Pinched

I'd just finished putting all the decorations for our Chameleon back into his cage. I shut the lid, and noticed that the Chameleon had gotten some very interesting coloring on his body.
He was green like normal chameleons but there were a bunch of black dots now patterning on him as well. I hadn't seen the pattern before, but didn't think much of it.

Until I came back a few hours later, and noticed that he was still the same coloring...
But also still in the same spot. O.o
That was weird because it was a weird position for him to be in. Very stiff legged.

So I looked at him closer.
And realized that his tail, instead of being curled up.
Was stretched upwards....upwards into the ()_()
Oh crap.

His tail was stuck in the lid!!
-It was one of those hinge lids where part of it flips up.
And somehow, in the process of putting him back in.
His tail had gotten stuck in the crack there!

Ah!

So I quickly opened the cage.
And freed his tail.

And his black dots totally vanished.

O.O Oh.... Black dots = pain. Got it.

The last half an inchish of his tail...
Was a different shade than the others.
Darker, kinda dead looking. :S

Had I just killed part of his tail!??!

I couldn't tell.

Maybe it would recover.
Maybe it would be fine.

Only time would tell.

Thankfully.
I didn't kill off a bit of his tail.

It's recovering fine.
Curling up and moving around.
There's a very slight darker color to it, a mark where the lid pinched his tail.

But I'm confident it will fully recover.

Yay.

-Sarnic Dirchi

How To Fit You All

It was a normal morning.
Where I was pulling the info for what birds we were expecting to get in this week, so I could prepare cages to hold them for when they arrived.

And I noticed that there was a weird name on our list.
I mean, sometimes our conures have odd names associated with them, but at the end of the name it always says conure.

This bird though.
Was a Canary Winged Bee Bee Parakeet.

O.o
I'd never heard of such a name.

I mean. We carry canaries.
We carry parakeets.

But a canary parakeet?
O.o

What weird hybrid was this?

Apparently this Bee Bee is a type of parrot.

One that can be playful, friendly, talkative.

lol. Like I always tell customers....we may not carry a certain type of bird now, we may start carrying it in the future.

(What we really need is to start selling Cockatiels as that's the most popular bird requested when people come into the store)

So, from what I can figure out. This Bee Bee should be treated like a conure. Similar food, similar cage requirements.
But I guess we'll see when we actually get it in.

The main problem though...
Is the same problem we have currently with our reptiles.
I have a new bird coming in.
but there's no room for it.

As all our cages are currently full.
So I looked up the plan for our habitats for the birds.
And saw that the Bee Bee is supposed to take the place of our Diamond Doves.

The problem?
We still have a Diamond Dove in the store.
Because those birds don't sell that quickly.
....Like our snakes that I need to sell....

Which means when the Bee Bee comes in....I can't bring it out onto the floor until we sell the Dove.
Which could be tomorrow....or it could be in six months.

So now I have like a week....to sell the Diamond Dove.

In any case....
Because our reptiles had their plan changed.
And our birds had had a new addition...

It only made sense that something would be changing with our small pets as well. The mice, hamsters, guinea pigs.

So I looked up the habitat plan.
And I was right.

It had changed. Or will be changing. The plan hasn't gone into effect yet.

Not that we really stick to the schematic when it comes to our small pets. We go through our hamsters and guinea pigs so quickly that when a cage opens up, we fill it with the next available hamster. We don't wait to place the same type of hamster in the same cage. But place the next available type of hamster in that cage. As some types of hamsters sell faster than others.

In any case.
We're getting in a new type of Guinea Pig into the store.
It's called a Skinny Pig.
Basically, it's a hairless guinea pig. O.o So weird.

What's weirder....is that the new plan....doesn't have a spot for our chinchilla....but there aren't any notes that we're no longer going to be carrying it. We....just don't have a place for it.
Considering we've had the same chinchilla in our store for months now.....

So once again, when the time comes....I'm going to have to figure out how to get the new animals in while we still have the old animals....

Yay for complications.

-Sarnic Dirchi

I Want Food

Ugh.
I hate it when my coworkers don't listen.....
Though sometimes I wonder if they do it out of spite.

So, this morning it was me and my coworker.
And we were both staying in the store long enough, where we needed to take a lunch break
-Usually it's just me who needs to take lunches as the others don't stay as long to need it.

Only my coworker had been delayed in helping a difficult customer.
And I couldn't really leave as there were other customers needing help.

She was supposed to leave my department at a certain time, to go spend her last hour as a back up cashier on the register.

Which when she finally got done with the customer.
She was due to be out of my dept in half an hour.
Exactly how long of a lunch we each needed to take.

And since she was off before me.
She needed to take that lunch first.

Which meant she would need to cover me when I took my lunch, which meant she wouldn't be in her cashiering position for half of her hour in that department because I would need to take my lunch.

Yet somewhere in there.
Our communications didn't....well, communicate.

As the plan was for her to go on lunch, for me to go on lunch, and then she'd go on cashiering...probably to cover the cashier's lunch and then be off.

But either she didn't connect the dots that I needed to take a lunch too....
Or she was just so tired she wasn't thinking...
Or she was purposely making my life difficult......

Because after she got back from lunch, she went straight to the register, and the cashier disappeared.

Which....I assumed that the cashier had snagged her first and gone on lunch.
And while I wasn't happy to have to wait an hour longer to go on break than I'd planned.
I was willing to overlook it.

Until my coworker called the cashier up to be backup.

*eye twitch*

The cashier hadn't gone on shift.
Instead, my coworker had just assumed she had to be on register when she got back.
and didn't realize, somehow, that I still had to take a lunch too while she was there as no one else would be in my department until I was off.

So I checked in with the cashier first, to ensure that she wasn't going on lunch. And explained that I needed my coworker to cover me for my lunch,

Again, I wonder....what was she thinking.

Thankfully we all managed to get our lunches in.
But the miscommunication sure was irritating.

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Vet Trip

So, I had animals that needed to go to the vet today.

Ones that could not be delayed another day for they weren't doing well.

But the plan that I'd talked to my managers about the day before....

Didn't seem to be working out.

As the manager who was supposed to be coming in....

Didn't.

Our newer manager -who'd never taken animals to the vet, and couldn't take them to the vet because he had school right after work- had come in instead.

Not a big deal, as we had a second manager scheduled to come in an hour before the newer manager was scheduled to leave.

Only....

Last week, when I had to take animals to the vet.

And I was in the same situation.

The second manager had forgotten that he was supposed to take the animals to the vet.

And so came in just as the other manager had to leave.

....Which meant that I ended up having to take those animals to the vet myself (something I'm not technically supposed to do as I'm not a manager) In order for them to be seen, as they wouldn't have made it to the vet otherwise.

So today,

When I realized what was happening.

I had two options.

To wait and see if history would repeat itself.

Or take action and ensure that history wouldn't repeat itself.

I chose to take action.

As I had this manager's phone number.

So I sent him a text.

Reminding him that there were animals that needed to go to the vet today.

Surprisingly enough. He'd remembered O.o

And was actually on his way to come grab them when I texted him.

So, I hadn't needed to worry about the animals getting to the vet today.....

Though I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't texted, then I would have encountered the same situation as last week.

So better to be safe than sorry.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Called In...Or Not

It's become rare for me to get called into work.
Mostly because I work full time.
So I don't have much leeway in taking on other people's shifts when they call out.
Not without getting overtime, which nobody really likes to give.

So it was a surprise to wake up to work calling me on my day off.
Since....I had a full schedule of hours.
and they usually only call if they need someone to cover a shift.

But I wondered if it was some other problem that they knew only I knew the answer to.

Nope.

They were calling because one of my coworkers had called out sick.
And everyone else they'd called hadn't been able to come in, or hadn't responded.

So the solution they'd come up with.
Was that I would come in on my day off.
And then the next day when I was scheduled to work, they would call in someone else to cover me for that shift.

Me. I like to help out when I can. As I have no desire to have my work crash and burn because we're short on staff.

So I said yes.
Got ready.
Drove to work.
Parked.
Turned off the car, and was reaching to grab my stuff.
When my phone rang.

O.o
It was work.

I picked up expecting them to ask me where I was.
And I was going to tell them I'd just pulled up.

But no.

They were calling,
To tell me that two of my coworkers who they hadn't heard from...
Had just shown up to cover my sick coworker.
So they wanted to know if they could cancel me, and still have me work my normal shift the next day.

I'm pretty easy going.
So I said. Sure. It was fine.
Not letting them know that I was sitting out in the parking lot talking to them. lol.

It wasn't much skin off my back.
I live near enough to work that it wasn't a big hassle or waste of gas to drive there only to not work.

So I went back home.
And enjoyed my day off. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi

One in a Bag

So, one of my coworkers has a rather loud voice.

Like you literally can hear her when she's at the front of the store and you're at the back of the store.

Her voice just carries.

I thought it weird...

That I could hear her talking to the same customer for a long time.

I was busy finishing up cleaning some cages.

And didn't realize what she was doing until it was too late.

She'd caught somewhere between 20-30 of our goldfish for a customer.

Who, from what I could see and tell from overhearing portions of the conversation as I moved about completing my own tasks....was that she'd gotten a bunch of betta females and a few of our Dwarf Frogs as well...and already had those in her cart.

I thought my coworker would quickly be done with her....

As it doesn't take that long to catch and bag up fish.

What I didn't realize though....

Was that my coworker was individually bagging up each goldfish.

So 20-30 goldfish were being bagged one in a bag.

And not just our small bags.

But our largest bags.

O.O

We're not supposed to do that.

For one we're technically not supposed to sell for 'events' aka Weddings, proms, carnivals, receptions etc.

The managers in my store don't care about that little fact, *eye twitch* but we have been rather firm on not individually bagging those fish.

Because it's a waste of time for us, and resources.

I mean my coworker just spent 40 minutes bagging those fish! *eye twitch*

If a customer wants a ton of fish individually bagged, we have the right to refuse.

Usually we end up putting the fish in one or two bags (depending on how many they want) and then give them the bags so they can bag them themselves.

Yet....here my coworker was....

Doing exactly that.

Bagging up each goldfish individually for this customer.

For who knows why. Maybe there was a legitimate reason. But I'm guessing it was for some sort of 'event' as people don't usually want their fish individually bagged.

*shakes head*

By the time my coworker was done, the lady's cart was overfilled with bags.

And when I brought it up to my coworker (when she was halfway through)

She was like ()_() WHAT?! I didn't know we couldn't?!!

OooOooohh

HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THAT! YOU'VE BEEN HERE NEARLY TWO YEARS. SOMEWHERE IN THAT TIME FRAME I MUST HAVE MENTIONED IT TO YOU!!

Ugh. >.<

Needless to say, I wasn't very happy with her because it delayed us in opening with that venture.

....I suppose I should say that at least the customer left happy.

Even if it left me irritated.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Where'd They Go?

So, we haven't carried Rats in our store for a while now.
Like since the beginning of the year.
Why?
Because our Breeder stopped breeding them, and our store hasn't found (and may never find) another breeder to go through to get Rats.

So, we carry the rat supplies. but no rats.

Yet....I still have people coming in to the store,
Asking if we have any rats.
What rats we have.
Where are the rats.

....I don't have any.

And they seem so offended by that answer.
WELL WHY NOT?!?!

Because, dear customer, I can't sell what we don't get in. When our breeder chooses to not breed certain animals it's not like I have any say in the matter....

-Sarnic Dirchi