Friends

Had a young boy come into the store today with his mother who decided that he wanted to have two goldfish for his new pets for his little fish tank.

Despite my best attempts to have the family pick out a fish better suited for the tank.
The boy ended up with two goldfish he picked out himself.

And like most little kids, he wanted to name them right away.
And asked if I wanted to hear what he wanted to name them.

It's one of my favorite things to hear what kids name their fish.
As they can be super simple like "Goldie" or they can be more complicated. 
The more simple names are my favorite to hear.

So I said yes.

And the kid told me that the first goldfish was gonna be called "Goldfish" while the second fish's name would be "Thomas the Goldfish" 

XD lol.
so we have Goldfish and Thomas the Goldfish.

It was cute.

And got cuter because a few minutes later the boy was like "I'm going to call Goldfish, "Goldfish the Friend" now."
And then "And Thomas needs a last name. So his name is Thomas Friend the Goldfish! Because they're both friends with each other and friends with me." 

It was the cutest thing. XD lol. 

Hopefully Goldfish the Friend and Thomas Friend the Goldfish do well in their new home. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

All of Them

Gotta love it when customers are...difficult.

Had a customer come into the store who wanted to get some feeder goldfish.
I'm guessing to feed to a Turtle.
But their turtle has been eating a lot of goldfish recently.
So they weren't quite sure how many they wanted to buy.

Or how much money they were willing to spend.
So I was trying to be helpful and telling them that the small fish would be like ten for $1.60 since they're 16 cents each.

And the customer was like: "Okay, just give me all the fish in that tank."
And pointed to one of our goldfish tanks.

I was rather skeptical that they actually wanted that many goldfish.
As customers don't always realize that the amount of fish that are in those tanks isn't the amount they're thinking it is.

So to check I was like "There could be 100 or so in there." 
Because thankfully we hadn't yet received in my goldfish shipment for the week.

cus if we did then there could have been upwards of 600 goldfish in the one tank depending on how the shipment came in.

The customer seemed to be fine with it.
Fine with the fact that I may be catching them 100 goldfish.

*exhales*

Which it's not that big of a deal to do so. 
I've caught far more than the fish that were in the tank before.
But with the numbers so low it just takes me a while to catch ALL of the fish because the fewer the fish in the tank the less I can catch all in one scoop.
So it takes forever.

No, what was irritating was that the customer seemed to be so amused by the fact that I had to catch so many fish. 
In the "Wow, I bet you hate your job now huh? Ha." sort of laughter.
Like I don't know if they were nervous I would be upset with them, or just laughing cus they were uncomfortable, or actually thought it was funny.

But like....
No? I don't hate my job.
I wouldn't have stuck with it for so long if I actually hated my job.
I love working with the animals.
And I often enjoy catching fish.

What I don't like are the customers who like to make my life difficult.
And catching an entire tank full of fish would fall underneath the difficult header.

Cus like. I like having specifics? Tell me you want 30 fish. Tell me you want 100.
I just like having a better idea of what I'm grabbing than "the entire tank." 

Because I really didn't want to fish out 100odd goldfish only for the customer to be like ()_() WHAT THAT'S TOO MANY?! I ONLY WANTED X AMOUNT! because they didn't comprehend that there could be that many in the tank even though I warned them that it was a possiblity.

Lucky them there were only 75 in there.
Lucky me they decided that 75 was great and didn't want more or less.

But yah.
I still don't understand why they wanted to take the entire tank. *exhales* 
I just...it's not my personal style to 'take everything' as I like to leave things for others so that they can have the opportunity for the thing as well.
The people who take all and leave others with nothing....
Yah I'm not fond of working with them.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Unexpected Visit

My old Head Manager came into the store today.
Which was so weird.

Since it's been a good five months since he left the store.
And like...usually when Head Managers abruptly leave....
They don't usually come back into the store.

So it was so weird to see them.

But like good in a way.
Because I had been wondering what that head manager was up to.
Like what job they ended up getting.
How life is treating them.

Cus I tend to worry about people, even if it's on the back burner of my mind, when I don't know the end results of things that happen.

So it was kinda a relief to be able to just like 'check in' and see how they were doing. What they were up to. Catch up and such.

It was nice. 
I'm glad they're doing okay. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Take ALL the Fish

I've never understood the people who feel the need to take 'all' the things.
Like at work it usually involves the fish. But there are often customers who come into the store and want to take every single fish of a particular type of fish.

And today, that seemed to be the trend.

It started with a mother/daughter duo who wanted to get 8 rasboras.
Which happened to be the last 8 I had in the tank.

And then after that was a couple who wanted all the Giant Danios (6) and all the cherry barbs (5) that we had in the tanks.

And last but not least.

A customer came into the store who was wanting to get some goldfish to feed to their turtle.
But wasn't quite sure how many they wanted.
And so decided that they wanted all the goldfish in the tank.

Which I warned them, could have been around 100 goldfish.

-I suppose it's lucky that I was low on goldfish because I could only imagine what it would be like having to catch like 300 or 400 goldfish that the tanks can be filled with if not more.

But there ended up only being like 75 goldfish in the tank they pointed to.

And the customer was laughing basically saying "You must really hate your job, having to catch all those fish."

And like....No? I actually love my job. I enjoy catching fish.
What I don't enjoy is customers being greedy and wanting 'all the fish' we have and I don't like customers making light of the fact that they're giving me more work to do by saying they want "all the fish." when I could have caught thirty much easier. 

*exhales*

I just...don't get the people who want 'all'

I suppose it may be just how I was raised.
But usually I try and think of others.
And I try to leave some for other people.
Just in case they need them too.

But all too often at work I see people who just want to take everything and leave nothing for other people.
Which makes it difficult to keep things in stock when it becomes a trend because there's a shortage because people were greedy and so the next person has to double stock up and be greedy to ensure they have the item, which means the next person is greedy and double stocks as well when they're lucky enough to find the thing.....it's a never ending cycle until we can get a head of the curve.

So yah....
I don't get the people who take everything and leave nothing for other people.

-Sarnic Dirchi 

Fish or Mice?

I had a family come into the store today looking to get a fish tank for their daughter.
And like.
I went through the entire process with them.
Suggesting which tank to get.
Telling them about the variety of fish would be good.
Showing them a couple of extra things they would need.
Telling them the process of how to set up and add their fish in so that they wouldn't kill their fish.
To basically take it slow and steady.

And the family was totally on board with all of it.
Spent a good half hour to an hour in the store figuring it all out.

Only to put everything back.

Because their daughter saw our mice and decided that she really wanted one of those instead.

I don't know if they ended up buying anything for the mice at the store.
I don't think they did.
As I was discouraging them from getting our mice since we carry males and their urine tends to stink up apartments/homes from what customers have told me.
-And just experience in the store in general. They tend to have the smelliest cages.

So the parents were calling other pet stores to see if they had any female mice.
But the closest sister stores of mine were out.
So they were calling further up into the next valley over.

And yah....
I think they left to go get some mice elsewhere....

But I do wonder if they'll actually end up keeping the mouse.
Or returning to the store to get a fish tank instead anyways.

Still....

It's kinda impressive that the family--the parents especially--were willing to spend all that time gathering stuff to set up a fish tank....only to put it all back and head out in search of another pet store just because their daughter decided that she wanted a mouse instead.

-Sarnic Dirchi

What's Your Intention?

There was a customer who called the store today asking if we sold something.
But the manager who answered couldn't understand what they were asking.
And so had me take over the call to figure it out.

And from what I heard the customer was looking for "Ratchets." 

Which...I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head that we sold that would be like that.
Like ratchets...like the tool? Like a racket for sports?

So I asked them to spell it out.

And they were like "R-A-T-S------"
And they garbled out the rest.

Okay. So rat something.
Something related to rats?

So I asked them what that last part was.

And they were like "It's Rat Sh--! You know. Like feces?! Because you guys sell rats I thought you'd have some."

Ah.

Well no wonder i wasn't understanding what they were saying at first.
Most people would say Rat Poop or something instead....

But unfortunately for them.
I didn't have any 'rat feces' on hand.
Because my store actually stopped selling rats like five years ago because our breeders stopped breeding them.
So with no rats in the store that meant I definitely didn't have any of their feces either.

And even if I did.

I probably wouldn't be able to give any to the customer anyways.
Like I'm pretty sure it's against policy somewhere to give away animal waste.
Probably it's a health hazard or something.

Which does make me curious why they wanted feces in the first place.
Because most of the time you want to avoid animal droppings.
And like there's easier ways to get fertilizer....

So *shrugs*
Who knows.
I don't.

I'm kinda hoping that they are unable to find some...as I don't know if their intentions are good....

-Sarnic Dirchi

Sold

We had two chinchillas come into the store today on our animal shipment.

And they were TINY.
Like half the size even a third of the size of the usual chinchillas we get in.
TINY.

And honestly.
I shouldn't be surprised that we sold them the same day they came in.

I mean, with this pandemic people are buying pets like crazy.

To the point where we put animals on the floor...and they're sold by the end of the day. 

We can't keep animals in stock.
Because our breeders can't keep up with demand.

And so as soon as we get animals in...they sell.

Today.
About an hour into my shift.
I got notified that there were customers wanting to buy a chinchilla.

Except when I got there.
The two girls were like "No, we want both of them."

So yah. The chinchillas had been on the floor maybe five hours?
And they were already gonna be gone.

*shakes head*
Like I might as well have forgone removing the 'reserved' sign in the cage that marks the cage as empty.
Because the cage was gonna be empty again.

So I thought.

However.
At the register, the customers had a change of heart. 

And decided that they only wanted one of the chinchillas.
So I had to open the traveling box I'd put both of them in.
Let them pick which one they wanted to keep.
And take the other one back to his cage so he could go back on the floor for sale.

....
Until the end of the day.
When one of the customers came back.
Like five minutes before I was set to close the department.
Wanting to buy the second chinchilla.
As they decided that they actually did want it.

So yah.
Both chinchillas gone.
just like that.

*shakes head*
Honestly, I do wonder when I'll be able to be 'fully restocked' again on animals.
Because it's totally crazy how many cages are consistently empty in our store now because the animals sell practically as we're putting them out to sell. 

-Sarnic Dirchi