Complaints

So we had two customers go through the register earlier today. 
Who were wanting to take advantage of a sale on some of our dog toys where if you bought one dog toy you could get a second one half off.
However, not all dog toys we have are part of that sale.
And some of the toys (I'm not sure how many) were ones that weren't on sale.
And the customers felt jipped and miffed that the cashier wasn't more 'helpful.'

Like, overall the cashier has a pretty good attitude, so I was kinda skeptical that there was 'something wrong with' them. And that 'they're not a good cashier.' 

It just seemed like a conflict of two bad moods really.
As the customer admitted that they weren't having a good day today and they didn't want to have to interact with the cashier again.
And the cashier probably was tired of dealing with people who can't read sales and are snippety at them.

So overall both sides were seeing the other as being 'difficult.' 

It wouldn't surprise me if the customers were the ones more in the wrong. After all most customers are in the wrong. 

In any case.
I came into the picture briefly because the customers bought their dog toys went out to the car, realized that they were cheaper online and so therefore ordered them online to be picked up in the store. 
And so came back wanting to have the toys they just bought returned.

No issues there. They had the receipt and the toys so we could easily return them.
The slight snag would be that it can take time for online orders to show up in our system so they might be waiting for a bit to get their toys back.

I'm not even sure I got the whole gist of what the customers were wanting.
As at some points it sounded like they also want the toys they just bought as well.
And other times they sounded like they just wanted their money back. 

In any case, they demanded to speak to a manager and so I had the manager come over and then take them over to register three so that they could return the toys and then sort out the online order thing as well.

But yah...
From the brief info I heard from the cashier, it sounded like the customers were rather beastly to them.
So I can see it being bad on both sides.

But it was rather frustrating to have to deal with them in such a manner. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Goldie

Had a little boy who was so into looking at all the fish today.
It was rather cute.

Especially because the kid had troubles saying the letter 'F'

So it was "Ishy" and "Ishtanks" lol. 

And he was adorable enough in wanting an Ishy of his own. 
That he managed to convince his grandma to get him his own little tank and betta fish.
Which he named "Goldie" lol. 

Hopefully the betta fish does well with them. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Activated Charcoal

I had a customer ask me today if we had any activated charcoal in the store.
Which yah. We do. It's known as Activated Carbon here in the store. But it's the same thing and is often used as filter media for various water related things. Mostly fish tanks but can be used for like filter the water in cat/dog water fountains and such. 

Plus there was one memorable experience where a customer wanted charcoal to burn to get rid of bad spirits in their house.

In any case.
Before I could tell the customer where our activated carbon was.

They continued on with their explanation saying that they wanted it for their dog.

O_o???
As they said that they heard from a vet that if you give the dog a big of activated charcoal mixed with water it can help them if they've been poisoned and such. 

Which later when I checked with coworkers...is actually a thing that people can do for their dogs....if they want them to voilently throw up...which if the dog has eaten chocolate or something else not good for them is a good thing.
But in general? No not something you want to do.

And the customer was wanting it because their dog has been throwing up food...and apparently eating bugs?? to which they were concerned that the dog might have accidentally eaten poison that was meant for the bugs.

However, the vet also said to not do anything if the puppy was acting normally.
And the puppy was acting normally.

He was just throwing up his food like ten to fifteen minutes after eating it.
And with the food still basically whole and undigested.

I kinda figured it might be more of a 'eating it to fast' sort of problem rather than a 'my dog may have been poisoned' sort of problem. 

As it is common for animals who've eaten food far too quickly to throw it back up again. That is an issue that I've encountered before.

And so I recommended to them that they try doing like a slow feeder instead.
Just something to prevent the puppy for inhaling his food and make him slow down and eat it more slowly to prevent him from throwing up.

So the customer ended up getting one of those. 
Hopefully it solves the issue. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Sharks?

I had a customer come into the store today who was admiring the various fish in the tank.

Because I was busy doing a betta water change, I waited for them to come closer before engaging them in conversation.

Which I happened to do as the customer was finishing pointing and staring at the tank where we had our red-tailed sharks and small bala sharks. 

So as they turned I engaged them in the typical "Anything I can help you with?" conversation to see if they were just looking or actually planning to buy fish or something.

And the customer was like "Yah, do you have any sharks?"

O_o.....
It definitely caught me off guard. Like I had no response to that beyond "You were just pointing at them?" 
Because they literally had been pointing at the sharks seconds earlier.

Lol luckily the customer took it good humoredly.
Going "Oh!" and looking closer at the tags below the tank and was like "AH! I should have known!" 

*shakes head*
Still.
Gotta love it when customers ask for things that are right in front of them.

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Plecostomus

I had a customer come into the store today who wanted to buy a plecostomus. 

Which usually when I hear that they want to buy an algae eater, I ask the customer what size of tank they have.

Because we have a variety of plecos that get different sizes full grown.
And I try to find the right size of pleco for the size of the tank.

Customer didn't want to tell me what size of tank they had though.
They just wanted me to tell them where the plecostomus were.

So I was like "They're along this wall here." gesturing to the middle wall of fish tanks. 
And customer wasn't willing to 'look' on their own. They're like "Where? Show me where they are." 

So I was like "So your plecos are in this tank and this tank and this tank" 

And the customer legitly said: "I don't want a 'pleco,' I want a plecostomus. Where are they?!"

It took me a couple more tries before I was able to convince the customer that "plecos" and "plecostomus" were the exact same creature.

Like no one wants to say "Plecostomus" multiple times in a row. A lot of people struggle to even pronounce it.
So we refer to them as plecos as short.
Like a nickname.

So after showing the customer the various plecos we had.
They were like "Which one should I pick?"

To which I responded how I had responded the first time. "How big is your tank?"
Though the customer let me continue on and explain that we recommend particular plecos depending on the size of the tank.

Like most customers.
This one had no idea how big their tank was.

Apparently it's their spouse who usually comes to get the fish.
And more than likely it's the spouse who knows how big the tank actually is -though that's not always the case.

The customer gestured in a vague sort of 'around ten gallons' size of tank. so I ended up recommending either the Rubberlip or the Clown Pleco.

Customer ended up choosing the Rubberlip.
Hopefully it does well in their tank.

-Sarnic Dirchi

No Hamsters

I had a customer come up to me today telling me that they wanted to buy a hamster.

Which wouldn't have been an issue....
Only I've completely sold out of my hamsters.
I have none whatsoever available to sell. 

And I told the customer this. That we have no hamsters.

To which they were like "I just want one."

To which I had to repeat myself. "We have no hamsters. We've sold them all. I only have mice."

"Only mice?"
"Yes. No hamsters."
"You have no hamsters?"
"No, I don't have any hamsters. The cages are all empty." 

It took a couple more repetitions and showing the customer the empty cages (as there was a slight language barrier between us) 
To convince them that we had no hamsters available for them to buy. 

They were rather disheartened by this.
Until they found out that we may be getting more hamsters in on Sunday or Monday.

Heavy emphasis on the 'may' because our breeders have been struggling to keep up with the demand for pets and so even though I 'am expecting around twenty hamsters to come into the store....I won't be surprised if I only get like six of them. 

Because that's been kinda the drill for the past month.
Where we really only receive in around a third or less of our expected animals because of the high demand.

So yah...
Hopefully we do have some hamsters for all the people who are wanting to come get them including this family. 

But we won't know until the shipment shows up.

So yah. It's gonna be fun.

-Sarnic Dirchi

On the Loose

Had a family come into the store today who were all gung ho about buying a leopard gecko for their kids.
They had the cage and everything that the leopard gecko needed to do well.
And as I was about to give them the paperwork....the mother was like "Do the crickets escape?"

To which I simply said "Yes."
To which she was like ()_() 
And I was like: "Yah, it's only a matter of time before they get loose"

To which the children were like "How?!"
And I proceeded to list just how they could get loose.

And the mom was like "Nope nope nope nope nope." 
Because she didn't want to have to deal with any loose crickets in the house that might chirp at night.

The family ended up buying a fish tank instead to put fish in. 

-Sarnic Dirchi