MLAARE -Empty

Well, this was a first.
I got in a shipment of bugs today.
And was putting them away.
When I happened to glance into a box of crickets.
....only to realize there was something wrong.
I wasn't seeing movement in the box.

First I assumed that the crickets had just all died.
And were lifeless at the bottom of the box.
But looking closer...I didn't see any sort of bug live or dead in there.
O.o

So I opened the box.

Empty.

No crickets whatsoever.
It didn't even look like the box had ever held crickets.
Everything inside was fresh and unsoiled.

Empty.

2,000 crickets.
That was what we were supposed to get in.
And nada.

Crazy.
Thankfully I can get a replacement sent in.
Because ouch. That's a lot of missing crickets. :S

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE - Early Customer

I had a customer come into the store early.
Like half an hour before the store opened.

>.< Which is why I hate this "open door" policy we have where the doors open with our grooming department's hours. Because anyone can walk in. And if they see the doors open...they think the store is open.

So I moved away from my tasks to intercept the customer and politely told him that we didn't open for another half hour.

"Are you serious?" He asks as his cat meows in the cart.
"Yes. We don't open for another half an hour."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, Our hours are posted on the door sir. We're not open for another half hour, we won't have a cashier until then."
"Well can I at least check and see if you have the food I want?"
"Sure, what brand is it."
"This brand."
"Yes we have it."
"Is it still on sale?"
"I don't know lets go look." So I lead him to the bags. Show him that they aren't on sale.
And told him again, that we don't open for half an hour.
He says that he'll wait until then to buy the food.

But then like five minutes later.
He comes up to me. Asking if there was anything he could do to buy the food early. Because you see, he was late for work. And his cat was out of food.
(I'm like, pick up the food after work, your cat won't die without food for a few hours, why did you not get this yesterday?)
I don't know if he was actually late for work...but he we desperate to get out of the store.
Because he was like "Is there anything I can do? Like I can pay extra if you'll let me buy the food early."
Bribing me. He was bribing me.
"Sir we don't do that here."
"Is there anything you can do? I need to go. Is there a manager that can open the register for me?"

>.< Honestly at this point I really wished that I could say "Sir, I am the manager and I'm telling you we aren't open yet. You'll have to wait to buy your food."

Seriously. Why should we make a special exception for you? Would you do the same courtesy to me if I tried to buy stuff at your work before you were officially open? Probably not! >.<
Ugh.
LEARN TO READ THE SIGN!

>.< Instead I was polite and nice and said "Let me go check the registers and see if they're open yet."
Which I knew they were. Because Grooming was open. The registers open when grooming opens incase customers need to buy the services then. (It doesn't happen that often, hence why there is no cashier until after the main store opens.)
"Oh look, they're up." GET OUT OF MY HAIR!
So I helped the customer.
Got him out of the store.
And really hoped that he won't try to come in early again.

>.< Ugh. 

-Sarnic Dirchi 

MLAARE -Prices?

So a young family came into the store.
With a young puppy in their cart along with their kids.
And the father, asked my coworker;
"How much are these fish."
Now, that's not out of the ordinary for that question to be asked...because sometimes the fish look similar to each other on the pictures with the price tags.
So it wasn't weird to answer the question. Which my coworker did.
But then they proceeded to ask again, and again, what the price was for different fish.
To the point where it began to get annoying.
Like dude. LOOK AT THE PRICE TAG! You have EYES take the extra two seconds to see what the price is for yourself. You have no excuse not to try and figure it out yourself. >.<

Its always so weird, that customers come up to us expecting us to know the prices of items right of the top of our heads. *shakes head* Such an unrealistic expectation. I mean, we have like a Billion different products in the store and they go on sale every now and then. So prices are always differing.

It's like "Well, lets look at the price tag together." Sort of situation. Because we don't always know what the prices are for specific items.

In any case, the young family got their fish....
And then proceeded to go adopt a kitten as well.

O.o

They already had a puppy, young kids....and they decided to add in fish and a cat.... it almost seemed like all within the same day. It's crazy. I can understand having all those animals at once...but it just seemed rather crazy to get them all in the same day...

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Walnut Shells

I had a gentleman come up to me today in the store.
Asking if we sold ground walnut shells.
Which we did.
Though I was sure like all the others, that he wasn't wanting the 25lb bag.
And it wasn't.
But it turns out that we apparently sell a 10lb bag.
As there was a spot for it.
But it wasn't on the shelf.

However, I offered to go look in our back room, to see if we had it somewhere.
Which I didn't think we did.
But we'd just gotten a truck in....
So I figured it didn't hurt to look.
Even though if we did have it in...it was probably buried in a box somewhere where I couldn't see it.

Yet.
As I looked.
I saw this green bag.
on top of a pallet.
That looked like the ground walnut shell bag.

I pulled it out where I could see it.
And wouldn't you know it.
It was the bag!
The bag the customer wanted!

So I brought it up to him.
And walla!
He was happily able to go on his way.
Yay for making a customer's day. ^^

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Store Supplies

So there I was,
Opening up the department before the store opened,
and one of the stockers came up to me, carrying a box of Millet.
"I don't know where this goes."
I glanced at the box, saw the packaging, and told him "That's supplies for us to use in the store. It goes in the back."
I didn't think much of it beyond wondering if he had the whole store supply pallet there.
Sure enough, a minute later, he was asking where the travel boxes we place our animals in when they're sold, go.
So, I told him then went over to the pallet, as he was wondering where the giant filters for our fish system were supposed to go....
Yah, the whole pallet he was trying to work....was store supplies.
"That's all store supplies." I told him.
"Everything?"
"Yes, all this, is store supplies.'
"But this box isn't."
"No, that box is as well. It has store supplies in it."

I told him to put it by our door and I would put all the supplies into the backroom when I got the chance.

Lol. I have no idea how he didn't realize it was store supplies...usually there are stickers all over the pallet saying not to sell these items. I have no idea why he didn't notice, or where they all went. Apparently there were a couple of actual cages on the pallet that did go into the main store...but the rest...all store supplies. *shakes head.*
At least we caught it before we ended up dealing with customers trying to buy things we can't actually sell....

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Upgraded

The fun thing about technology, is that it's always changing.
Especially in the store.
We ended up getting Ipads a few months ago, to help customers order things online if we didn't have them available in the store.
And every now and then the company creates new aps to help ease the customers needs further.
The ability to look up receipts.
The ability to sign up for a membership.

And just today.
They came out with an ap, geared towards adopting out our pets. ^^ Woot!

It's exciting, though I haven't really seen it yet to know how it works....
But I'm just glad that its one less folder of papers that we have to keep in the office.

Here's to hoping that they'll continue with advancements.
Like...maybe the ability to scan fish tags instead of having to write the UPC down all the time. That would be so handy.... lol

-Sarnic Dirchi

MLAARE -Switching the Look

One annoying thing about products in the store.
Is that every now and then the company of the product decides to change up the packaging of their product.

Most often I see it in Dog Food.
Where the style of the bag will change like every four months or so.

I'm pretty sure its to try and draw new interest into their brand and get customers to notice their food.

But for the people who buy their brand....
It gets rather frustrating, when they come into the store looking for something in particular,
and they can't find it because the bag has changed on them.
It doesn't look the same, the stuff on the bag has changed, its a different look....

And that can cause some grief, especially if they can't find what food they used to buy.

Thankfully the customer I helped today....I was able to help I think.

I found him looking at a specific brand of dog food, and asked him if he needed help.
Which he did.
He was looking for the bag of food that said "Lamb, Brown Rice, and Whole Oats" on it.
And he could see the bag that had Chicken, Brown Rice, and Whole Oats.
But didn't see the Lamb one.

Probably because they had changed the packaging.
As I saw a bag next to the chicken one that had Lamb and Rice on the label.
But he didn't believe that was the one.
Because it didn't say the words that his food said.
So I dutifully went into the back to look for the one with that specific wording...
and couldn't find it.

So I returned to the man and the dog food.
And suggested we look at the ingredients list.
And what do you know. There was Lamb, Brown Rice, and Whole Oats listed among the ingredients.

Since it was the brand he usually bought.
With the ingredients he wanted.
I could only assume that that was the bag he needed to get.

To which he did get to try out, and see if it was similar to what he'd been getting his dog. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi