And They Come

 It's always hard to judge how busy the store will get when it comes to bad weather.

As usually it's expected that the bad weather will keep people home and the store will be dead all day.

Yet half the time I feel like the stormy weather brings in the crowds...people who just need to 'get out of the house' and feel that going to a pet store is the best solution for that.

In any case.

Surprisingly enough the snowy weather this morning did keep the store pretty dead. At least for most of the morning, I don't know if it got busier towards the afternoon, but it felt like a lot less people came in today, for which I'm grateful since I was dealing with a migraine for most of it and it's easier to survive work if I'm not constantly having to interact with people.

Though I did notice a trend with the customers that did come into the store this morning.

They were all 'old'

Like grey haired old. Old enough that I would worry about them being out in the snow and the ice because they could potentially slip and fall and hurt themselves.

So it was rather surprising to see them all coming into the store when the roads were hardly plowed and our parking lot definitely wasn't plowed at all because we hadn't had enough snow fall yet to warrant plowing even though it did risk slippage. 

But come into the store they did.

lol I had to wonder if the old adage of old people saying "We had to walk uphill both was to school in ten feet of snow!" had any truth to it and that's why the older folk were in the store this morning. Because a little dusting of snow wasn't gonna stop them from doing their shopping. lol.

Definitely stopped the younger generations for a while from coming into the store, i didn't really start seeing them in until nearer to noon. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wanted Dead

 So there's this customer that comes into the store.

That is rather obsessed with well...'saving things'

Pretty sure they come from the great depression era where you use a thing until it's completely dust and save everything 'just in case' it comes in handy later.

For a long while this customer would come get the eggs that our Finches and Canaries would lay and would ask us to save them so that they could then take them, freeze dry them?? do something to them to make them 'collectable' and like make dioramas or whatever to give to schools? I honestly don't know.

But it's been around a year or so since we've done that for that customer.

Mostly because we started selling the birds in our store faster and therefore didn't give them time to lay eggs. But also because the customer stopped asking for them. It could be that they had enough of it...or else enough new people are now working in the store that don't know about this that the customer gave it up.

In any case.

I've also seen this customer try and save cardboard images of like dogs and cats that were headers on displays we were no longer needing. And yah....basically if they see anything getting thrown away they want to double check and make sure they can't use it or repurpose it in some way first.

It's about 50/50 with this customer on their success rate of convincing us to give them things. Some items we're like 'sure have at it' but others we're like 'no we can't do that.'

Today's event included our crickets. 

As apparently the customer is now caring for a spider and needed to get some crickets to feed it. 

When I found the customer they were peering into our small cricket bin. Like lid up head stuck into the bin peering inside.

And I was like "Can I help you?" 

And they were like "Do you sell the dead crickets?"

Because I'd received in a cold shipment of crickets earlier and hadn't yet swept up the dead that had come in as I was waiting to see if any of them would come out of hibernation as sometimes the cold doesn't kill them just makes them sleep.

But most of the time customer want the live crickets because the creatures that eat them like to hunt for their food.

So I was like "No we don't sell the dead ones."

I mean...we do sell the freeze dried dead crickets. There's canned versions and bottled versions of them that customers can buy.

But sell dead ones from the live cricket bin? No. We don't do that. 

Mostly because it can be a biohazard? As we don't know what the creature died from and we don't want to risk getting a person sick from handling the dead creature, or have their pet get sick from eating the freshly dead creature. Plus like...the ammonia that the dead crickets give off can stink rather bad. 

And the customer wasn't fazed at all. They were like "Oh, if you don't sell them can I just have some? My spider will eat them."

Again no. For the reasons stated above. It's a safety issue. 

*shakes head* It reminds me of the people who want to buy the dead goldfish on occasion. Most want it for filming but occasionally they want them for other reasons and like....No we don't sell them and we don't give them away just for safety and public image and such.

So yah, this customer didn't get their dead crickets.

But I did catch them like 5 live ones to go feed to their spider. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Wrong Wrong Wrong

 It was a day for weird animal shenanigans apparently.

Mostly because like ALL the animals came into the store today. *shakes head* 

Like usually on Friday's I only expect to get in our Fish Shipment...if our Truck is in on time. Which surprisingly it was for once. It arrived before 10 am which is a miracle honestly because the trucks have been showing up towards the late afternoon for the past little while. 

But it was great news as it would give me something to do during my shift.

And overall putting out the fish went without hassle....except I got in a bag of fish that were labeled "4 bolivian ram cichlids" and when I looked at the bag to see if there were any dead within it...I could immediately see that 2 of them were not in fact bolivian rams. No they definitely were 2 blue acara cichlids instead.

And while the other 2 cichlids in that bag appeared at first to be the bolivians....upon placing them in the tank and seeing them with the other bolivians we had already there...I realized that the other two were convict cichlids instead.

So they sent me 2 blue acaras and 2 convicts....instead of 4 bolivians. *shakes head* 

But we also got in our reptile shipment today as well and the paperwork said we were only getting in 1 ball python....but there were 2 in the box. O_o 

I later discovered that there was a second invoice behind the first that showed this second ball python on it.

But it was weird to look at the first invoice and realize that they sent us one snake extra.

*exhales* I notified the company about the 2 ball pythons before I realized that there was a second invoice for the 2nd python....so hopefully we don't end up with 3 in the system when I should only have 2.

In any case. 

We also ended up getting a cricket shipment in that was supposed to have 7,500 large crickets in it. But in typical fashion 4,100 of them were missing. 

And we also received in our small pet/bird shipment today too because the delivery ended up having truck issues and couldn't deliver them yesterday. And for once all the animals in our shipment showed up.

One of them being a chinchilla. 

And I'm used to them being a certain size.

But the chinchilla we got in today is like twice the size of the one already in the cage. He has to be fully grown and he's giant!! lol *shakes head* 

So yah...it's just been a weird day when it comes to animals. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

$1.99

Had a customer come up to the register today demanding to check the price of a bully stick because he'd found it in one of the $1.99 buckets and wanted to make sure that it was actually $1.99.

Upon checking the price, however, it was discovered that the item had been misshelved and was actually $9.99.

The customer asked if I could give it to him for the $1.99 price, to which I said no, but I'd be happy to help him find a bully stick that was $1.99.

So he randomly picks out like two other bully sticks (without looking at the prices below them mind you) and hands them to me to go check.

Which I do and the first one rings up at $1.99 while the second one rings up at $4.99.

Obviously, after double checking that it is indeed $1.99, he takes the first one and I put back the second item and then proceed to try and find where the $9.99 bully stick goes.

I can't find the location.

And the customer is standing nearby waiting in line watching me. And when he realizes that I can't find the location he's like "See! There's no location for it and it's the last one! So can I get it for $1.99?"

Ha. No dude. As you see the UPC is still ON the bully stick which means we can still SCAN it which means it will still RING UP at $9.99. With the product not having any defects or issues. (you know besides being placed in the wrong spot) there is no reason to give such a discount to the customer.

I end up taking the $9.99 bully stick to the back of the store and placed it there to be reshelved later on when the customer isn't watching my every move.

However, that's not the end of the customer's shenanigans. As apparently he also picked up a 50 cent dental treat from a bin while waiting in line that he also wanted to buy.

When he finally reaches the register, the cashier rings up the $1.99 chew and the .50 cent dental treat and tells him that the total is gonna be $2.67 (because you know there's like an .18 cent tax on top of that)

And the guy was like: "BUT IT SHOULD ONLY BE $1.99!!!"

Like dude...you're a grown man. How do you not get the concept of MATH? If you buy one item at one price and buy a second item at a different price you add up the two prices together and get a new price that you pay. You don't just get to keep the original price of the first item the entire time.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Online Pick Up

So usually after 7pm we don't check to see if more online orders have come in because we stop doing curbside pick up at that point for the safety of our associates. 

Though since currently it gets dark at like 5pm....that's still two hours of us walking outside in the dark....but anyways. I think we mostly have the 7pm cut off so we don't get inundated with pick up orders right at close when we're trying to get people out of the store and could be dealing with rushes and such. 

In any case.

It was after 7pm when I get a call from a customer asking about an order she'd placed online as she lives further down south and placed the order to get delivered to her parents here in Happy Valley. 

But after placing the order she discovered that our sister store near her had the item in stock and so she planned to get it there and then bring it up here to her parents when she came to visit.

But she wanted to know if we could cancel the order as it was scheduled to be picked up and delivered tomorrow via DoorDash.

And while I'm not certain how canceling things goes on the end of DoorDash, since we hadn't yet picked the order it should be easy enough to cancel it on our end. Though I don't know how to do that personally as only the Head Manager and maybe the VP Manager can cancel orders. 

So I left a note for tomorrow and informed my managers to not pick the order so we could get it cancelled. 

Easy enough so long as people follow directions and not pick things lol. 

In any case. I noted that there was this customer's order and then one more order that had come in.

But since it was after 7pm I decided to leave both for tomorrow.

However.

It seemed like pretty much after I hung up with the first customer I get another call from a customer who stated that she too had just placed an order for pick up, but she hadn't realized that we stopped doing curbside at 7pm and she needed the item she ordered tonight instead of tomorrow.

Which since it was slow, it was easy enough to assure her that I could pick her order and have it ready for her. But since it was after 7pm she would have to come into the store to grab her order instead of us bringing it out to her car. 

Thankfully the customer didn't throw a fuss about that and was quite willing to come into the store. And thankfully she was able to come in before we closed. As that's always semi tricky when it's heading towards closing time. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Bonus

It's interesting being a 'bonus person' at work.

Because like...I'm used to being 'needed' in some area. Usually petcare because that's been my main duty for years now. If I'm in the store it's because I'm needed for Petcare. To do the opening tasks that sort of thing.

So to be assigned as a bonus person. An individual who is just basically free floating around the store helping where ever help is needed.

Is weird. 

I mean it's kinda been fun to get a break from doing my usual tasks. To help out in other areas of the store and learn more about other duties that the managers do. 

It can be stressful too though because I feel like I'm a lot more proactive wandering around the store. Helping with stocking and pick up orders and back up cashiering and back up petcaring.

There's a lot of potential things I can do.

It's just...different. A good different.

Though I am glad that I still have more time in Petcare than elsewhere as I do prefer that lol. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Tell Me About The Bird

I had a customer come into the store today, who got it into their head that they wanted one of our parakeets.

And I'm pretty sure that this customer only 'wanted' the bird for their 'grandchild' because the parakeet was by itself in the cage.

Does this grandchild actually want a bird? Who knows. 

But yah...the customer wanted to know 'why' we had this parakeet by itself when there was another cage that had half a dozen parakeets in it.

The answer is simple.

We have 3 types of parakeets we sell.

Greens. Blues. and Fancy Parakeets.

And we usually keep the Fancy parakeets in separate cages from the blues and the greens because the fancies can be blue, green, yellow, white or any combination and shade of them. 

And that can cause for confusion in which 'type' of bird we're selling if they're all mixed together.

So we keep the fancy's separate.

And unfortunately for the single Fancy Parakeet...all it's friends got sold a couple of days ago.

Honestly with the pandemic going on, we usually sell through parakeets within the week. 

I was actually surprised that the single fancy was still there this morning as the Fancies tend to be more popular than the blues and greens.

In any case, the customer decided that they wanted to get the bird....only they know like nothing about birds.

Okay. That's probably a lie. They probably had had birds in the past because this customer kept asking me about things that most beginner customers don't think about. Like things to help keep the nails on their feet trimmed and their beaks trimmed and the right kind of diet food and asking how long we quarantine the birds before bringing them out onto the floor and how old the birds are.

*exhales*

Most people you tell them "Pick a cage. Grab some food. Grab a cuttlebone and millet. Grab some toys. You're good to go." 

But this customer had me walking back and forth -as our bird section is stupidly divided up into three different aisles. *exhales* So it was like "Walk to the bird cages, walk to the bird food, walk back to the bird cages because the perches are there, walk back to the bird food because the cuttlebone is there, walk back to the bird cages because the customer asked about seed guards."

-_- Gah. I walked back and forth with this customer like a dozen times because I had no idea what thing they would ask me about next and they only seemed to remember the question they needed answering after I had left the area to show them the answer to their other question.

*exhales*

It would have been fine if the customer actually ended up buying the freaking bird.

But nooooo.

Basically the only thing, after all the relentless questions, that stopped the customer from finally purchasing the single parakeet....

Was the fact that our smallest and cheapest cage.....was white.

*exhales* The customer didn't want to spend $10 more to get a cage of a different color.

Nooo the customer wanted our cheap $20 cage.....but didn't want it in the only color it comes in.

So I basically wasted a good 45 minutes of my time with this customer who wanted to get things for the bird as cheaply as possible (surprise surprise) 

Only to leave to go 'find a better cage' with the intention to come back later. 

*exhales*

I never saw the customer come back.

Who knows if they will actually come back or if they ended up changing their mind after all about this 'gift' for their grandchild. 

-Sarnic Dirchi