not.

That doesn't mean we're going to just ignore the problem.
We're going to monitor the Beardie.
Make sure that it actually isn't a major problem.

Better safe than sorry.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Shifts

So, I sent a text to a manager at work;
To save me the trouble of having to talk to people on the phone.
Asking what my work schedule was for next week.

And I got the response back.
"You work these days starting at this same time."

Great.
I kinda figured that would be the case.
Doesn't hurt to double check, as the one time I don't is probably going to be the time when something changes.

But...they didn't answer my full question.
You see, I like to know the beginning AND the ending times of my shifts.
So I can have a better idea of when I'll be getting off and plan other events accordingly.

*sighs*

You don't know how stressful it is to not know when you're getting off.
How long am I going to be at work this day?
Five hours?
Eight?

I don't know.
I didn't press to know as I figured they'd be busy at work.
So now I have to wait for when I do go into work...
And then see when I get off work for my work week.

....I hate waiting.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Pin Pads

I was met with a different sight when I came into my store this morning.
There was a woman I'd never seen before.
Messing around with our Pin Pads on the registers.

What was she doing?

Replacing them.

O.o

We were getting NEW Pin Pads.

NEW!!

O.O
...Honestly I feel like we got new ones soon after I was hired...or else they just changed the procedure on it....there was a change with it at some point.

But no.
These ones.
Are New.

They're so sleek and shiny.
And different from our old Pin Pad devices.

Our old ones were fully touch screen.

These ones, return to the key pad, but the touch screen is just as big.
Its brighter. Easier to read.
So cool!!

And it seems so much faster.
The information that is trying to be conveyed, much more understandable for customers.

Really.
I'm impressed. ^^

I wasn't expecting to get these new Pin Pads, but I'm happy we did. :D

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Counting

Damaged boxes can be annoying.
For one, if its a product and its all bent and contorted...customers are less likely to buy it.
Because they probably think there is something wrong/broken with it.

Damaged boxes that hold the products can be annoying because if its bent all weird then it could have broken the product inside, it could be more difficult to open or to carry about without everything falling to pieces. Basically...its a box you don't try to pick up or risk items falling on your toes.

Then there are the creature boxes.
Those really shouldn't be damaged.
At all.

Because if they are....
That usually means that creatures can escape.
Holes can be chewed through and exploited.
Meaning animals loose.

Today.
It wasn't animals.
But bugs.
Yah. More bugs.
We got in another shipment of bugs today.
And the cricket boxes were damaged.
Squished.

Which is bad.
because the contorted shapes...
Left room for crickets to wiggle their way out.
Bye bye Money.

So to try and figure out how many crickets we lost from the damage boxes.
I counted the crickets before I added in new crickets.
Then counted again to see what the difference was.

Ah. It harkens back to the days when Reth was still my manager. As she would have us do that so we'd know if they actually sent what they said they sent us, instead of just assuming that they did.

Talk about a headache though.
Imagine counting 3,000 crickets.
Then adding in another 3,000
And trying to see if the mass horde of moving floor added up to 6,000.
Ow.
My head.
It doesn't help that the crickets didn't smell that great in the first place.
so I spent like 10 minutes breathing in bad smell as I tried to count.

To find....
The numbers were basically accurate.
We hadn't really lost anything in the shipments besides the dead. O.o

So weird.

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Guesstimation

So, when we get in our Cricket shipments.
There are usually dead.
Which we count, to make sure that our inventory numbers are accurate.
But when you get in anywhere between 1,000-3,500 crickets at a time...
You don't have a lot of time spent to counting crickets.

So I use guesstimation. Count out a certain number of crickets then take about that size range and count more quickly.
Guesstimate. Its my friend.

But this time, my Head manager wanted me to count out individual dead crickets.
So that we could have an accurate count. To make sure we were saying the right amount of dead.

For fun I did a guesstimation before hand.

I thought there were about 450 dead.

Then I counted.
One by One.
And got

453.

HA!
TAKE THAT!

You don't know how happy it made me to know that my guesstimation is pretty accurate. ^^

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Not an Option

There is one thing I don't like about hamsters.
It's how delicate they are.

Like, if anything at all goes wrong with them....
Its very difficult to give them a good life after that point.
Because they are so sensitive to chemicals and medicines...
Surgery and putting them under for that....is never an option.
Because the stress can kill them. :(

I was opening up the department.
Moving animals around to make room for new ones to come out to the floor to be sold.
When I happened to notice that a hamster,
a little Winter White.
Wasn't moving around right.
Or barely at all.
Upon a closer look, I saw that one of his back legs...
Was dragging.

Limp.

Most likely broken.

It was hard to tell for sure.
As hamsters are very wiggley.

But a limb not working...
Bad sign.

It meant we needed to take him to the vet.
Which we did within the hour of discovering him injured.

I'd had hopes, that perhaps he'd be able to be saved.
Amputate the leg, or splint it or something.

But I left work before I found out what happened to him.

Yet...
when I came back into work this morning.
He wasn't there.

Which means.
That more than likely, the decision was to put the hamster to sleep.
Y_Y
So depressing.
But in the long run...the best option.
Because his quality of life wouldn't have been good. He would have been in pain.
And operating would be pointless because again, they don't do well under surgery, more likely to die than not.

Still.
Its rather disappointing.
I always root for the creature to make it.
So when it doesn't. :( I'm heart broken.

Poor hamster...
Wish we could have done more for you. :(

-Sarnic Dirchi