Going Down

You gotta love the impatient customers.

At the crack of the store opening, I had a woman come in.

She needed 60 of our small goldfish.

Which isn't uncommon for people to need large amounts of goldfish.

The feeders are often used to feed Turtles who love to eat them like candy from what customers tell me.

Thankfully, we'd gotten in a large shipment of goldfish.

So I was able to easily catch the fish.

The customer had disappeared while I gathered supplies, to go check out something else. And I was just finishing counting out my first netful of fish.

When she came back and said. "You know what...give me forty instead."

*shakes head*

Only like thirty seconds had passed.

But apparently, she was in enough of a hurry that she didn't want to stick around to have me count out thirty more fish.

So strange. Usually people change their minds and want more fish not less...but whatever. It only meant that I was able to finish counting sooner and bag her fish quicker and have her leave quicker.

Still, I wonder.

What was she in a hurry for that she cut down on the number of fish she originally wanted?

-Sarnic Dirchi

Boy or Girl?

There are times when I really don't understand customers.

So. For some reason, today was a day to get birds.
It felt like every fifth customer I encountered wanted me to catch them a bird.
And considering that this is my least favorite thing to do -since I will more than likely end up getting bitten....I'm not a fan of 'bird days' at all.
I like it when I can go a couple of weeks or so without having to catch any of the birds for people.

In any case.
I had customers come into the store. A father and his two daughters.
And they were carrying a box.

I recognized the father and one of the daughters.
As a few days ago...I think it was last Saturday? It was recent whatever the case.
Because the daughter took forever deciding on which birds she wanted to buy from us.
Literally they sat in front of that cage for probably 45 minutes attempting to decide because I'd helped them, helped other customers, went and came back from lunch... *shakes head*
Thankfully I didn't end up catching the birds for them as they decided and got help from my coworker just as I was coming back from lunch.

But seeing the box in their hands today.
:S Not the best of signs.

A box means a return.
A box usually means something died.

But to my surprise.

It wasn't quite that.

They'd brought both birds back.
So that they could be told what genders the parakeets were.
The girl was confident the blue one she'd gotten was a boy.
But the green parakeet....they weren't sure on.

She wanted to have two boys.
So if the green was a girl, they'd be getting a different bird.
If the green was a boy, they'd be heading out on their merry way.

So I took the box, to check on the birds.
And confirmed the blue was a boy.
And the green....was a girl.

*sighs*
Which meant I would now be required to catch another parakeet for the girl so she could exchange out the girl for a boy.

Only.
Somewhere in the middle of me checking genders....
Things had changed.

As I assumed they'd want another green that was a male.
But no.
They now wanted to return the Blue bird instead of the green bird and get another female instead of another male.

O.o
...Did I miss something?
Like a conversation with a coworker or another customer?
*shrugs* Who knows.
All I know is that they now wanted a girl.

And thankfully we had a blue parakeet that was a girl.
So I was able to quickly catch that one and exchange it out for the customers.

Here's hoping that they don't change their minds again and come back wanting males....

-Sarnic Dirchi

On the Carpet

It's not always easy dealing with customers who expect you to be the encyclopedia of answers to their problems.

I had a customer come up to me, with a problem with her dog.
In that her dog is peeing all over her bedroom carpet, and she was looking for solutions to make the dog stop.

The background of the dog, was that it came from a home where the owner let the dogs go wherever they wanted and never made an effort to clean up after them.
:S yikes.
And when the woman got the dog, she'd gotten the dog to the point of nearly being potty trained.....

But then life happened,
and the customer switched to working longer days where she's gone 11 hours a day.

Which means she's not home as much as she used to be.
Leaving the dog free to it's own devices really.

And when she started working the longer shifts.
The dog started peeing in the rooms again.

The woman got it contained down to one room. As she shuts the dog up in that room.
But the dog isn't going on the puppy pads. Instead it's choosing to go on the carpet because that's what the dog was used to before moving in with the current owner.

To me...the solution would be to lock the dog up.
Put it in a crate so it can't pee all over.

But the customer was against that.
So I brought up other solutions.
Only to have her shoot them down one at a time for various reasons.

I suggested locking the dog in a room that doesn't have carpet.
Like a bathroom so it's easier to clean.

Or in the kitchen in a play pen type of contraption. So the dog is on hardwood floors but contained to a certain area.

*shakes head*

I dunno if any of dozen of solutions I offered will actually be tried.
It ended up being a frustrating twenty minutes for sure. Since the customer didn't take any of my suggestions today....

But I hope that she gets a solution for her doggie sooner rather than later.
Because I know how irritating it is to deal with smelly carpets.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Blue Mollies

Last week, I was talking with a customer about fish.
I don't remember exactly what I was doing for the customer...I mean I was standing at the cricket podium, but if I was bagging crickets or fish...I really can't say.

In any case.
We were talking about fish.
And it got around to the point where she mentioned that she had these cool mollies that were a bluish black shade.
I was surprised to have her say that they were mollies. as I hadn't seen them before in the store.
(Though I probably had when I was younger)
So I was thinking she was talking about Platys or Guppies.
but no they were mollies.

I thought they sounded really cool, as blue fish are always cool. :) lol.
And she said that she was breeding them.
Or at least that she had a ton of babies in her tank.
So I asked her how much she was selling them for.
and she told me she was just giving them away.

So I told her that I would be willing to take 3 or 4 of them if she wanted to give some to me, so long as they were males -as I didn't want to breed fish in my 125 gallon tank. I don't need the drama. lol.

To which she agreed and said she'd bring them by the next time she would come into the store.

Which....could possibly be never lol.
But I told her when I worked.
And figured I'd see her later this week. Probably on the weekend.

But to my surprise.
She came into the store today about lunch time.
And had brought me the fish!! :D

Heh...unfortunately one of the four tricked her, as she thought they were all boys but one was a girl.
Still. I accepted them all, as I didn't want to make her take back one of the fish.

I was grateful she went through the effort to bring me some fishies. ^^
And they are adorable! A nice shimmery blue. :)

I only ended up taking the three males home though. :S
Again, one female in a tank full of males...wouldn't be good for her.
So I placed the female molly in our display tank where it probably wouldn't be noticed.

But ah!

I need to talk to customer more often about their fish.
because who knows what other cool fish I may come by if I do. ^^ lol

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Silthering Things

I was in the middle of vacuuming our fish tanks,
When I looked up and noticed a woman standing nearby, looking at her phone.
So I asked her if she needed any help.

To which she responded. "Do you have any non aggressive snakes?"

The question threw me for a loop....as we don't sell aggressive snakes.
Sure some of them can get a bit feisty and can bite, but in general they're not considered aggressive. Especially since right now we only have Ball Pythons and they are rather mellow. (unless they're cranky from being hungry)

So I told her. "All our snakes our mellow."

To which she responded. "No, I was told one of your snakes was aggressive."

...but they aren't....
I had time to think.

Before she pointed. "Here, I think it was this one!"

And where was she pointing?

Towards one of our fish tanks.
That contained peacock eels.

Which are in fact, semi aggressive.

But are not.... snakes.

They're eels.

I mean, I can see how people could call them snakes.
Since they look like them. Having no limbs and such.

But I haven't yet had people actually call them snakes.
They call them eels.
or loaches.

But not snakes.

So it's no wonder I was confused at what the woman wanted.
Because if you say snake...I'm going to think the reptile.
I'm not going to think of our aquatic looking ones.

Though it now makes sense as to why she was standing by the fish wall....and not by our reptile enclosure. *shakes head*

So I was able to help her from there.
Showing her the 'non aggressive snake' she was looking for.
The black kuhili loach

Unfortunately for her.
I didn't have any in stock.
So she has to wait until we get more in.
Hopefully on our next fish shipment.

-Sarnic Dirchi

3 Years Later

It was in the middle of the day. Where I'd found a brief lull in the holiday shoppers to do some work.

When I got a phone call.

And on the other end.

Was a customer.

"Hey....so we adopted a cat from you like three years ago...."

Now automatically I'm thinking that they want to return the cat. Because why else would they bring up the fact that they adopted a cat from us?

Unfortunately we don't accept returns on the cats we adopt out. People have to go through the adoption group if they have any issues.

However, that wasn't this guy's problem.

"And when we adopted him." he continued. "We were told that he'd been fixed. However, six months later...we discovered he wasn't."

O.o

Well...okay....I had no idea where his explanation was going from there.

I do know that threeish years ago, the cats weren't always fixed. It became a policy after a year or so of me working there, that the adoption groups had to have their cats and dogs fixed before they could adopt them out. As we're trying to lessen the homeless pets problem. And there's no easier way for homeless pets to skyrocket than for pet owners to neglect to get their pets fixed.

Back when I first started, there usually was a voucher included where the new owners could take their new pet to a specific vet and have the procedure done without cost to the new pet parents.

So it's possible that the guy could have gotten such a voucher, but didn't pay attention to it as they assumed the cat was already fixed? Or the person who adopted the cat out thought that the cat had been fixed when it hadn't....

Who knows.

In any case the customer continued with. "it wasn't really an issue for us then, so we let it slide."

...... if you realized that the cat wasn't fixed.....why didn't you contact us or the adoption group at that point in time? Why did you let your cat remain unaltered if he needed to be neutered. >.<

Why are you NOW calling me TWO and a HALF years AFTER you discovered that the cat wasn't fixed?

"But now." he said. "We have a couple new animals in our house, and our cat is marking all over the place. So we were wondering if you would still honor that original promise that the cat was fixed and fix him for us."

Aka. We made a mistake not fixing him then, so can you fix him for us for free now?

>.<

Uh.

No?

You should have taken responsibility back in the beginning and gotten him fixed then before it became an issue.

As I've been told that once a cat starts marking their territory....fixing them doesn't always solve that problem. *shakes head*

In any case.

There was nothing I or my work could do for them.

My work just provides a location for adoption groups to adopt out their cats.

We don't do any of the shots/vaccinations/spaying/neutering etc.

It's all on the adoption group. They're in charge of that. So if they said they fixed a cat...and they hadn't....then the customer would need to go to them to solve the issue.

But with three years now passed??

Who knows what the adoption group would say.

The customer wanted to know if we had records of adoptions going back three years as they couldn't find the paperwork that told them which adoption group they adopted the cat from.

Again... No.

We don't keep records that long in the store.

Honestly....I'm not feeling that bad for them.

They should have acted when the problem was first discovered.

*shakes head*

Customers.

Customers.

Customers.

*shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

 

Unleashed

There's a part of me that often wonders, while I'm talking to customers....
on if I'm accidentally releasing a 'monster' into the world.
Or at least upon the work.

We get them every now and then.
People who become super obsessive/paranoid about their new pet.
To the point where they come into the store almost daily for various reasons.

lol...surprisingly most of these monster customers end up being released when it comes to fish.

Some monster customers are benign.
Just constantly buying new decorations to redecorate their tanks, or buying more tanks so they can have more fish.

Others are horrible.
Constantly changing their mind, returning things, repurchasing things, exchanging things. Whether it be fish, filters, tanks...etc....You see them walk in and you wonder "Oh no. What's got them unhappy now?!"

I'm not quite sure what customer this one today will become.
It was a gentleman who had owned fish tanks in the past.
And was just getting back into them.

He dithered for like an hour it felt like, on whether or not he wanted to get the 60 gallon fish tank that's currently on a really good sale because of the holiday weekend.
He was thinking of doing Salt Water...
but since I had little experience with that....
We went to fresh water.
And between Canister filters and over the back filters.
And between what types of fish to get.
What types of gravel to get.
If he actually had a place for the 60 gallon tank....

Thankfully, I managed to convince him to buy the 60 gallon at least.
Even if he's still unsure about what else to get.
One step forward will hopefully result in more steps forward.

And hopefully he won't become a monster customer.
Constantly badgering us with questions, concerns, and dead fish. :S

Guess we'll have to see. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi