To the Mouse!

I had the oddest call come over the intercom today.
I was in the back behind the fish, where it's not always easy to distinguish what is being said over the intercom. 

And I thought what I heard was "Petcare to the mouse please. Petcare to the mouse."
And I was like. O.o First off I have more than one mouse so it should be mice. Second...why did you not just say small pets?

So I came out from behind the fish wall to double check that I'd heard the call correctly.
And as I approached the cashier, he hung up the phone and pointed upwards. "Wait for it." 
Sure enough I then heard. "Petcare to small pets please, pet care to small pets." 

Which, good to know lol. I was right in guessing where I was meant to be.

But it was interesting to note, that the head manager seemed to take this small slip up -which happened because the cashier had never needed to call anyone over to the small pets before- as something really funny.

Because after that point, anytime the Head Manager would see me, while the Cashier was in earshot he'd call out. "Sarnic! Petcare to the mouse! Petcare to the mouse!" 

lol. *shakes head* Alrighty then.

Still. It was kinda funny. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Clocking In

There are times when I get distracted at the wrong moment.
Usually if I forget to clock in, it's because I got distracted by a customer or my mind was going to a different place as I was getting off of lunch.
But usually, I'm rather conscious of clocking into work.
I don't really remember ever forgetting to clock in...
If I did...it was only like five minutes before I remembered.

But today, my mind wasn't obviously in a conscious place.
Because I totally forgot to clock in this morning when I got into work.
And only realized it when I tried to clock out. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

Attacked

So there I was, kitty in my lap, petting her after I'd finished cleaning her cage at work. 
It wasn't anything to think about really, I often pet the kitties to give them a little bit more time outside the cage.
But all too soon I had to put her back. 
So I tried to pick her up to put her back.

And all of a sudden, she attacked. 
Biting down hard on my hand.

I have no idea what I did, if I jarred a tender spot, or held her wrong, or if she just randomly decided she didn't like the position...

But thankfully, I was wearing gloves when the kitty decided to go all feral and bite me.
So I didn't end up bleeding or anything. 
Luckily.

Because yeow. That would have been waaaay more painful if I hadn't been wearing gloves. :S 

*shakes heads*
No idea what I did to trigger her...but hopefully it doesn't happen again.
I already have one other crazy cat to deal with currently at work, I don't need a second one. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Hinge Problems

So forever ago. Like possibly even a year ago, the lid to our large cricket container broke off. 
Which happens on occasion. The hinges just feel too much pressure/stress and end up snapping off.
Mostly from people forcefully shoving the lid back to keep it standing up and not fall back down on us while we're trying to get crickets.

So for like the entire year, we left the lid off the crickets.
Because it was broken anyways, and the crickets couldn't jump out as well as it helped to give a bit more air flow so that the crickets inside the box wouldn't get too humid and kill them off.

So it wasn't an issue for us to leave the lid off.

It was an issue for customers though.
Because they didn't know that the crickets couldn't jump that high to get out.

So at least six times a day I would have to explain to customers that the crickets "Can't jump that high." or "Yes, the lid is off because it was getting too humid in there for the crickets." etc. 

Which got rather tedious. 

However, finally. Finally.
We ordered new lids -that have vents in them to allow the crickets to breathe.
And they came with hinges so that once more we could have the lid connected to the cricket boxes....

Only, my manager put the lid of the large cricket box on too loosely.
So it didn't stay up.

His reasoning?
He thought tightening the hinges all the way create too much pressure on the hinge which was why it was breaking.

Uhmmm No. I corrected him.
The hinges snap because workers are putting too much force on the hinge in an effort to try and keep the lid up. 
If the lid stays up, less pressure is put on it.
If the lid doesn't stay up, more pressure is put on it.

It doesn't matter if the lid rubs against the box and creates pressure that way on the hinge.
I didn't see it as the issue.

And so I was like "I'm not going to be surprised if the hinge breaks within the next week or so." 

Guess what?
Yah. I came into work to find that one of the hinges was broken. 

It hasn't been a full week yet, I'm pretty sure. 

*shakes head* 
My manager wasn't happy about that discovery.
And I was like "Told you so." 
Because if the lid stays up the hinges last longer.
It's only when the lids don't stay up that we end up breaking them.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Making Water Flow

This morning when I came into work, I noticed that our feeder goldfish tanks weren't looking quite right.
Well...considering they're all empty right now...that's definitely not right.
But I noticed that each tank seemed to have a different level of water, when usually they're all at the same level.

I hadn't thought much more on it though, since it's common for the locklines (that bring water into the tanks) to get clogged up (like with snails cus those things are everywhere) and so I figured that the locklines in those tanks had clogged after a coworker had gone through and gravel vacuumed the tanks to keep them looking nice. Which meant that the water levels had remained lower.

However, later, once the lights to the fish tanks had turned on when the store officially opened for the day, I noticed that it wasn't just one or two tanks that weren't flowing in the feeder goldfish section. ALL of them weren't flowing. 
O.o 
Now that's just...weird.

Could they all be clogged?
I twisted off one lockline to see if there were any debris trapped behind it...but no water whatsoever flowed. 

That was...concerning.
But I halfway figured that the cause was probably due to an issue in the back behind the fish wall.
As the goldfish tanks run on a different water system from the rest of the fish wall. And that water system, doesn't replenish it's water in the sump (holding tank) in the back that filters the water. So if the water levels in that back holding tank get too low...no water can flow into the goldfish tanks up front.

A check in the back proved this theory to be correct.
The sump was nearly empty.
Which meant that whoever had gravel vacuumed the tanks recently...had done quite the thorough job. As usually a quick sweep through the tanks doesn't affect the flow that much.

Thankfully.
Fixing it was a simple thing.
Which involved adding more water into the sump in back so that water could flow into the tanks up front.
But because I was adding in a ton of water, that meant I then had to go out and clear out all the locklines to ensure that no debris were constricting the water flow. 

Luckily its all flowing smoothly now. 
And thankfully...we had no goldfish in those tanks when this happened.
because I probably would have come into a ton of dead fish this morning if we did. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Good Experience

I had a bit of fun today helping a couple of guys out in buying a fish for their apartment. 
Originally they wanted to try and do a betta fish in a bowl. 

But were totally game to upgrade to a small tank with a filter when I told them that they'd only need to do water changes once a month instead of weekly on their betta fish. 

And it was just a fun experience overall.
Because they were receptive and willing to listen and were totally on board with what I suggested.
And it was fun for them to decide on a tank, and then for me to help them decide on decorations and to pick out the fish that they wanted.

And...I just liked the experience overall.
It's great when you can tell people are genuinely wanting to take good care of their pet.
And these two guys definitely fell into that category.

I hope their new fish does well with them. :) 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Which Fish?

So things got a little bit busy while I was on my lunch break.
And when I got back to my department, one of my coworkers who usually doesn't help in the department was attempting to help bag some fish for some customers. 

Sensing that I would probably be able to do the job faster, and to allow my coworker to get back to their department, I took over. 

And my coworker had done the thing where they wrote down the UPCs of the fish onto the bag before catching the fish.
Which is something I usually don't do because all too often, customers end up changing their minds about type and quantity of fish they want. So I usually wait until the end after I've caught all the fish before I write on the baggy which fish I caught.

My coworker had told me that the numbers were for platys and mollies and left to go help out elsewhere in the store.

The problem?
I don't always recognize the type of fish needing to be caught just by the UPC number alone. 
After all there are some fish I catch more often than others. 

But I didn't think it would be that difficult to find them.
After all, the customer was right there.
I could just ask them.

So I was like "Alright, which fish are we grabbing?" 
And the customer was like "Your coworker wrote them down on the bag." And then promptly got distracted picking out other fish.
But it's not like I knew which fish they were just by the number.
So I tried again. "Which fish are we grabbing?"
"They're on the bag." Was her response.
"There's just numbers on the bag, and I don't recognize them, so which fish were you wanting?" 
-I mean, I could have figured out the fish from the number, but it would have saved me time and effort and searching if she'd just respond.

But what was her response? "I don't know."

O.o
How can you NOT KNOW which fish you were wanting?
Did you not STARE at the Tank and PICK them out and tell my coworker I WANT TWO OF THESE? 
Therefore.
How can you not know which fish you were wanting??

*throws hands up in the air*
Sometimes I don't understand customers.
A simple "I wanted the black and white fish, the black fish, and those sunburst ones." Would have given me so much more help then. "I don't know, they're on the bag!" 

Ugh. Customers.

-Sarnic Dirchi