Waiting

It's weird to have people waiting outside your doors before you open.
I mean....it's a pet store.
What do you desperately need at a petstore right first thing in the morning? *shakes head*

Like I get it for Black Friday. That makes sense.

But today.
randomly.
There were three white pickup trucks. All parked in the front of our store with their lights on.
Waiting.
Waiting for us to open the doors.
So the people inside could come in and shop.

I have to say it was a bit intimidating really.
Like what are the odds that three trucks, all the same color, would be waiting together for the doors to open.

*shakes head*
So weird. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Big Bone

I had a customer call the store today from our sister store to check and see if we had a certain type of Holiday Rawhide bone in stock.

Since Christmas is over all our Christmas treats/chews/toys/clothes/etc have gone on clearance. And like everything is basically somewhere between $1-$5 in price. 

And this particular customer was working with an animal rescue group and so was claiming all the larger bones for said group. 

But like...we have a bunch of different rawhide chews to choose from.

So the person was like "Oh I have the SKU! Will that help?" 

Because otherwise the customer was like "well it's a big white bone and the packaging is like blue and white" 

And like....do you know how many bones I have fitting that description? *exhales* You couldn't say "Oh it's the large rawhide bone. White. It has a red bow in the center. It's about the length of my arm? Looks like a bone shape, no other shape." 

That would have been easier.

In any case.

The customer read off the SKU which matched our largest white rawhide bones.

To which I had a good dozen or so still in the store.

The customer was excited to hear that and was like "great! We'll be right over! Can you hold those for us?" 

Sure.

So I enlisted the help of my coworker and we carried a good two dozen giant bones up to the front of the store for the rescue group to come buy.

Only....

When they got there....apparently I'd grabbed the wrong size of bones.
They were "too big." 

Come to think of it the customer had mentioned the like "12 inch" or maybe it was 18 inch bones?? 

Apparently they wanted our 'Medium' sized bones instead of the large ones....despite reading me the SKU for the large bones. *exhales*

Ah well...

At least they found the bones in the sizes that they actually wanted.

-Sarnic Dirchi

But You Have It Online!

We had a customer come into the store today looking for a specific kind of prescription food that comes in a can.

However, upon showing the image on their phone to my manager, my manager stated that we didn't have that specific kind in our location.

To which the customer stated that they had purchased that food from us before.
But upon looking at the shelf, there was only dry dog food of the type that the customer needed.
Not wet.
There were no locations for the wet food either. No empty spots. 

So the customer ended up leaving the store empty handed.

Only for them to call back a while later.

Which is how I came into the story, because I'd only been briefly aware of the situation as I'd been by the manager when the customer originally approached.

But the customer on the phone stated that they were looking at our website and that our website claims that we have the product in stock and so they wanted me to double check and see if we had it in the store as the customer had been in the store earlier and had been told that we didn't have it.

So, dutifully I went over to the wall of prescription food to look.

And yep.
No food.
We had it in the dry dog food.
but not in the wet.

The customer wasn't happy to hear this at all.

They were like "BUT IT SAYS YOU HAVE IT ONLINE!!"

Like....yes? But guess what?
Not everything you read online is true.
And it's possible that there was an error somewhere on the website or in our system to indicate that we have the product...when we don't.

After all there was no sku for the product on the shelf. No places where it could be.
Plus we did a reset recently.
So the customer's "But we've bought it from you before!"
Could apply to them buying from us (or from a different location as different stores carry different types and amounts of dogfood due to the store's size) before the reset happen.

The customer's spouse came on the line then and was like "Why would your vet" -as they'd gone to the vet that partners with our store- "prescribe us a prescription you don't sell?!" 

....Because not all stores sell the exact same types of prescriptions?
And again we could be out.

They both were like "So why aren't you carrying it!?"

There could be a thousand reasons.
Like maybe we never carried it, maybe it's on recall and we can't get it in, maybe we're going to start carrying it but we haven't received any, maybe there's a shortage at the factory that makes the food, maybe the vet wanted you to buy directly from them and not from our store....

Honestly.
Who knows.

But I ended the conversation feeling rather irritated.
Because like....dude. Just because the internet told you it was there doesn't mean it is there. Especially when I'm standing right there looking at our shelves and don't see it.

*exhales*

-Sarnic Dirchi

No Cleaning

I probably could have done the bedding change today at work.
I mean, it was only four bird cages.
Pretty easy to clean and such.
Plus I had the coverage today to like...take myself out of the equation and still have people around to help customers that came into the store.

But at the same time.
I elected not to.
Because today was the day after Christmas.
And it's pretty common for parents to bring their kids into the store the day after Christmas in order to buy the animals for the cages/tanks that they were given on Christmas Day.

Though with today being a weekday...it's hard to judge exactly how busy it would get. Since not everyone has the day after Christmas off.

Overall...
I think it ended up being busy enough...
But not so busy that I couldn't have done the bedding change.

Still.
I didn't want to risk it because knowing how the system works, the moment I tried to start the bedding change, we'd get this huge rush of people and I would be stressing on getting the cages cleaned before my shift ended.

So I elected to play it safe.
And just focused on helping customers get their birds, hamsters, leopard geckos, and fish etc.

So yah.
Wasn't too crazy of a day, but definitely a busy one. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Bigger Tank

We had a customer come into the store interested in buying a turtle because he saw them swimming around in one of the tanks in our fish wall.
Only he scoffed when we showed him the type of tank set up he would need to properly care for the turtle.
As he wasn't wanting to 'spend' that much on a tank and wanted to get a cheaper fish tank in order to get a turtle for his kids.
But like...even though the fish tank was cheaper because it was on sale....with all the added things you'd have to get for the tank in order to properly care for the turtles.....it would end up costing about the same.

He did eventually change his mind after he asked how often he would need to do a water change on the turtles and I told him once a week because Turtles are meeeessssyyyyyy.

Yah no.
He ended up getting some glofish instead for the fish tank he'd already bought earlier. 

Which good.
fish are a bit easier to care for than turtles.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Birds

Had a customer come into the store with her son, excited because for Christmas her son was getting her some birds.
So they'd come into the store to buy the cage and get the birds and the Mom was sooo excited to get them lol.
She picked out two parakeets that were sitting next to each other in the cage. 
And made sure that she had everything she needed before heading up to the register with her Christmas present. 

I hope they continue to bring her happiness :D

-Sarnic Dirchi

Need More

It sucks when animals don't show up when they're supposed to.
We were supposed to get in a reptile shipment yesterday.
And one showed up....
But it only had like...two bearded dragons in it.

Which is....bad.
Because we desperately needed more snakes and tortoises and yes bearded dragons. 

But of like the dozen animals we were expecting to get....
Only two showed up.

That's not good.
Not right before Christmas.
Not when everyone is wanting reptiles.

Gah.
The next few days before and after christmas is not going to be fun.
I hate telling people we're out of things.
And our reptile cages are just getting emptier and emptier. 

-Sarnic Dirchi