Chameleon Fascination

 Had a homeless guy come into the store today and become fascinated with our chameleon. 

As the chameleon had come to the front of its cage and appeared to be interacting with him as he put his finger up next to it. 

As I was walking past, he turned to me and asked if he could hold the chameleon. 

I had to tell him that due to the pandemic, we aren't allowing the handling of pets unless the individual is planning to buy the animal that day.

To which the dude went on a spiel of how he had worked for some institute of health/science/something and he and his team had eradicated viruses so they no longer existed.

*shakes head*

No...pretty sure you didn't get rid of all viruses. Especially since my state broke a new record on reported covid cases today. 

And even if he had destroyed all viruses...I still couldn't let him hold the pet per our current policies. 

He didn't like that much...

And a little while later he wandered by our fish wall asking if we had any crickets. To which I showed him them and he asked if the chameleon would eat little crickets.

I could see where he was heading. Either he wanted to buy some crickets to feed to our chameleon, or else he wanted us to feed the chameleon so he could watch. 

I had to shut him down again though by telling him that we'd already fed the chameleon this morning.

It didn't dissuade him though. He mentioned coming back tomorrow then to feed the chameleon then.

I wonder if he'll actually come...hopefully I'm not around if he does. 

-Sarnic Dirchi

Your Information

I had a guy come into the store today wanting to buy one of our anoles.

And per our policy customers have to fill out some paperwork before buying any animal in the store -with the exception of fish- 

That paperwork usually is just a physical copy of our guarantee which explains to customers that if there's any issues with their pet within a certain time frame they can bring the animal back to us so long as they have the animal, the receipt, and the white paper that they filled out.

But the other portion of the paperwork is the customer filling out some information about themselves.

Namely their name, address, phone number, and then an email address if they want to.

And overall, nobody really questions having to fill out this information. 

And in all honesty we don't use the information on the paperwork at all. If a customer brings back a pet for a health check and wants to buy it back then we'll need the customer's phone number in order to call them when their pet recovers.

But the rest of it...not really needed. And honestly I think we only have it on hand 'just in case' like something needs to be mailed to their home or something. But it's not something I've ever had happen. 

And I think earlier...I don't even know if this is still a thing, but back when I first started we would need to mail all our copies of the paperwork to the home office....but I don't think they did anything with the information there either. So like it's mostly just an old safeguard just in case we have to reach the customer somehow.

In any case.

The customer was really against giving us his address.

He wanted to know what we were going to 'do with this information' and upon hearing 'nothing' wanted to know 'why' he needed to fill it out in the first place if it wasn't 'doing anything'

Yah. It sucks to be told 'it's required per policy' but that's really the only for sure answer I had for the guy. We just need the address just in case. But we don't do anything with it.

Still. It's weird to have those paranoid types come into the store.

The ones who don't want to use a chip reader, or give us their email, or phone number, or address....

Like in this day and age...it's just weird. To have someone so against it. 

Like I get some of the reasoning. But at the same time....it's just weird.

-Sarnic Dirchi

All the Texts

I had two of my fellow managers contact me today, on my day off, to ask questions about 'what should we do' when it came to taking care of some of the creatures in the store that were showing signs of not doing well.

Which...it's kinda amusing in a way because both managers have been in my department before. One of them used to be the manager over my department....

And yet both of them wanted to check in with me first to see what the 'proper course' of action should be.

It makes sense in a way, because I have waaaaay more experience in Petcare than they do. 

But at the same time...I do hope that this doesn't become a 'thing' because I want to be able to enjoy my days off without having work follow me home....

-Sarnic Dirchi 

I Need Bigger

Gotta love the paranoid customers. 

Like I can't tell if it's a good thing or a bad thing to over explain things at work. 

But I often ask customers how long their drive home is when I am bagging their fish.

And this is so I can make sure I grab the appropriate sized bag to put their fish in. As I have customers come from up to 4 hours away and the small bags really are only good for an hour and a half while the larger bags can be good for that 4 hour distance.

So I ask to check. And then I'll be like "Okay this bag is good for an hour and a half, if you had a longer drive I'd give you a bigger bag."

Most people are like "Okay cool."

But there are some individuals who get like....paranoid?

idk if that's the right world. I also feel like they get 'me centric' in that they feel like they should receive 'special treatment.'

But the customers get paranoid about the size of the bag and insist I give them a bigger bag...even though they indicated to me that their drive was only a short distance away.

A lot of the time it's the customers from the southern end of the valley -a 20ish minute drive from my store- that end up being like this. They feel like they need a large bag in order to get home in time...when the small bag that's good for an hour and a half would be enough for them.

That was the situation today.

Where a customer decided that they wanted to get some fish.

Mind you--I'd already talked to them once about over crowding their 10 gallon tank, but they insisted that they wanted to add 5 more fish to their tank when they already had 4 other fish at home and we only recommend having between 5-6 fish in a 10 gallon tank.

But they insisted that they'd read on the internet that they could have more fish without problem.

In any case.

I asked them the standard question on if their drive home is under an hour or over.

And the customer said under.

So I grabbed the small bag that's good for 1.5 hours and as I'm writing on the bag explain that they're good for 1.5 hours and that I'd give you a bigger bag if the drive was longer.

And the customer was like !!!! Oh, I need a bigger bag!

And I'm like O_o?? Because they just told me their drive was under an hour. So I reiterate that they have plenty of time to get home in the hour and a half period.

"I have a lot of fish" came their next response. 

Which 5 fish is not a lot of fish. And I tell the customer that the small bag is good to hold 6 fish in it so the small bag should still be fine.

To which they were like "I just don't want them to die, can you put them in a larger bag?"

*exhales*

Like...dear customer. What are you planning to do? WALK home in the cold and take three hours to do it? The fish would have been fine in the smaller bag. *shakes head*

Plus I'd already written on the smaller bag so like...thanks for nothing making me waste a bag because the odds of having someone want the exact same fish aren't that high. 

But yah...I gave the customer their bigger bag. Even though they truly didn't need it. *shakes head* Giving you a bigger bag won't ensure that the fish won't die. Especially if it's a short distance away.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Stay.

I never quite understand the people who walk away.

Like when I'm trying to help a customer and I tell them to "stay here, I'll be right back." only to find them gone when I return to where I left the customer and I end up having to hunt all over the store for them to either find them somewhere else or that they left the store in the two minutes I left them to wait for.

*exhales* It's irritating. Like I can get being bored and not wanting to stay in one spot.

But it does make it difficult for the worker to find you if they can't find you where they left you.

It makes even less sense to press a button requesting assistance...and then walk away from the button.

Which is what happened today. As I had a customer press the button on our cricket podium requesting help.

But the ten seconds it took me to get from behind the fish wall to in front of the fish wall to help the customer...they'd completely vanished. No one was in sight.

No, I ended up finding the customer five aisles away looking at water bottles meant for rabbits and guinea pigs and other small pets.

And like...he needed crickets as well.

But he didn't stay by the podium to get those crickets.

And he's lucky that I went hunting for him, otherwise the dude may have never gotten his crickets...because it's not like we know exactly who pressed the button until we get over to the podium to see who was standing there.

I could see the guy probably thinking that it would take a couple of minutes for somebody to get over to him and he probably remembered that he needed to get a water bottle and thought he could grab the water bottle and then come back to the podium before anyone got to him....

I could see that happening.

But still. If you press a button....it's a good idea to stay by the button.

-Sarnic Dirchi

Time Frame

Gotta love it when I can guesstimate right.

As I needed to come into the store today after we closed in order to participate in our annual animal count. 

And I guesstimated that it would take me and my coworkers around 2.5 hours to count everything and input it into the computer.

I was right. 

So ha!

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Logo

We had a customer come up to the register wanting to know if we carried masks with the store's logo/name on them because the customer saw one of my cashiers wearing a mask with our store name on it.

And like...I see people walk into our store all the time wearing masks with other store's names or logos on them. But I have always assumed that those wearing those masks work for the store shown on the mask.

Like I can see why people would want to support stores that they like by wearing merch with their names on it. 

At the same time...it's weird. I could see it for a sports team or a specific college or something along those lines.

But wearing merch for a retail store? I don't understand why people would want to.

I mean yes we do sell masks and people do buy them to wear them...but none of them have our logo on them to my knowledge...or if they do it's rather small and not noticeable. 

Maybe the dude was wanting to add to his collection of masks?

Who knows.

Though I can see why stores wouldn't want to have their names visible on masks that don't belong to their workers. 

Especially with all the protests and civil unrest and political events happening this year. I don't think any store would want their name shown to be worn by an individual if an event the individual was in were to end up public or headline news. 

I can see stores wanting to tread carefully that way. So as to not appear to take sides one way or the other in various things.

But yah...I don't think the guy ended up buying any of the masks we did sell....

-Sarnic Dirchi