Cardboard Living

We had a grandmother come into the store today to return a couple of guinea pigs on behalf of her Daughter.
As one of the guinea pigs had unfortunately passed away and the Daughter was worried that the other guinea pig would catch whatever had caused the first guinea pig to die and so she wanted both returned.

The return process was slightly complicated because the customer hadn't been given a receipt and didn't have their phone number in the computer to be able to look up the receipt.

They did have the paperwork though which proved that the guinea pigs were bought from us.
So the manager gave the okay to do a receiptless return.

And because the customer was planning to buy two more guinea pigs to replace the other two.
It made it easier to do the exchange so the customer didn't have to pay anything.

However.
The grandmother was ill prepared to actually care for the guinea pigs.

As she revealed as I was getting the new guinea pigs ready that she wasn't going to be heading back down to her daughter's place for two more days. 

......
And wanted to know if the guinea pigs would be alright being left in a cardboard box for that amount of time.

*exhales*

I don't know person. Would YOU be okay being left in a box with no air holes for TWO DAYS? 

*rolls eyes*

What people think is okay for animals always just...is crazy.

In any case.
I set the customer straight.
Saying that the guinea pigs would need water and food and a container that they couldn't chew their way out of.

But the grandmother wasn't willing to buy a cage, especially for 2 days.
So I eventually was like "Do you have an old plastic bin?" 
Because at least the bin would keep the guinea pigs from being able to chew their way out of it. 

But yah.....
I hope they do okay for the next two days. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Kitty Adoptions

It feels like I spent practically my entire shift over in the Cat Adoption Center we had in the store.

It started early in the morning when I was cleaning cat cages and noticed that one of our kitties...wasn't acting too hot.
She was all congested breathing, and lethargic, and for the first time she actually stood up and moved towards me, purring, with watery eyes and moving soo stiffly. Her breathing looked rather labored too.

And it just felt like she was going "Sarnic, Help Me." 

I'd noticed that she seemed a bit lethargic yesterday.
But today she looked a ton worse.

So I had my manager contact the adoption group to come pick up the kitty.
As I was worried that if the kitty wasn't seen today...she may not make it the night... :S 
She looked that bad.
And it had me super stressed because I didn't want her to die on us. Like. I'd been keeping an eye on the kitties but this particular one was always very skittish and didn't want to come out of the cage. So it took me longer to realize something was wrong because this kitty was always in the corner.

Thankfully, the adoption group was there within a couple of hours to take her away. And I hope that she'll get feeling better soon.

Beyond the slight kitty drama with the sick kitty.

I also ended up adopting out three other kitties to their forever homes today.

Which involved its own set of drama as I literally had two different people wanting the same cat and I had to check with the first person to see if they actually wanted the cat because the second people definitely did. 

First people didn't. So second people got the kitty.

But gah.
So much time spent in the cat adoption center today.
So much time.
Had a bunch of people come in to look as well. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Tank Set Up

A grandfather came into the store today, looking to buy some fish for his grandkids as they said that they wanted a tank and such.

Only he didn't have anything he needed for fish care.

So I told him that he needed to wait for at least 24 hours after he sets up his tank before he buys any fish to put in it. 

I ended up helping him get the bare basics of what he needed. The starter kit tank, some water conditioner, gravel and a couple of decorations.

And when it came time to ring him up at the register...

He didn't have an account with us.

And when I tried to sign him up for it....he didn't have an email address.

Which makes the whole signing up thing moot because the store now requires the email address before giving discounts.

And like...the dude was getting all this stuff under the belief that it would be less than it was.

Luckily. I was able to find an override key to get the customer their discounts without having to sign up.

As I'd been shown how to do so like last week because we end up getting some grumpy customers into the store (i.e. grandparent age people) who don't have email addresses and complain when they can't get their discounts.

So thankfully I was able to get the customer his sale prices without him being a member.

Else I think that would have blown up in my face. :S 

And I hated to think that he would end up unhappy because he was trying to keep the cost of things low. So yay for making him happy in the end!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Noise Makers

I was called over to birds today.
Because there was a couple there that was interested in buying one.

However.
The bird they were interested in getting was a conure.

Which I had to tell them that we don't have any currently.
And that we won't be getting anymore in until next year in the spring.

Why? Because the conures are a bit more sensitive to the cold and so they aren't shipped during the colder months to keep them safe.

Though I also kinda think that the breeders only hatch so many conures at a time and once they sell through them all stop sending them to us until the next breeding season comes along.
As basically all the conure's hatch dates show early spring dates. 

In any case the customers were disappointed and they were like "Well what about this one?"
And pointed to our Winged Bee Bee cage.

Which again same situation.
Because it's a type of small parrot as well.
And they only send us those in the spring too. 

So yah had to tell the customer no twice.

The poor customers were so sad at this news.
They were like "Can we put one on hold? Reserve it? Buy it now and come get it when it comes in?" 

Ha.
No.
No I cannot.
Because I can't guarantee when the bird will come in.
And I can't guarantee that people will remember by the time the bird does come in...as that's at least six months from now...that the people had purchased it.
And who knows if they'd actually want the bird at that point.
And we only do refunds up to 60 days. So 2 months. Not Six months.

So yah no.
No holds. 
No reservations.
No buying. 

They were definitely not happy about that.

But there was nothing I could do.
So I left them up to their own devices....

Only to be called back to their sides like five minutes later.

As they'd decided to get two parakeets instead. 

and they were like "Are these birds noisy?"

Yes. Yes they can be but i was like "It depends" 

Only for them to be like "Do you have any noisier birds?" 

O_o???

With me being rather sensitive to consistent repetitive noise. I honestly don't understand why a customer would want a noisy bird.

But I guess some people like the constant chatter and noise they bring.
It's probably a good background noise or something.

So i was like "The parakeets are the noisier ones." 

The birds quickly proved it. At least one of them, screeching her head off when I caught her and clipped her wings.

So hopefully the birds are noisy enough for them. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Santa Photos

So every year my work ends up doing "Pictures with Santa."

Where Santa comes to the store and pet owners can get free pictures taken of their pets with him. 

Said pictures being photos we take on our Ipads (it used to be an actual camera we'd have to like...get developed so yay for not having to do that for like the past five years) 

In any case. They're taken on Ipads and then usually emailed to the people.
Though this year they've done it where people can download an app and then we can take pictures on their phones too and then they can get them faster? Not sure.

But it's funny how people can get so particular and demanding about pictures.
Like guys
This isn't a professional thing. 
We're doing this as a FREE service.
So like...chill? It's not going to be one of those fancy $200 photography sessions or anything like that. 

Honestly, I think if we could do away with it we would.
Like even my head manager doesn't like the event that much. 

But it's our most popular event of the year.

And this year we're doing it both this weekend and next weekend which means double the trouble really. 

And already people are like...super 'excited' for it?

Or expecting it.

Because literally. And I mean literally. 
From the moment we opened.
Each and Every phone call I answered was a customer wanting to know if we were doing Santa Pictures today, when the event started, how long the event went for, if we would be doing it tomorrow as well, if we were doing it next weekend too.

Seriously I took like 20 phone calls personally and every single one was questions about Santa. *shakes head*

We had quite the steady line up throughout the event with a few breaks inbetween. 
But I only expect it to get more crazy next weekend. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Quick Return

We had a customer come in pretty early this morning to return a mouse.

Which it's not surprising to have customers return pets, especially mice.

And the reasoning for the return made a lot of sense.

Because the customer was like "It smelled a lot more than I expected it to."

Which is also true.
Especially for Male Mice.
Their urine tends to stink up the place. And can become pretty potent if the mouse decides it needs to mark its territory.

So I'm not surprised when they're returned because if the owners aren't aware of how bad mice can stink...it can come as a nasty smelly surprise.

What was surprising though....is the customer hadn't had the mouse even like...twelve hours before returning him.

Like I had three mice in the cage yesterday when I opened and I wasn't aware of any mice getting sold before I left which meant the mouse was sold sometime in the evening after my shift.
And then was returned first thing in the morning.

*shakes head*
Like that's really quick to decide the mouse is too smelly. 

Still.
When the customer knows.
They know.

Since it was less than 24 hours since the mouse left the store, once the customer got their money back, I simply placed the mouse back with his buddies. I think he was happy to see them again.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Feeding Fish

I taught my coworker something new today.
Which is easy to do when half of my coworkers in my department are new and I don't always have a chance to train everyone on everything as the day they come in and how much time we end up having can influence what we cover and what we don't when I'm teaching.

Today it was Brine Shrimp.

As I had noticed that my coworkers weren't really feeding brine shrimp (or bloodworms) when they fed the fish.
And that's because I hadn't taught any of the new people how to do so.
As I'd left that step up to my other coworkers because I ran out of time to teach the newbies.

So today.
I had time to tell my new coworker this step.

And they were like ()_() HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS BEFORE?!

....Because I hadn't taught you that's why. 

So yah I spent a good ten or so minutes showing my coworker what to do and how to feed and yah...

Gotta love those teaching moments. 

-Sarnic Dirchi