Free Offerings

It was around lunchtime and my coworker had just gotten off of their shift and were waiting for their ride home, when they came in and were like "Hey....there's bags of free dog food outside." 

O.o 
Huh?

Upon investigation, someone had left two bags of opened dog food -half used- and then an unopened container of hot cocoa powder in front of our store with "FREE" written on them. O.o 

Like....why?

-One note explained further that the 'don't have grand-puppies' anymore, hence they don't need the food.

And while it was thoughtful for them to want to have someone else use the food that they could no longer use....

Leaving it randomly in front of our store is rather odd.
I don't know if they came in and tried to talk to a worker or not.
But regardless.
We couldn't let it stay there.

As who knows where the food has been or how long it was sitting there or how old it was.....

So we gathered it up and took it in the back to be thrown out.
Because we can't guarantee the safety of those who might possibly consume said food items.
Therefore we can't keep them on the property even if they're not ours and free.
We don't want to be liable.

I am still curious though....if the hot cocoa was used with the dog food....or of it was just like an offering to us people like "here you have some hot chocolate!"

The world may never know.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Let There Be Light

One of the many struggles of our store is getting in replacement heating bulbs for our reptile tanks when they go out.

Like. In all honesty shipping things shouldn't take longer than like a week.
But when it comes to lightbulbs? 
It's like two or three MONTHS before we see anything.
Which if no one is paying attention and we don't realize that we're getting low on replacement bulbs....
Can cause quite a problem when we have like...all of them go out.

Especially when the lightbulbs are expensive to purchase in the first place.
And like take forever to get here.

I don't know how many times we've ordered the things actually.
But our poor reptile habitats had reached the point where more of the night time heat bulbs weren't working than were. 
Not.
Good.

We've had to leave the day time lights on throughout the night just to make sure that everyone stays warm enough. *shakes head*

In any case.
Today.
TODAY.
After like 2-3 months of waiting.
We FINALLY got in lightbulbs.

Which was like 10 day time heat and 10 night time heat.

So we were finally able to replace a lot of the bulbs that had died and such.

Only....
It wasn't enough.
Out of all the cages....11 of them needed new night time heat bulbs. 
And I only had ten.

*exhales*

At least we're down to just one now that needs a night time heat.
Hopefully the next order of lightbulbs gets here before more of them go out....
But we'll see.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Taking the Lot

It was the last ten minutes of my shift.
Which usually means that that's when I get the 'difficult' customers.
This was no exception.
As a customer came into the store wanting some feeder goldfish.
For what purpose I didn't ask, but my guess was it was for a pond as that had been the common theme of the day.
Only we were rather low on Goldfish.
As we hadn't yet received in a shipment.
So I showed the customer what we had.
And the response was "I'll take all of the smalls." 

*exhales*
I do hate it when people want ALL of something.
Especially fish, because the last dozen or three of fish are always a lot harder to catch than when we have like 4 or 5 hundred in a tank. 

But I set to work, trying to get the goldfish into the net as quickly as possible.
And managed to get all our smalls (60) and x-smalls (18) caught before the customer returned.

They asked how many I'd caught and I'd told them.

It wasn't enough.

So onto the large goldfish I went.

They wanted all of them.....

But when I had like a dozen or so left to catch the customer decided that that was enough.
-I'd ended up with 40. 

So yah.

Basically wiped out my fish for the weekend. :S 
I hope we get some more in this upcoming week as I forsee a lot of sad customers when there aren't any goldfish for them.
*fingers crossed* that they show up on Monday or Tuesday and not Friday. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

An Odd Duo

Got contacted by a manager again today.
They called within the hour of leaving work.
Why?

Because my coworkers noticed that there was a guinea pig in the chinchilla cage.

And my manager wanted to know why.

*exhales* 

Because apparently I got distracted at the wrong moment that's why. 

At least I think it was me.

As while I was in the middle of the bird bedding change when a customer and family asked to see the Chinchilla. 
Which I showed to them.
But then they asked to see a Guinea Pig.
So I put the chinchilla back to grab the guinea pig. 

And I guess when I needed to put the Guinea Pig back....
I put it back in the bottom cage instead of the top....

I was focused on going back to cleaning the bird cages and didn't even notice.

I don't recall anyone else asking to see guinea pigs.
So I'm guessing it was my fault.

Thankfully the two were just chilling together in the chinchilla cage.
So no harm. Woot. :D
And Mr. Guinea was put back with the others. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Tick?

I got a text from my manager a little bit ago.
Stating that one of our coworkers had found a tick on one of our snakes.
O.o

A tick?

I hadn't noticed anything when I picked up that snake earlier today.
Of course I wasn't looking that hard. I'd noticed he was shedding, but nothing more.

But like a tick? Random.

Even more random because like...I'd cleaned those cages this morning. All of them.

But the managers were like "We might need to do bedding changes on everyone." 

But.
I.
Just.
Did.
That. 

So realistically all the cages should be fine.
And any creatures that were in the cage besides the reptiles would have vanished with the cleaning done earlier.

So unless the bedding that was used has an infestation---

All the animals should be fine.

Still I'm skeptical that it's a tick--
Like. 
I've never seen a tick in the store.
Let alone one on a snake.... :S 

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Trial Pet

I had a customer come into the store to get a pet goldfish.
Why?
Because he wanted to get a dog.
But figured before he took on such a huge responsibility he thought that he would try keeping a goldfish alive first.

Which. First off. Bad idea. Like. Keeping a goldfish alive isn't easy.
Especially if you're looking to keep it in a little bowl.
It's a lot of work.
Which if he's looking for a lot of work. Congrats. You've found it.
I told that he would need to change the water in the bowl like every other day to keep the goldfish alive and that a betta fish would be better and that even a larger tank with a filter---

But nope.
Dude's mind was set.

He wanted to try keeping a goldfish alive in a bowl.
*exhales*

Like.
If you want to try something.
Why not try doing something right?
And not as cheap as possible? 

Still I did what I could to set the dude up.
Got him a goldfish -tried to talk him into smaller, but no he wanted larger. *rolls eyes*
And the proper food and water conditioner for the bowl. 

Though I don't really expect the fish to live long in those conditions. 
I tried my best.

In the end.
The dude was like "I need a name for it, what would you name it?"

*shrugs* I had nothing come to mind besides "Goldie" because like...it's a goldfish...I wasn't thinking names.

But he then was like I'll name it Sarnic!

So now there's a goldfish out there named after me. :S 

Like I'm halfway flattered.
But at the same time.
I kinda really want the fish to live now.
Because like....it's named after me. I want it to live a nice long life. 

*fingers crossed*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Which One Is Darker?

Had a customer come into the store today looking for a goldfish to replace the one that had died.
It was apparently a 'black' goldfish.
And she wanted to replace it before the kids within the house realized it.
Only she couldn't decide what size and if the 'black' goldfish we had were dark enough.

She ended up having me fish out four so she could look at them separately.
And still couldn't decide.
So she was like "Maybe I should grab my son and have him choose." Which I said would be a good idea.
As she didn't live too far away.

But I can't just leave the fish in our fish catching containers for an unknown amount of time.
So I told the customer that I would place her goldfish in an empty tank nearby that had no fish in it.
So she would be able to see them easier and her son would be able to see them too.

A little bit later she did come back with her son.
And he picked out which goldfish he wanted.

And on their merry way they went. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi