He's Back!

I had a welcome surprise at work today.

As a few months ago, I don't remember exactly when, but it's been a while.
Our usual dude who delivers our weekly shipments of small pets and birds informed me that he was quitting and moving to a different state.

Which...was rather sad as he'd been coming to the store for a good twoish years by that point? So like he was a pretty constant familiar face and a great person to chat with the few minutes he was in the store to drop off the animals.

It left a void in a way because the new delivery guy wasn't as...chatty? Like he'd speak a bit, but the conversation never lasted long. 

So there was a period of adjustment there. Getting used to the new guy and such.

But today.

My manager was like "Isn't that the old delivery guy?" When I pointed out that the truck that the company uses had shown up at the store.
And I was like "No he's gone remember?"
But like...looking at his profile I was like "He does look familiar." 
And the manager was like "I swear it's that guy because he wears the hat the same way."

And wouldn't you know it!
It was our old delivery guy!!!!

WHAT??!!?

Apparently he'd missed his family --as he'd moved further away from them--and decided to move back to be closer to them and get his old job back!!

lol it was crazy because I had a moment of questioning if I had somehow accidentally gone back in time because like....i never expected to see this driver again.

and here he was!

But it doesn't sound like this will be his permanent route though. He may be only showing up every 'once in a while' but it's hard to say for sure as it's only his second week back on the job.

But apparently the new guy who took over his route when he originally quit....nearly quit himself when he found out he hadn't been assigned this route this week.
Like. O_o Huh???

I wonder why....because the driver dude is pretty like....mellow? No extreme reactions or emotions just like a flat line. 

So to hear he threw a tantrum was rather....odd from what I knew of that driver.

Who knows. Maybe everyone likes this route because my store (aka because I'm there) is on it. ;) lol.

No idea.

I hope we get to see the old deliver guy more often though.
I like chatting with him.

-Sarnic Dirchi 

Standard?

So my manager has been doing the animal counts for the past little while...like three our four months now? So they've done them at least like idk 12 times? 

And yet there's still times where they don't remember things or misunderstand something or want to double check things because they're not confident of their skills.

Most of the time that struggle is that they don't always remember to count the animals that we have off the floor. Kinda an 'out of sight out of mind' sort of problem.
While other times it's just counting the goldfish and crickets because there's a ton of them.

Today though was a unique issue.

Because like....my manager has done this count at least a dozen times right?

And today she was like "I think we're missing all of these." And points to the listing for our 100 count mealworms.

Like it's normal for us to be missing a couple of them because we use those containers in the store to feed our reptiles. So to have 1-3 of them missing is understandable. 

And from how my manager had marked it it showed only one was missing.

But no. Apparently the manager was like "No no we don't have any of these!" 

No I'm pretty sure we do as I remembered seeing a bunch of them earlier. 

So I go to our fridge and sure enough there they all are.
"You mean these?"

"No. Because those don't say "standard" on them they say "large" instead!" 

Which yes....on the container of 100 it does say large mealworms.
But that's the standard size of the mealworms. We only carry 'large' or 'giant' versions. 

Again. My manager has been counting similar looking containers for the past three or four months.

And hadn't had an issue with it before.
My guess is that they actually read the words this time on the paper and then realized they didn't match the words on the container??

No idea.
They did admit to 'overthinking it' which yep. They did over think it.

Because we haven't ever carried any other type of 100 count mealworms. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi 

Color. It's the Color

So I had a customer who was interested in adding more fish to their tank.
And they had focused in on the Glofish we have.

Because they have a more mellow community based tank I directed the customer to look more at the GloTetras and the GloDanios we have.

Though I encouraged them to look more to the Tetras as they're rather hardy. While the Danios are....iffy. Some weeks they do great. Other weeks....not so much.

In any case.

We have three tanks of Tetras. Two tanks on the top row and one tank in the middle row.
The top left has the long-finned versions of the pink, purple, orange, and green.
While the middle row tank has the same fish just short finned in the pink, orange, and green.
While the top right tank has the short finned tetras in the purple, red, and blue varieties.

Basically, we divided them by fin and color. 
As putting like 50 fish in one tank isn't the best of ideas.
So we divided them out so a) you could see the fish and b) we can catch them easier.

And the customer looking at the tanks of tetras was like: "What's the difference with these fish?" 

....Really?
Like if you take a moment to stare at them the answer should be obvious.
It's the colors.

They're divided by colors.

Of course....that may not be as obvious as I think it should be if the person is color blind. 
But at the same time....
Like...it should be clear why they're similar yet different??

*shakes head* 

idk. Sometimes I think customers think that the easy solution is far to easy to be the actual solution so they ask what the solution is expecting a difficult answer...when really we just give them the actual easy solution. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Do You Want More?

So I came across a customer standing by the guinea pigs, looking at them.
So as per my job, I asked them if they needed any help.
The customer was like "No, not with guinea pigs, but I do need crickets."

Which those were easy enough to grab since I'd just barely finished bagging a bunch of them like thirty minutes before. 

Though usually customers come over to the cricket podium when they're asking for crickets. This particular customer got sidetracked apparently.

Or...they haven't been in the store recently.

In any case I was like "Okay what size?"

To which they responded "Large."

"And how many?" I asked because I can't really grab them crickets unless I know how many of them I need to grab. 

And the customer gave me this blank look. 
Like they'd never even considered that crickets could come in different amounts.
And they obviously weren't sure how many they would actually need.
Because it was a good ten seconds of wide eyed silence before the customer was like "12?" 

Which thankfully I'd bagged up 12 large crickets.
So it was easy enough to grab them off the podium and then give them to the customer. And I was like "Okay anything else I can help you with."

And the customer was like "How much are they?"

To which I answered "15 cents each." 

The answer had them hesitating...wondering if they should get more crickets than the 12. 

But they were taking forever to decide on yes or no.
So I said that I was going to take a phone call real quick and check in on them.

A few minutes later I did just that.

And the customer after a bit more dithering decided that no they didn't want more crickets.

Which I was fine with.
It's not like I was waiting anxiously to bag some more. 

And so I left them to do some other tasks.....

Only to have the cashier call me over the radio and ask me to bag 12 more crickets.

XP 
Because apparently the customer didn't realize that 12 crickets was like...$2 and they didn't want to spend so little at the register and so requested 12 more.

*exhales*

It was kinda irritating really. As I checked with them at least three times on if they wanted more crickets and they told me time and time again that no they didn't.....and then to have them decide yes they actually did at register. 
Bleh. 
Frustrating and annoying. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

A New Companion

I helped a customer today, who wanted to get some goldfish for her elderly mother. 

Why?

Because they had recently put down her dog, and the daughter felt like her mother could use another companion in the house.

And she felt that having a tank in the kitchen that her mother could interact with and watch would be the perfect thing for her.

Me....I'm not so sure.

Like fish are fun to have.

But at the same time....idk if I would want to go from cuddly dog to tank of fish.

Honestly another furry creature would probably be a better fit.

In any case.

The customer was deadset on getting the tank and the fish all today.

Confident that she would be able to do it all without the fish dying...because she herself had goldfish and they'd lived like a whole 7 years with no issue. 

So, I backed off, and let the customer pick out a couple of fish for the tank.

Hopefully they live.

And hopefully the mother enjoys her new gift.

Who knows. It may be the perfect fit despite my thoughts about it.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Fish?

I don't know if it was just like the after effects of celebrating the New Year. 
Or else if it was just...one of those trending days where customers have the same problem/need the same thing.

But I dealt with a lot of customers today at the fish wall who just...seemed to have forgotten to turn their ears on.

As I ended up repeating myself multiple times and ended up in circular conversations because the customers weren't listening to the answers I was giving the first time.

Like a customer came in wanting to get a fish for a bowl.
I told them that they would have to do a betta fish. 
As all the fish on a wall would need a filter and a heater.

"Even a goldfish?" They asked. 
Yes. Well the goldfish wouldn't need the heater, but they would need a filter unless the customer wanted to do a water change like every day to keep the fish alive.

The little boy was like "I can do that!"
Ha.
Ha.
Suuuree kid. Sure.

The customer was like "Okay..." 
But then their spouse was like "What about these fish here?!" pointing to fish on the wall.
Which like....I had just told them two minutes ago.
All the fish on the wall need a filter and a heater.
So that obviously includes the tank they just pointed at.

*shakes head*
And they were like "Well what can go in a bowl?"

If you'd been lis-ten-ing you would have realized. I already told you. The betta fish.

The problem?
I'm out of bettas. Have been since basically christmas because I haven't had a fish shipment since the Friday before Christmas.
Hopefully we get more in tomorrow because we need those bettas.

In any case. 
The customer ended up getting a red claw crab since they technically don't need a filter either and can deal with a water change.
*exhales* 

Still.
I had multiple conversations like that all involving fish today and just like....listen people. Please. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Restocking

It's always a good feeling when I can fill the cages at work.
Especially after I've been waiting like a week to do so since Christmas totally wiped us out of many many creatures.

And while we're still low on reptiles birds and getting even lower on fish....

Today I was able to bring out all our small pets -the hamsters/guinea pigs- to the floor to place in their nice clean empty cages.
And it just so happened that i had enough hamsters and guinea pigs to fill every cage! 
Which is awesome!
I love it when things work out like that. XD lol.

It's also nice because today marks us going back to using our Carefresh bedding that we used for forever before switching to a different brand....
That brand ended up with far too many complaints.
So they switched us back to the good old carefresh.

And it was nice to work with it again.
Made the bedding change go easier and quicker I feel like.

SO yah.....
Small pets are out on the floor and their cages are clean! ^^;; lol

Now...if only I could get my reptile shipment in.
That would be great.

We'll be able to replenish our birds on Thursday.
And Fish will be replenished on Friday.
But Reptiles?
Still unknown. :S :S :S hopefully it's sooner rather than later. 

-Sarnic Dirchi