$99.99?

 So over the weekend we had a weird occurrence happen at work. 

Where our inexpensive ornaments. The ones that are like $9.99 were suddenly randomly ringing up for $99.99

And we had no idea what that glitch was happening on some of the ornaments but not all of them.

*shakes head* 

Well. 

Apparently...those ornaments, the ones ringing up for $99.99, were the ornaments we were supposed to be using for the fish wall reset that we're doing this month.

Where we're replacing all our old ornaments and rocks with varieties that we sell off the shelf.

That way customers can see what the product looks like when it's wet and 'get inspired' or whatever.

In any case. Apparently the $99.99 ornaments were ones that had been coated in a special coating of whatever they coated it with to help them last longer in our tanks.

But we didn't discover that until today. *exhales* After we'd already sold like a good dozen of said ornaments after adjusting their price. 

It's annoying.

Like...why didn't corporate just have the DC place the 'special fish wall reset ornaments' in a separate box and have said box be labeled "STORE USE ONLY"

That would have saved us a lot of confusion. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Specific Breed

 I had a customer call the store today asking if we had any male calico kittens for sale.

Which it was rather strange...because he was quite insistant that the cat be a male calico kitten and infact repeated those three descriptors a good dozen times during my phone call with him as I tried to explain that a) I don't have any cats in the store currently and b) we don't control what type of cats come in and c) that male calico cats aren't that common....

Like....seriously. Male Calicos are Rare.

To the point that they can be worth thousands of dollars sort of rare if they have the right sort of markings and such.

So like...while it does occasionally happen with our adoptions that we get them in...it's rare...like maybe one a year. Maybe. 

I do wonder if he'll find his precious male calico kitten....though I'm betting it's not from us. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Small Bright Moments

 You know, I'm rather grateful for the customers who take the time to approach us after we have to deal with an anti-masker and compliment us on handling the situation or give us their condolences for having to deal with such individuals. 

It's just...somewhat nice to know that not all customers are against us.

Which in general they're not.

But when we have to deal with an uptick in anti-maskers....especially the ones that get more confrontational and loud about their dislike of our mask policy....

It's nice to have other customers take the time to approach us and tell us that we're doing a good job. 

I had one such customer do so today after I had a family of anti-maskers take offense to our policy that they have to wear masks to be in the store and had the man get rather loud at me for 'treating him like a second class citizen' *shakes head*

The customer who came over afterwards was like "I don't need help, but I want to say you handled the situation remarkably well and I'm sorry you had to deal with it."

Yah me too.

Though unfortunately having had to deal with such individuals for the entire pandemic...I'm rather used to it. *exhales* 

I wish people would just learn that wearing a mask is a sign that you care about others and that it's not a political agenda. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Name

 Gotta love the naming techniques of kids. lol.

I had an adorable child come into the store today wanting to get a 'blue fish'

Why?

So they could name their fish "Blue Waterfall." 

XD lol.

Hearing the names kids call their pets is the best.

-Sarnic Dirchi

In Stock?

 I had a couple flag me down in the store today, asking for help finding a specific prescription dog food as they had called us yesterday to see if we had it in stock...but they couldn't find it on the shelf.

Which I was like "Oh yah! We have that particular prescription." because I was the person who went and checked yesterday to see if said prescription food was in stock. And we had plenty of bags and canned food on the shelf.

However....when I went to check the spot.

Both spots where the dry and wet food were....were empty.

()_()

Which like...there had been ALOT of food there.

So it was rather crazy to discover that the shelf was empty. Like who came in and wiped us out?? *shakes head*

And these customers were like "We drove 3 hours to get here." 

As apparently their online orders have been delayed so they needed to get food now.

Which...if you had called yesterday why did you not come yesterday to get the food?? *shakes head* 

In any case. I said that I would go double check in the back to see if I had any extra of that prescription food back there.

Thankfully. I did. 

I was able to find 2 bags of the specific dog food that the couple needed. So woot for being part of a success story and that the customers were able to bring dog food back home to their pupper and not have wasted 6 hours driving to and from our store.

Still crazy that the food on the shelf vanished that quickly though. :S 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Too Many Fish

I had a customer come into the store wanting to get fish.

"A lot of fish." in their words.

Which is never a good thing to hear when dealing with aquatics. Because if people try to add too many fish into their tank at once...there's a higher chance of them dying. Just from the stress and the sudden increase in ammonia and the like.

And I knew that this might be a problem when the customer started off by saying that they wanted 8 red wag platys.

Eight is a big number. And with the customer gearing up to tell me more fish that they wanted....I had to double check.

How big is the tank?

The customer seemed to think they had a 75 gallon.

Though when I mentioned at one point that I had a 125 gallon they were like "Oh yah! That's the size of tank that I had when I killed all my fish."

As the customer was coming to restock their tank with fish after doing a water change that killed their fish because they made the water too hot. 

In any case.

I tried to tell the customer that they should only get between 8-10 fish for their 75 gallon tank as they don't want to add too many fish at once because again, like I stated above, it could stress out and kill their fish.

The customer brushed off my concerns though. Stating that they had 'multiple tanks' they can put the fish in.

*exhales* Pretty sure that was a bald-faced lie. But I can't really call a customer out on it when they tell me they have other tanks. But like...when the customer makes no indication as to which tanks they want their fish to be in or like which fish can go into the same bag together...yah...pretty sure they only had the one tank.

*exhales*

And like they ended up having me grab around 50 fish.

6 Red Wag Platys. (originally 8 but they decided to do 6)
5 Tiger Barbs.
4 Bala Sharks
8 Giant Danios
6 Red Minor Tetras
4 Turquoise Guppies
4 Red Tuxedo Guppies

I feel like there was another batch in there somewhere. *exhales*

But needless to say it was a lot of fish.

And kinda annoying though because I told the customer a 75 gallon tank should only have around 30ish fish.

So of course instead of listening to my first advice of getting only 8 fish this week and waiting a week before coming to get more fish, they only heard my other info of the fact that if you divide the size of the tank you have in half -75 gallons- that's around how many fish you can have. 

So of course they got around 38 fish for a 75 gallon tank.

It's just...annoying. When customers have selective hearing. *exhales*

Honestly, if their fish die I won't be surprised because like dude...I told you that wasn't a good idea. But did you listen? Noooooo.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Don't. Sit. There.

 So I had this couple come into the store.

Apparently wanting to adopt a cat.

Problem was...we didn't have any cats available for adoption because our adoption group hasn't brought in any more as the rest were adopted for Christmas.

And apparently this was a huge wrench in the couple's plans. As they were expecting to find cats and to not find cats...was bad for them.

To the point where they needed to find a place to regroup and figure out who in the valley actually carried cats that they could go look at and possibly adopt. 

This regrouping....took place with both couples sitting on the floor of our store by our display fishtanks.

Which....*exhales* Like One. They were blocking the aisle so that customers were having to move around them in order to get to and from the fish wall.

And like Two...they decided in order to properly get on the phone and call other places and figure out their plan...they needed to take off their masks.

Which no. You don't take off your mask in the store. That's why there's a mask requirement.

And Three.

Never. Ever. EVER sit on the floor of a pet store.

Especially one that allows customers to bring their pets aka their dogs into the store.

As said dogs....don't always behave themselves.

So yah. Our floors have been peed on multiple times.

And we do our best to keep those floors clean. 

But like....even if we kept them sparkling...it's not a good idea to sit on the floor of a petstore.

Not when you have no idea what has been in the spot you're sitting on before you sat there.

I was glad when they finally left....

As it was kinda stressful just watching them sit there.

-Sarnic Dirchi