Training

Had a customer today approach asking if we did service dog training.

Which I knew was something that a couple of our previous dog trainers have been able to train in.
But I was certain if our current one was able to because they were new to the store.
(Turns out they can do service dog training, but I wasn't aware at the time of the conversation with this customer)

And when I told the customer that we did not.

He was like "WeLl YoU ShOuLd!! YoU woUlD MakE A LoT of MoNEy!!"
Literally that was his tone. He got all wide eyed and loud at me. 

Like. Dude. I can't control what we teach. 

There's no reason to get all pissy at me because you're getting a service dog but have no one available to train you on how to use a service dog. *exhales* 

He was like "Can't you talk to someone?! Suggest it?!"

And like I know our dog trainers can do such classes.
But they have to have more experience.
And again, I wasn't sure how much experience my dog trainer had.

So I told the customer that while some stores may have dog trainers who could do such certification and training, that it really depended on the dog trainer themselves and what classes they were qualified to teach and such and that our dog trainer wasn't yet qualified (though apparently they are. oops) 

But yah.
Not the best interaction with a customer.
Like I don't get people who expect us to provide them all the things and get mad when we can't. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Running Wild

It's always 'fun' when customers come into the store and bring their horde of children....and just let them basically run wild.

Thankfully most of the time the children aren't in the store longer than like...maybe 15 minutes to 30 minutes....

But this set of kids?
They must have been in the store for like an hour or two.

Which...honestly, I don't know why they were in the store for so long.

But the kids and their single parent were quite the handful to deal with first thing in my shift.

Where the two younger kids ran around like wild children.
Touching everything.
Running up to dogs to pet them.
Hiding from their parent.
And trying to play with the registers and the phones by the registers....
And giving us like blank stares of noncomprehension when we tell them they have to go to their parent now. And they can't play with that.

Like. 
Seriously. Pandemic people? You shouldn't let your kids run around wild in public spaces especially now.

While the slightly older children were...persistent at the fishwall. Asking me and my coworkers tons of questions and being soooo indecisive about what they wanted to get for their fish tank.

Which was probably halfway because we were like "No you can't get that, no you can't get that either." because they kept picking fish that were incompatiable with each other.

But yah.
We were all breathing a sigh of relief when the parent finally gathered up all the kids and went and paid for the small basket of things they'd gathered together to purchase.

*shakes head* 

-Sarnic Dirchi

In the Breakroom

It's one of those weeks where I can't find peace in the breakroom.
Like most of the time when I take breaks I'm the only one there in the back.
Which is a nice reprieve from having to be social and around people out on the floor.

However...this past week there's been people in the breakroom. Every time I try and take a break.
Which for the most part is okay.
But when it's constant and always happening?
Less so.

Especially when I'm just looking for a moment of quiet. 
It's hard to relax when you have someone sitting nearby talking on the phone, or watching videos, or slamming doors or chewing really loudly....

Like...it's hard to relax.
Especially when I'm sensitive to noise.

And it's been happening more this past week maybe past two weeks.
Because we've had more people coming into the breakroom as a lot of the people who work for the vet clinic in our store have begun using the breakroom for their lunch breaks as well.

Before now it's been more rare.
Like I'm not sure where they would take their lunch breaks before...
But it wasn't in the breakroom.

Now though...it's pretty common to find at least one or two of them taking their lunch in the breakroom.

Which it's great that they can come back and relax there...

But not so great for me when I'm seeking quiet and to be away from people.

*exhales*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Register Shift

I got stuck on register for the last two hours of work today.
As there was a slight scheduling conflict with our scheduled cashier.
And they needed to leave two hours before we closed.
Which meant it would just be like me and my manager and our dog trainer...which since the dog trainer has training classes to teach...really just meant that it would be me and the manager for two hours covering the floor.

So onto the register I went.
Which is less than ideal.
Like. Register shifts are the....longest shifts to work because you're kinda just tethered to the register. You can't wander around, you can't roam the store. You have to stay with the register and help check out customers when they come up to pay for things.

And I was expecting the last two hours to pass by rather tediously.
But surprisingly, we kept up a steady stream of customers throughout those couple of hours. 

I don't think any time longer than like...five minutes passed before I needed to help something.
It was a constant steady stream.
Which was kinda nice as it kept me busy and kept me from looking at the clock every two seconds wondering when I could escape the register and have the store close. 

But yah.
Yaaaay register shifts and watching how much money people are willing to spend for their pets. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Before We Close

I had a customer call the store about twenty minutes before we were set to close down my department for the day.
They wanted to know what kind of hamsters we had in stock.
Because they were looking for a specific kind. 

And with the increase in demand for pets recently.
It's been a lot harder to keep animals in stock.
And to find particular animals. 

It was easy to tell the customer which hamsters we had because we currently only have four left.
A Short-haired syrian, a long-haired syrian and two russian hamsters. 

The customer was looking for a 'smaller' hamster.
Which narrowed down the options to our two russian hamsters.

And the customer was like "Great!" 

Only slight problem.
We were closing my department in twenty minutes.

And they were planning to be at the store...in twenty minutes.

I had to tell them that showing up then wouldn't work.
Since we were closing the department to animal sales at that time. 
To which they were like "But if we show up right on time?"

No. Due to short staff we have to close the department at that time.
And we can't have our associate stay late because we have to keep to our hours exactly.

So the customer was like "What if we're there five minutes before the department closes?" 

Which I can sell an animal in five minutes...if the customer is decisive and on time.

Surprisingly they were on time. And decisive.
So I was able to sell them their hamster before I was off so yay. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

More to Learn

I'm always learning something new at work. 
Which on the one hand is nice because knowledge is good.
On the other hand it's annoying because like...with how long I've been on the job I feel like I should know all the little things that one needs to know to properly run the department.

However, you don't really know what you don't know until you're told something that should be done that you didn't know needed to be done.

The downside of having the experienced people leave before imparting their knowledge to the next person I suppose.

As today I learned that apparently every morning we're supposed to be treating the fish system.

And like. I've only ever been aware of doing a 'quick cure' treatment on Fridays when our fish come in.
I wasn't aware that we needed to be doing other treatments throughout the week.

Today I learned that the Sodium Thiosulfate stuff we use to decholorinate the fish ornaments after we bleach them should also have been used in the fish system on a daily basis. 
Which since we've been out of those sodium crystals for a while now...means that in place of those we should have been putting Stress Coat (a type of water conditioner) into the system every morning.

....and like today was the first I'd heard of that.
*exhales*

Which I'm well aware that there's a lot about the fish system that I'm completely clueless on.
As I hadn't learned everything about the maintenance that needs to be done on it when my first two more experienced managers were in charge.
Everyone after that hasn't had the experience to know about the fish system or how it works and so have relied on me to teach them what I know.

Which I knew wasn't much.

Still isn't quite fun to realize just how much I don't know.

But hopefully...I'll be able to learn more as things progress.
And once we get back to a more normal schedule where we can finally hire more people and I can get back to working morning shifts again, we'll be able to implement these changes.

We'll see though.
Still.
Good to know that there's more on the 'morning to do list' than I realized....

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Holey Bucket

I had one of those customers today.
Where talking to them was like trying to fill a holey bucket.
Because it definitely felt like whatever I told the customer went in one ear and straight out the other.
Like it took five or six repetitions of the statement before the customer actually comprehended what I was saying.

Like. I'm pretty sure it was mostly the customer was just like "I must get fish for my kids!!!" 
And not much else was going through their head.

As they'd bought a ten gallon tank and had it all set up.
And now had come to buy fish for their kids.
But they knew nothing about fish and so wanted to know which fish would go well together.

So I did my best to explain how the fish worked on the wall.
How we had them organized and how the customer could tell which fish would play well with each other by the colored circles on the tag. Because if the fish have the same colored circles in the corner, then they can go together, but if they didn't they shouldn't go in the same tank.
Of course I had to do the explanation of the glofish and how some of those fish were more aggressive than others.

And like time and time again....I ended up repeating myself.
Sometimes multiple times in the space of like five minutes.

Like at one point I told the customer that the fish to the right were non-aggressive and the fish to the left were aggressive and that the customer shouldn't get those fish.
And the customer went straight to the tanks on the left with the more aggressive fish and was like "What about this fish? Or this fish? Or this fish?"
Like NO. I said those are AGGRESSIVE meaning they can KILL your fish and you shouldn't GET THEM. 
I don't know how many times I told the customer about the colored circles. 
I don't know how many times I told them to go look at the fish on the right wall and to avoid the fish on the left wall.

And like.
With a ten gallon tank you can usually get 5 or 6 fish in the tank and have it be happy.
But you only want to buy 2 or 3 fish. Wait a week and then come back and buy 2 or 3 more. 
So I told the customer to only focus on buying two or three fish today.

But when they were finally ready, after talking to their kids over the phone and taking a thousand pictures.
The customer was like "Okay I'll take these five fish."
To which I was like "You only want to get three of them because you can only have 5 or 6 fish in that tank but you only want to buy two or three today." 

And the customer apparently took it to mean two or three of that type of fish today. Not just 3 fish total today.
Because they then proceeded to be like "can I get two of these other fish along with those three fish."

No.
"What about two of these other fish with the three fish?"

No. 
Dear customer. No.
You can get five fish yes.
But not today.
You should only get three fish today and then three fish next week.
You don't want to buy all your fish at once because that can stress your fish out and kill your fish. 

Apparently the customer was really set against only getting three.
Because they kept at it until they were like "what if I get just four of these fish?"

Sure.
Fine.
Whatever.
You just wasted an hour of my life with your inability to listen to me.
So yah we can get you your four fish and if they die and you come back tomorrow with a dead fish then don't blame me.

But yah.
It was the most irritating customer today. Having to repeat myself a billion times and know that the customer probably retained none of the information I gave them.
Definitely not the best way to start out my shift today with this being my first customer for sure.

-Sarnic Dirchi