While I am well aware that today marks the tenth anniversary of me starting this blog....I actually didn't have the energy to write out a blog post today. I was just...left soooo drained by the end of the day that I just...didn't want to write.
So this post, while it says was posted on the 9th. Was actually written a couple of days later, when I finally got the energy back to work on my poor blogs that I've been neglecting.
But since my yearly update anniversary post usually involves numbers and such...I figured I should do the actual blogaversary post in 'real time' aka a couple of posts after this one so that the numbers and such I usually rattle off will be more accurate. ^^;;
In any case. Besides today being my blogaversary....
Today was hard guys.
So hard.
Like, I didn't expect it to be such a hard day.
But it was. I ended up getting so drained because of the chaos I had to deal with at work.
Drained physically, emotionally, mentally.
It was a bad day today.
So bad.
I think I over did it. I gave too much and got too little back in return.
And like the day started off well enough.
Well enough considering that we were expecting our District Manager to come visit, so I was opening with that visit in mind. Making sure that all the ts and is were dotted and crossed.
-The DM never showed up. It sounded like they were dealing with the stores in the next valley over...the ones that got affected by the windstorm we had the day before and were still working to get back into a functional working order.
In any case---that's it's own energy drain preparing for a DM visit that doesn't occur.
But I'm pretty sure it was the customers that did me in.
And like usually I can handle things.
I'm quite used to having to run the department by myself and help customers by myself and try and get opening done by myself.
But today...it was just rough.
I think because I had nightmare customer after nightmare customer after nightmare customer.
Where they were difficult in their own ways.
Perhaps I even came into work in the wrong frame of mind as I was irritated already by super slow drivers on my way into work.
But the customers themselves...
Yah it's hard to not get drained when you have twenty minute interactions with needy customer after needy customer after needy customer.
Like it started with the lady who wanted crickets. Large crickets even though I told her right as she asked that I was out of large and only had small available.
And instead of being like "Hey give me 76 small crickets" decided to be a pain and say "Give me $5 worth of crickets" Which lady, I don't want to have to math that early in the morning either, why are you making me do it?
Especially when she wasn't satisfied with the 36 small crickets I gave her because that's $5 worth and wanted the 76. Like if you wanted 76 just say so.
But I had other customers after that. Ones that were indecisive on fish. Ones that needed me to lead them by the hand and repeat myself multiple times in regards to getting care for their leopard geckos and bearded dragons. Stupid College boys who wanted sharks but had the wrong set up for them but wouldn't listen at all to what I was saying because they wanted the shark and wouldn't take no for an answer and then had the gall to ask if the fish they picked out would be okay together when I had told them multiple times that long term they probably wouldn't work out.
*exhales*
It was irritating. It was frustrating especially because I still had to finish opening (which I didn't end up doing by the end of the day) and I had no one to come help shoulder the burden so it was me against the world of customers and it...just became too much.
Especially after I had to deal with a crazy old lady and her 'salt water' tank woes.
Which started with her being unable to find the prices on the fish tanks she was looking at because apparently she couldn't be bothered to look at the bottom left part of the shelf to see said price tag.
And then proceeded to dither on which tank she actually wanted to take home before finally halfway deciding on a 65 gallon tank/stand combo we sell.
I was surprised she didn't end up changing her mind honestly after I had my coworkers move it onto a flat cart for her.
But she also needed help with filters so I did my best to suggest ones that could work for her though I wasn't sure how well our filters would work for her saltwater tank since the salt could probably affect the filters...
Which led to this lovely gem of "I don't have salt in my Saltwater tank! It's just water I filter!"
...like...lady if it's a SALTwater tank OF COURSE you're gonna have salt in it.
I didn't ask what type of fish she had. I just dropped the conversation, but I'm guessing she has TROPICAL fish which are WARM water freshwater fish.
But who knows for sure.
I don't. I didn't want to ask and try and figure out what type of fish she actually had.
But I was glad to leave her alone to her own devices after I finished helping her with the filter and the tank.
I actually ended up going on lunch to avoid having to deal with her further as she was being indecisive on potential decorations she wanted to put in her tank and I was already tired of having to deal with her energy as it was not vibing well with mine.
Thankfully she was gone by the time I got back from lunch.
But not for long.
As this customer wanted to try and fit this 65 gallon tank in the back of her Tesla.
Which ha. No. The openings are too narrow to fit that wide of a tank in.
Which she had mentioned having a truck she could bring back....which is what she ended up doing.
Only.
Bad news is that she conveniently showed back up right after the two guys I had on staff had clocked out and left for the day.
She came back in when it was down to just me, the manager, and the cashier.
And she came back WITHOUT HELP.
Meaning that me and the manager had to leave our cashier to try and man the store -which surprise there were problems that arose while we were trying to help the customer get her stupid tank into her truck-
BUT
The main thing about this truck. Besides it being old enough that a neighbor had to jump start it before the customer could drive down here. Is the fact that the bed of the truck wasn't left open to the sky.
No, this truck had one of those caps on it making it appear more like an SUV rather than a truck.
Which no big deal.
The tank is short enough that it would be fine getting it in the bed of the truck.
IF ONLY the bed of the truck was EMPTY.
But Nooooo the customer didn't think to look into the back of her truck before she drove all the way back over here.
And guess what was sitting the back?
This giant metal mattress frame with wooden bedposts.
*exhales*
So my manager and I had to figure out how to get the tank and it's stand into the bed of the truck that already had this metal mattress frame in it and that had a cap on top so we couldn't just fling it on top of the mattress frame.
No I had to make the long trek to the back of the store to grab some pieces of cardboard that we luckily had on hand because we'd just finished working on our truck shipment and hadn't yet put all the debris into the garbage can.
And it was a pain for me and my manager as we're both girls and so lifting a 65 gallon tank and it's stand is NOT the easiest thing.
And place it on the cardboard and try and slide it as deep into the bed of the truck as we could.
Only for the stand to dig into the cardboard and get stuck. So we had to try various lifting techniques to get it not stuck.
And then we had to get the tank in without scratching that in any way.
Which resulted in some jigsawing of the pieces of mattress frame and posts still in said truck, but we managed.
ONLY to discover that the freaking tailgate wouldn't shut because the metal mattress frame was like an INCH too long to sit totally flat in the bed of the truck --which makes sense why it had been angled upwards when we first opened the back of the truck to look inside.
And this customer was ill-prepared to have the tailgate down with tank and mattress frame not blocked off in some manner.
There wasn't even any rope to tie it down. The best the customer had was the jumper cables.
And she was like "Do you have any rope to help tie this down?"
Ha. NO lady we're not a freaking hardware store. We don't CARRY rope for customers. WE carry pet product and even if we had rope I don't think we'd just GIVE it to you.
THANKFULLY the stupid cap on top of the bed of the truck came in handy as it did have these latches where the glass could swing down to meet the tailgate. And those latches could shut without having to have the tailgate up.
So we were able to at least block off the top half of the tank so it couldn't just fall off the back of the truck when the customer drove away.
And after adding a few more pieces of cardboard to the bottom half to try and pad the tank as much as possible with the tailgate down the customer finally finally drove away.
It took us like 20 minutes to get that stupid tank into the bed of the truck.
And I was sore.
I was irritated.
I'm pretty sure I ended up bruising my pointer finger on my left hand as it aches ad there's discoleration there. I did break the nail on the finger tearing a good third of it off at some point during the move.
And of course I didn't have a BREAK after dealing with such a customer.
No I had to drive right back into helping more needy customers who were just draining to deal with.
Needless to say I was not in a good mood when I left work. When I got home. I was drained. So drained that I headed to bed at like 1030 because I was done with the day.
It just...was a hard day.
Harder than expected.
*exhales*
I need a vacation.
Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!
-Sarnic Dirchi
