Deciding

Had a father/daughter duo come into the store today because the daughter was looking to get some goldfish...and possibly a new tank? for said fish.

Which is a simple enough endeavor...in theory.
As it's easy to explain the size of the tank and what's required and such.

But the customers proceeded to make it quite the ordeal because they wanted to know if certain fish could go in with goldfish and if certain size tanks would do well with certain fish and what stuff they would need to clean the tank and then questions again on the tanks and they were being rather indecisive on just which tank and what size they wanted and what fish they wanted. So I ended up having to basically repeat the same information just on different tanks and fish like twelve times.

They probably spent a good hour or so in the store just trying to decide what they wanted to buy and get and set up.

In the end, from what I saw...the daughter ended up only buying a single goldfish.
So hopefully that means they have a tank at home to put him in.

But yah.
It was quite the endeavor to keep checking in on them and reexplaining things and trying to help them narrow it down but it's hard to narrow down choices when they're not sure if they're wanting goldfish or tetras or platys or glofish. 

*exhales*
I'm glad they finally made a choice in the end. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Filters

I had a customer come into the store wanting to get replacement filter cartridges for his filter.
But he was wondering if he should switch to a different filter because he'd read an article somewhere that the brand of filter he currently had was experiencing shortages due to the pandemic so they could only produce a certain amount of filter cartridges at a time and some of them were being discontinued.

And like....yes.
That was an issue with us like...two months ago.
But overall we've been able to keep filter cartridges of basically every brand in stock for the past little while.
I mean we do sell out of them.
The shelves do empty out.
But at the same time, we are getting a consistent supply of them that if anything only one or two trucks go by before we get them back in stock again.

Plus I was rather doubtful that we wouldn't be carrying that particular type of filter cartridge that the customer had anymore....because well...it's our store brand. It would be silly to discontinue our store brand filters. *shakes head*

But I had to spend a good fifteen minutes or so talking the customer through other potential options and other cartridges that could work with the filter he had if we were out of the brand cartridges he needed.

It was just so weird how intense he was about it.
Because it hasn't been an issue for us for a couple of months now.
Yet he was acting like it was the end of the world and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to continue buying the cartridges he needed from us.

*shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

"Big"

 It's always amusing--and sometimes really irritating--how customers grossly misjudge the size of their tanks.

Like they always overestimate the size of them. Thinking that they're 'huge' when they're not.

I had a customer do that today.

Telling me that they had a 'nice big tank' with 'plenty of space' for their fish.

But hearing that they had like a betta fish, I knew that 'huge' probably wasn't actually huge.

So I did a bit of digging, asking exactly how many gallons their tank was.

And they were like oh...I think it's like 2 or 3 gallons? (after checking his phone he said it was a 5 gallon but who knows)

And I'm like....dude.

That's not a big tank.

That's not plenty of space.

That tank is tiny. 

A nice big tank would be anything over 36 gallons.

*shakes head*

Still.

I did my best to help them find some fish that would work with the betta in the 5 gallon tank. 

Hopefully the ones the customer chose do well.

-Sarnic Dirchi

New Fish Owners

 I had a couple of guys come into the store last night.

Looking to get a new tank for their betta fish.

As they had bought a 3.5 gallon tank like the day before? Recently at least.

And they had decided that it was too small and that they wanted to give their betta a bigger tank, but also so that they could put more fish in the tank with him. 

So I spent a fair bit of time helping them out, going over pros and cons of various tanks.

But making sure to tell them that they needed to have the tank set up for at least 24 hours before putting in any other fish with their betta, just to ensure that it wouldn't stress out their tank right away.

*shakes head* lol I shouldn't have been surprised when they came in practically the first thing this morning to get their fish.

But I do admire their enthusiasm for their new tank and for their new fish.

It was kinda fun to talk to them to fan the flames of their new hobby.

I can only hope that the fish they pick do well with the betta and that they survive.

Guess we'll see. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Do You Work Here?

It always slightly boggles my mind when customers ask me if I work at my store.

Because like...I'm wearing a uniform shirt with my work's name on it.

I have a name tag on.

Like...compared to other stores, it should be pretty obvious that I work here. 

And yet, customers still ask me if I work here despite the clear signs I do.

Today was even more mindboggling.

Because like I was up on one of our fish ladders, my arm deep in the fish tank there as I was scrubbing the glass to get it free from algae and such.

And this customer came up to me and asked me if I worked here.

Like....O_o

My hand is deep in the tank. I'm on a ladder. It's obvious I'm scrubbing things.

Why would I NOT be a worker here?

*shakes head* 

I mean...I can see why customers would want to double check before asking their question.

I've had my moments in other stores --like barnes and noble--where I wasn't sure if a person worked in the store or not and asked them.

But their uniforms are more...discrete than the bright blue shirt I wear at my job. 

And maybe the customer was thinking that perhaps I couldn't help if I was doing some other job?

Or that I was a maintenance person fixing the tank?? 

Who knows.

Still find it kinda funny that the customer had to ask though.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Can't Read This

 I got roasted for my handwriting today at work by a couple of my coworkers.

Which isn't that surprising.

As I'm well aware that my handwriting, especially when I'm in a hurry trying to write down things on our treatment logs in our sickroom, can come out like chicken scratch on occasion.

I do try my best to make it readable when I notice it's getting illegible. Going back and making sure that letters are more defined as such.

As I did have a manager like six years ago complain that my handwriting was hard to read.

It is difficult though.

When I try to keep my handwriting legible...and my coworkers still can't read it.

It's really irritating especially when they can't read the numbers I write on the fish bags.

Like I do try my best to make sure that the numbers are distinct.

That the ones and sevens don't look the same. That the fours and nines look different. 

And it was irritating today to have the cashier ask me what some of the numbers were on all three skus that I wrote on the bag they were handling.

Like 73725756882 and 73725732801 and 73724750899 shouldn't be that difficult to read.

But they were.

And I don't know if the marker I used just smeared from my hand (lefty woes) or if it was from the bag, or if the numbers just didn't look like the numbers I wanted them to be even though I do check the bags to make sure that they are legible when I do hand them over to customers....

I don't know why my coworker struggled today with it.

But I was like "I promise my handwriting isn't actually that bad."

And it's just...disheartening to have two of my coworkers go "well....actually....it kinda is." 

*exhales*

I mean, one of them tried to soften the blow by telling me that it's not a bad thing my handwriting is hard to read sometimes. After all they heard that people with...idk the phrasing...smarter minds? Minds that work faster? tend to have sloppier handwriting.

Mostly because we're thinking so fast our hand struggles to keep up with writing what our minds are thinking.

But it's just...hard.

To be told that you can't read the NUMBERS written on a bag.

*exhales* 

And now I'm self conscious about it.

Self conscious about writing down anything.

And it makes me twitch everytime a cashier has to go "hey I can't read this sku you wrote can you tell me what the last four numbers are?" 

Like I'm aware it happens to other coworkers.

But it really does feel like it happens to me the most.

And it's frustrating.

Frustrating even more so when I do my best to make it legible and they still come at me not being able to read the sku.

*exhales*

so yah.

That's gonna be something on my mind for the next week or so. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Willful Rejection

You know...it gets annoying when customers willfully ignore your advice. 

Like, I'm kinda used to it when customers do it with fish.

As the common sense of "hey maybe my pet needs a better home" is overridden by the "I must have a pet now as cheaply as possible" and proceed to indicate that they want to buy a goldfish for a bowl when I've told them that that doesn't work out well for the goldfish.

It's just irritating.

How people ignore things.

Like I said, I'm rather used to it with the fish.

I don't usually encounter it when it comes to guinea pigs though.

But today, I had a customer ask our cashier what size of ball they would need for their guinea pig.

Aka one of those hamster balls except made on a larger scale.

The larger balls usually used for chinchillas and rats.

But not for Guinea Pigs.

Why?

Because the guinea pig's spines can't endure the stress of having their backs curved in such a fashion when they're put into a ball.

I've been told it can break their spine if enough stress is put on it.

So we highly discourage customers from buying balls for their guinea pigs.

It's not a thing meant for them.

And I told the customer this.

Told her that it wouldn't be good for the guinea pig.

And offered to put the ball back for her so she wouldn't have to.

But no.

She was like "I'm gonna buy it anyways." 

Just like.

GAH.

GAAAAH.

Lady. I just told you this was NOT GOOD for your PET.

And she decided to buy it anyways. 

It's just like....I don't like that helpless feeling of trying to provide good things for a pet to only be ignored.

It's just like....I hope you realize what you've done when there ends up being an issue with the guinea pig. 

Because there probably will be sometime in the future. 

-Sarnic Dirchi