Discount Me

Had a customer come into the store looking for waxworms first thing this morning.
Her first question was "Did you get any Waxworms in?"
To which I responded "No." Because we hadn't gotten any in last week in our shipment.
So she was like "Well get me the freshest ones then."
Ha. Jokes on her. All the waxworms we had were from two weeks ago, because we didn't get in a shipment last week and hadn't yet received in this week's shipment because our various worms only come in on Thursdays. 
So i grabbed her the container.
She was like "When did these come in."
"Two weeks ago." Was my response.
"You don't have any from last week!?"
"No, I didn't get in any last week." -AT this point I could tell she had thought my first time responding was for 'this week' instead of the 'last shipment' we received. *exhales* 
But i was like "Our shipments only come in on Thursdays." to her "Why not!" Because we only get replenished for what we sell. So guess what?
If picky customers don't BUY the waxworms, then we don't get more in until we SELL them.

So she was stuck with waxworms from two weeks ago unless she wanted to wait until Thursday this week.

She didn't want to wait.
And instead asked me if we would discount the waxworms because "the other girls would." 
*rolls eyes*
I honestly don't know how we got onto this 'discount the waxworms' kick but it is super annoying.
Like they fill the containers with more than 50 waxworms so it's okay if some die.

But noooo customers want them ALL alive.

So I was like "A discount?"
She was like "Like 20%" 
So I double checked with the manager to see if the one on duty would do a discount.
He was fine with it and was like "You can do 25%"

Ha.
No. If the customer is expecting 20% then I'm going to give her what she wants.
No need to make her get more greedy in future purchases.

So I told her we could do the 20% off. 

*exhales*

At this point I think we're practically selling all our waxworms at a discount. Because people are freaking picky. I don't know why its suddenly a problem now.
We never had this issue before the past couple of months.
And now its practically every customer with waxworms is having issues with them when nothing has changed with the shipping or what we do to care for them.

*shakes head* 

Like I do get that you don't want to buy things that are already dead. I understand that.
But still. There's more than 50 waxworms in the container of 50 so it should be fine. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Together? I Think Not

I was called up to the front of the store just after I got off lunch to help a customer who was doing a small pet return.
Well...two small pet returns.

I had noticed this morning that our two cages that each had a single mice in it were empty.

Well, apparently the same customer had bought both mice.
And was told by a coworker that mice would do well together and that two mice...who had been by themselves in their cages for a long long time.....would be fine.

They weren't.
The customer had bought them both yesterday.
And came back today with one mouse dead and the other injured ---though I couldn't see any obvious injuries to the mouse that lived beyond possible stiffness in their limbs.

But the customer was rather upset...and probably traumatized that his pets had killed each other.

So. He returned both mice.
And ended up buying a hamster instead.

He went with a winter white after looking at every hamster we had and deliberating about which one would be best for him.

And hopefully the hamster does well with him and he doesn't have any issues.

In the meantime....
I had to explain to my coworkers that yes, mice can go together, but its best to try and place mice together that are in the same cage.
A mouse that's been by itself in a cage is more likely to be aggressive when introduced to other mice.
But if two mice have been together in one cage then yah, it's fine to sell them together because you already know that they do well together.

*exhales* Hopefully we don't have that happen again. :S

-Sarnic Dirchi

Cottage Cheese

Had a customer call the store today asking if it was okay to feed her goldfish cottage cheese.
Which....I had no idea really, because it's not a typical food I've heard of people feeding fish.
But to be on the safer side I said it would be better not to.
To which she revealed that her son had dumped a bunch of it in the tank.
:S :S :S
Well...even if the cottage cheese was fine....it wouldn't be fine in huge amounts.
After all putting too much flake food in the tank can kill fish.
So random people food? 
Yah no.
Told the customer that she would need to get all the cottage cheese out and do a water change to make sure the fish would stay okay. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Which Pet?

Had one of those customers come into the store today where they wanted to get a pet for their child.....but wanted to do the bare basics of getting everything. Trying to get everything as small and as cheap as possible.
It started with them wanting a tortoise and trying to put it in a smaller cage, moved to lizards---but the live bug concept wasn't ideal, and then over to Guinea pigs...where there was again the problem of a bigger cage.....so they were thinking more hamsters, as they had had a hamster previously....only it had died after 9 months and wasn't very nice.
Soooo they were wanting a nicer hamster....
But then ended heading over to the kitties to look at them....before I think they circled back to the fish maybe? And I saw them looking at the birds at one point. Though I had stopped helping them when they went to go look at the cats as I could tell they were indecisive and possibly wouldn't be buying anything today....

Which I think I was right.
I didn't ever see them purchase anything....so I think they're going to go do more research and decide what kind of pet they actually want.....

-Sarnic Dirchi

As Many As I Can Catch

Had a customer come into the store today looking to get some feeder goldfish.
Only when I asked him how many he wanted.
He was like "However many you can catch." 

Which is a great nonanswer.
Because I can totally catch all the fish. 
The question is do you want me to catch all the fish?

Because I know how the tanks look.
And I know that most people miscalculate how many fish are in the tank.
They see a bunch and think that it's only like thirty when in reality there's like 75 fish in there.

It's a thing I've grown used to. 
And glancing at the tanks in question.
I knew there were probably at least 100 if not a 150 fish in the two tanks that were our 'extra small' goldfish.

So I told the customer. "There's around 150 in there. How many do you want?" 

Because I can catch all 150 goldfish no problem.
But most the time when it's 'as many as you can catch' the customer is thinking of a slightly smaller number otherwise they would have specified. 

Turns out. I was right.
The dude only wanted 20 goldfish. 

Though after I caught the 20 he decided that he wanted 20 of our larger goldfish and after I caught those he decided he wanted 20 more of the small goldfish for a total of 40 small and 20 large which fully equals 60.

So he wanted 60 in the end.
Probably again, the 'look' of how many 20 is.

Hopefully the fish do well for him. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Spitting Puddles

I came into work today to find that the fish system was doing the "turn on turn off turn on" thing it usually does when a) the water has been turned off for too long and the water levels are having trouble getting high enough to properly flow through all the tubes or b) the fish filters hadn't been changed out.
Answer was probably both. But definitely the fish filters hadn't been changed. :S 

In any case.
As soon as I clocked in I went into the back and turned off the fish system as that things probably been trying to turn fully on all night long, and let it rest for a few minutes while I went and pulled out the grimy definitely hadn't been changed, fish filters out and replaced them with fresh ones.
Then flipped the switch.

And walla. System was back to normal.

Though the floor around the fish tanks themselves had gotten a bit wet.
As in its effort to turn on the fish system had been spitting water with more force therefore spitting water out of the tanks and onto the floor.

So I had three nice puddles going.
Which with the amount of water on the floor, told me that the fish system had been attempting to stay on for most of the night.

Thankfully we were able to get the puddles cleaned up and gone before the store opened.
And the fish system stayed on the entire time I was working on shift. 
So yay. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Need Air?

So the 'lizard guy' came into the store again today.
The one who usually ends up buying another anole or a green tree frog.
And then proceeds to ask me a hundred questions that are really specific and detailed and I wouldn't have an answer to because I don't a) breed the animals or b) raise them to maturity. I just sell them. 

In any case.
He wanted me to bag him some crickets.
Which thankfully I'd already prebagged the amount he needed.
But he wanted me to put some 'food' in the bag so that they would live longer because 'that's what the girl last time did.' 

But in the middle of him untying the bag. He was like "So how long can these guys stay in the bag." And I was like "Not long. They need fresh air and can eventually chew through it." 

And the dude legitimately was like "Wait! The crickets need to breathe!" 

Because he apparently couldn't figure out why the crickets kept dying on him.

--Hint: Crickets will die no matter what you do. 

But he'd apparently been leaving the bugs in the bag this entire time.

*exhales*
Like the guy has been coming to us for the past twoish? months and only now does he realize that crickets need to breathe air? *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi