From the Past

 So it was back in the early days of the pandemic. 

I'm guessing around April or Mayish? Who knows. 

But early days of the pandemic.

When I helped a customer in the store. Who was looking to start up a fish tank and needed to know 'all the things" in order to take good care of their fish. 

Which really, I don't mind telling customers 'all the things' lol though I know that most of them can't handle that much infodumping at once. But I do what I can to set up the customers up for success....and it's up to them on whether or not they decide to heed my advice.

And this particular customer halfway did? I think? If I remember right.

I remember them being rather excited about getting fish. And I think they might have added a bit too many at once....though I'm not certain on that. I remember mostly hearing from my coworkers that this customer had come into the store again to get more fish.

But I can't remember the exact timeline of it. Though I feel like it was every third day or so.

In any case.

The customer really got into their fish tank. Wanting it to look cool and make the fish happy and have all the 'cool' ones and such.

And then....after like maybe a month of this? Ish? idk.

The customer just kinda...vanished.

As many are libel to do. As once a tank settles it's pretty easy to maintain it after that point.

But today...like 8-10 months later.

The customer came into the store again. 

And truthfully, i didn't recognize them as they'd changed their hair and such and it wasn't until they gave me contextual clues that i was able to piece together how this customer seemed familiar and why I would have interacted with them in the store.

lol. They specifically came up to me today to thank me for getting them into their new obsession.

Which is fun. To bring joy to people and help them find a new hobby/project/petowningexperience that they enjoy. 

Lol and the customer was like "Because of you, I've spent like an extra $300 on my tank/fish!"

^^;; Heh. Yah....it's kinda hard to stop once you start.

But I'm glad that around a year later they're still finding joy in their tank. ^^;; That's a great thing to hear.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Lost and Found

I found a wallet in the store today.

Just laying there. In the middle of the aisle. 

My guess is that it probably fell out of the customer's pocket when they bent down or crouched or something.

But with no one around....I was like "whelp, go better put this in the office."

When I had a lightbulb moment.

Like hey. I have a phone on me that connects to our intercom system. What if I just look in the wallet to find the person's I.D. and then call them to the front?

It's brilliant!

lol and that's exactly what I did. I got on the phone and called the person to come up to register one.

Unfortunately....No one came.

Which wasn't that surprising. Like they could have left the store.

Or you know...ignored the overhead announcement.

As no one really ever listens to those anyways.

So I had to track the customer down the old fashion way.

Hunt through the aisles for someone who looked similar to the picture on their i.d. and then ask them if their name was "name." 

Thankfully, I was able to find the customer as they hadn't left the store yet and we were able to return their wallet to them.

So yay! Success!!

Though part of me still wishes that my original idea of using the intercom worked lol.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Sunday Bombshell

So...I have this...I don't know? Quirk?

Where if I don't quite know how to process something...or if I don't want to process us something...

I don't end up writing/blogging.

Because I use writing to process my thoughts.

And it's hard to want to write when I don't know my full thoughts on it.

Hence my relative silence this past week.

Because I've been struggling on just how to...well process things.

You see.

On Sunday my family and I met up for our monthly family dinner. 

It was the normal sort of affair...

Until dinner was nearly done and Daddoo announced that he'd gotten engaged. 

Which. 

Honestly. 

I thought he was just joking at first.

Because while I knew he has been dating again. I didn't think he'd been that serious with anyone quite yet. 

Like there has been one person he's mentioned more often. And when I have spoken to him he's talked about trying to decide if he wants to marry them or not and the pros and cons and such.

But if marriage was in the cards....I was expecting it to happen later in the year. That he would propose at the earliest in the summer. But more likely towards the fall.

Instead.

He tells us that he's gotten engaged and proposed to this woman on Valentine's Day. 

The kicker though?

Is that NONE of us kids have MET her yet.

Like I've seen pictures of her as she did fly out to spend a week with Daddoo a few months ago. But she was just 'a friend' then and I didn't meet her. Only my Brother did and albeit that was only like a two second meeting as he'd come over to mow grandma's yard and my Dad and his friend happened to be there.

And here Dad is telling us he's engaged to her.

And it's just left us all reeling.

As again. We don't know this lady. We don't know her.

It's like that bad movie trope where the Dad sits his kids down one day and says "Hi kids, I'm getting married to a lady you've never met! Learn to love her okay?!"

Like.... who does that in real life?

Apparently my Dad does. XP 

Like I figured Dad would be getting remarried at some point. All of us kids have actually thought it would be good for him.

But I think we also all believed he would go about it the 'normal' way.

Aka. Bring the woman over to meet the family. Have her start to hang out with us for family get togethers. Maybe take a trip together. And then gather us kids around to let us know he's planning to propose and see if we're okay with it before he does so.

He didn't.

No it was "Hey, I proposed to this woman who is a complete stranger and we're getting married, but if you're not okay with that we'll totally call it off because we want your approval."

Like....how can we approve of something if we don't KNOW the person?

*exhales*

And let me set this straight.

My siblings and I are happy for Dad. We don't mind at all that he's getting married. We're looking forward to welcoming his new wife into our family. This is a change we will happily accept.

What we aren't happy about is the fact he just bombshelled this on us with basically little warning. No heads up. No meet and greet. Nothing. Just WHAM "I'm engaged." XP

And his excuse was "Oh we were only friends until recently, and she lives out of state she can't really drop by to visit."

Well there's these things called Phones? There's Face timing? There's ways we could have met her before this point.

But no.

We hear this lady's voice for the first time Sunday night not 15 minutes after Dad tells us he's engaged to her.

And she's apparently going to fly out next month for us to 'get to know her' before the wedding in a couple of months. 

But yah.

To say my siblings and I are still in shock is a bit of an understatement.

I don't think this is how any of us pictured how it would go.

And it hurts in many different ways. Ways I can't fully vocalize.

Like if you really value your kids opinion? Why not ask us FIRST and the propose later?

What's this cloak and dagger sort of interaction?

Why say "Hey we're getting married but if you don't want that to happen we won't do it." Like....how can you say that? How can you dangle marriage in front of a woman like that and then go "but if my kids don't like you we can't do it." that doesn't seem fair to her. Doesn't seem fair to us.

It's just....a bit of a mess.

And I did end up having a bit of a...I don't know...a blow up? At my Dad today through text because I needed to let him know that how he did this wasn't okay. It's not okay to hide relationships from your kids. Like this lady is going to be a part of our lives now. We're going to be interacting with her constantly when we gather for family things. We should have known earlier that you were getting more serious. That you wanted her to be your wife. There should be open communication with your kids. And you should definitely NEVER just surprise them with a life changing event like that.

It doesn't matter that all of us are grown and have moved out of the house.

It's a change in all of our lives and we should be made aware of the fact earlier so that we could get to know her first. 

*exhales*

Dad and I did end up smoothing things out and he did apologize to all of us about how he's gone about things and has promised to be better.

But yah.

It's probably going to take me a bit longer to process everything still.

Again. I'm happy he's getting married. And I can't wait to welcome his wife into our family.

I just wish our introduction to her had gone differently. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Nighttime Deaths

 So.

You know the other day where I said I'd gotten some goldfish for my Daddoo....and one of them ended up losing an eye within 24 hours of me buying it and placing it in my tank?

And then I like...separated the fish out into a little breeder net...you know....just to make sure the fish could recover and be safe?

And I was like...debating about whether or not to keep the fish?

Well...an...update....on that.

So. Wednesday.

I had the day off. Would be home all day.

Figured that would be a good day to place the One-Eyed Goldfish back in with the rest of my fish. As I could monitor it throughout the day and make sure that no other fish were picking on it. 

And for all appearances. 

Things were fine.

Until I turned off the light apparently.

Because Thursday...after I got home from work...and turned on the fish lights...

What did I find? 

The One-Eyed Goldfish had died.

*exhales* :( :( :( :(

Beh. I thought it had been doing just fine in the tank! But perhaps I tried to reintroduce it too early? Perhaps there's just a fish somewhere in my tank that gets aggressive at night? Who knows.

In any case.

I learned my lesson. If I get another fish injured...not gonna put it in my tank again. 

And since I was still within the guarantee at my work...I returned the poor dead fish back and exchanged it for a Black Moor Goldfish for my Daddoo as he said if there weren't any other more unique colored goldfish available that he'd want a Black Moor instead. The darkest one I could find.

Which pressure there. Who knows if the one I actually ended up picking out is 'dark enough' but at least the fish has all it's fins and is a nice solid color soooo here's hoping that Daddoo likes it.

And I wasn't planning to put that goldfish in the main tank, no I was planning to keep the new black moor in the little breeder net box in the tank along with the two other tiny goldfish Daddoo had had me buy originally.

Which would leave two of the oranda goldfish for my Daddoo and the one oranda goldfish I bought for myself still freely swimming around my tank for me to catch later on. 

So. I get the Black Moor Goldfish home right?

Put it in it's little breeder area so I could keep him separate.

And then I proceeded to look in my tank for the other three oranda goldfish freely swimming around my tank.

....Only to discover the half eaten corpse of one of them sitting on the bottom.

Another one of Daddoo's fish had been killed during the night! 

GAH.

Like....obviously I have a goldfish killer in my tank...but at the same time I'm so confused as to how I have a goldfish killer in my tank because before buying these fish for my Daddoo I already had 4 goldfish in my tank. A regular Comet, an Oranda, A Black Moor, and a Ryukin.

Like...they've all been doing just dandy. The comet and oranda have been in my tank for like...a good year and half...two years now? It's been a while. And the other two have been at least...six months to a year? So again it's been a while. 

And within a week I suddenly have 2 of the new smaller orandas die?

It's fishy.

Like...at the same time I did add in some more dwarf gouramis and danios to increase the schools there.

But neither one of those fish are known to be aggressive to my other fish...they tend to focus on their individual schools and picking on each other. Not on other fish.

And yes....I do have Angelfish, Bala Sharks, and some Bolivian Rams within my tank as well....but again....I haven't seen them picking on my other fish.

*exhales*

I'm just...confused.

I'm guessing that the fish just sensed those two weren't....healthy? Injured in some way? Sick? Who knows...and just...went after them?? 

It's frustrating because here I am trying to do something nice for my Daddoo and get him his fish while the weather was bad and keep them for him until the weather is good and we can meet up....and now two of his fish have died.

XP 

I wasn't about to let a third happen, so I pulled the two remaining orandas--Daddoo's last and the one I bought for myself out of the main tank and placed them too into the breeder net for safety until I can get them all over to Daddoo's.

Even the one I bought for me.

Because if something is killing my orandas...I'm not letting them get the last two. Nope nope.

But because I lost one of Daddoo's orandas...that meant I needed to replace that one as well.

And I knew the fish shipment should be arriving in the store today. Should have been there first thing in the morning. So i figured I could just nip on over, return the second dead fish, and then pick out a new oranda for Daddoo and he wouldn't ever know.

Unfortunately.

The truck had been delayed longer than expected....and so was still a couple of valleys away from us with no firm timeline on when it would actually be in the store. XP Foo.

So I had to call Daddoo and ask what he wanted, as the remaining goldfish I had were the boring orange ones and he's been looking for some more unique coloration.

We basically agreed that he would take in my goldfish I had bought for me....and then I would keep an eye out for more unique coloration in the fish when they come in. 

So yah....

It's been a bit of an adventure this past week with my tank. XP 

But now I know.

Not a good idea to add anymore goldfish in at this time. I'll stick with other fish. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Slosh Slosh

You see all types of people come into the store to get food and things for their pets.

And some of them have quite the interesting...quirks....sometimes. Things that make them memorable. Especially when said quirk is experienced every single time the customer comes into the store...and the customer is a regular.

We have this one customer, who has a very picky cat. One that apparently only likes to drink the gravy from the cat cans that the customer buys, but doesn't eat the actual food within the can.

....Like...it's kinda concerning that the cat apparently only drinks the gravy...that can't be healthy in the long term...and I kinda want to suggest the customer maybe try a different type of cat food wet or dry....but at the same time...I feel like I would be walking down the rabbit hole in trying to do that.

In any case.

This customer ends up calling our store like once a week to check and see if the particular brand and flavor of cat cans their kitty likes is in stock. 

Which they tend to be the 'chunky' cat food with "Extra Gravy."

The Extra Gravy is important.

And the customer almost always has us set aside the cans that they want. 

And it wouldn't be a big deal if it were a simple set it to the side and let the customer grab it to buy it sort of thing.

But the customer has to make it more complicated.

In the fact that they insist on shaking every single can and listening to the sloshing sounds inside to make sure that there's enough 'gravy' in there.

....Maybe the customer should just try looking for broths instead....idk.

But yah the customer will spend a good twenty minutes or so just shaking cans and only buying the ones that are 'sloshy' enough. 

At one point they tried to have one of my managers do it for them so the cans would be ready when the customer got to the store.

But like...we don't just sit around all day shaking cat cans and listening to the sloshing sounds. We would have no idea what the 'right' type of sound would be for that. *shakes head*

So instead the customer has us set aside the cat cans so that they can come in and check the cans themselves. 

*exhales*

It seems like an exhausting way to try and feed your pet....but hey...I suppose if it works for them....you can't complain much about it.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Back of the Line

 It's one of those moments where I don't know if there was a 'right' answer to the situation.

It was the end of my shift.

Technically I could have just clocked out. But I noticed that there was quite the line forming and since my fellow manager was only just walking back into the store from their lunch break, and my other associate on the floor was busy helping customers at the fish wall...

It was up to me to back up cashier.

Which I did in the hopes that I could get the line down and under control so I could go home.

As I was walking up to the register to backup I noticed a family hovering between register one and two. 

They'd been around the store for a while, gathering products for a fish tank and talking about types of fish they wanted and if they should wait to get fish until after they finished shopping at Walmart or if they should get the fish now and then go shopping at Walmart. 

-I was rooting for them to go shopping first. Fish don't do well when left in a car. Especially with how cold it's been. 

In any case. They'd been looking at stuff between the registers when I came up to shorten the line.

And as I called the next customer over, I did note which customers were next.

The family...didn't look to be in a line. 

Though they did move towards the original line by register one...they were quickly redirected by the customers already waiting there.

They ended up hovering along the treats. Creating a 'branch' in the line where they were also 'in line' but...were not in the main line. 

And as I finished checking out the customer I had called over, the family moved to go be the next in line.

Again. From what I'd seen, they hadn't actively been in a line before I came over to back up.

It looked like they were looking at product and such, not waiting to check out.

So I told them, "I'm sorry, but there are other customers before you."

As I've gotten the stink eye and angry customer sent my way before when someone had cut the line and us at the registers hadn't noticed. 

I was trying to prevent that from happening by ensuring that the family would get in the line and wait their actual turn and try not to jump up. 

I never actually saw them check out though.

I saw them disappear around the corner to get in the main line. 

But after that point I kinda kept my head down, hoping that they would end up at the other register when they did come to check out.

As I really didn't want the mother or any of the other family members getting mad at me for not letting them cut in line. I didn't want to get yelled at. 

I never saw them go through though.

And the line must have gotten longer than I thought. Because people kept coming and coming and coming. 

I ended up calling up the other manager to be our third cashier to just get the line moving faster. 

Like it was 15 minutes I was standing at the register, helping customer after customer after customer. 

So it was quite the rush considering we had 3 people at the registers at that point.

But at one point I looked up and noticed that there was a cart left off to the side with a tank in it.

The tank that I'd seen the family with earlier.

Though I was certain that there had been other products in the cart with the tank....it was just the tank that was left....

So I don't know if they ended up deciding to only get the tank and then abandoned it.

Or if they abandoned the tank but went through a different register to buy everything out.

I'm leaning towards the former really. They decided not to wait in line and left.

Who knows if they planned to come back or not..... :S :S :S

If they did...hopefully they weren't mad....I did give my closing manager a heads up about the situation just in case they did return and complained. 

However...

There was the thing where they were planning to go to Walmart. 

As I was planning to go to Walmart too after work. As I needed to get groceries.

Which meant there was a possibility I would run into the family again there.

I definitely didn't want that to happen. Like...you don't want to have a family yelling at you in the store about something that happened in a different store. 

So I made sure to cover my work uniform with my jacket, and pulled my hair down from it's ponytail just to try and distance myself from the look I'd had at work. 

Thankfully....I didn't see the family at Walmart.

And if they saw me...they probably didn't recognize me.

But yah.....kinda a stressful end to the day. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Holiday Traffic

 It's one of those days where the stormy weather did little to discourage customers from coming into the store.

Probably because the snow storm occurred on a holiday where most people had the day off of work and school.

And holidays always mean more customers in the store. 

So despite the snow constantly falling outside.

We had a pretty constant flow of customers coming and going.

Which made it overall managable.

Though at one point I had four people who decided they all needed help in my department at the same time.

One family wanted a hamster.

Another wanted a guinea pig.

Yet another wanted a bird.

And the last needed some crickets. 

*shakes head*

Honestly, I'll never understand how people manage all needing help at the same time.

But at least we were able to help them all as I was able to get another coworker over to assist me despite a slight delay. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves. 
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Is This A Sign?

 You ever have something happen in your life and you wonder if it's a 'sign' of something?

So yesterday I bought fish for me and Daddoo right?

Thought I was being rather clever in ensuring that he wouldn't be risking his life driving down in a snow storm and that I would be able to give him his fish in a few days once the weather cleared up along with me getting my own fish?

Seemed like an overall win win situation.

Until this afternoon.

This afternoon when I looked at one of my Daddoo's goldfish that had earlier been swimming around just find in the tank with no issues. 

And realized there was an issue.

Because this goldfish...was now missing an eye.

*exhales*

From what I can guess...is that maybe it happened when I was feeding my fish. And perhaps one of the larger fish got too close to the goldfish with it's mouth while trying to eat flakes and well...sucked out this goldfish's eyeball. 

I'm pretty sure it's an accident as I haven't seen my fish get aggressive to anyone. Sure, some of the smaller ones have their moments....but the bigger ones? Since my angelfish aren't a breeding pair....there's no reason for them to attack any of the fish.

Though I did have to separate out said goldfish into a smaller net breeder I had handy as the injury was fresh enough that the other fish were beginning to sense the 'blood in the water' -even though there was none- and pick on it. 

Which leaves me with quite the dilemma....

As my Daddoo is rather....particular about his goldfish. As he used to breed them when he was younger. So he wants them to have particular coloring and have a certain amount of fins and such. 

Having a one eyed goldfish? Yah. I already knew he wouldn't go for it even before texting him an update.

Which my store does have a guarantee on our fish. So I could just return the goldfish and exchange it for another. 

Which despite my misgivings about returning it and having the fish go to a customer that won't take care of it...I already know that I can't keep the fish in my big tank. Not when I had to already separate it out to keep it from being picked on.

And I don't really have the space to set up another tank just for that goldfish....

So yah...I may just end up returning it....though I am waiting a couple of days because the fish seems to be in a bit of shock...and if it doesn't recover it might pass away anyways.....We'll see.

It's just kinda depressing really...to have this really pretty fish and then all of a sudden...it's missing an eye. 

*exhales*

To have it happen on Valentine's Day no less. 

To have it happen when I'm alone in the house. No roomies. No family. No dates. Just me and my computer.....

It does make me wonder if it's a sign of something....though honestly I'm not sure what a goldfish loosing it's eye on Valentine's day could be a sign of....

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Some New Fish

 So last night we got in our fish shipment.

But because of how busy we were and the fact that I needed to leave as soon as the fish were in their tanks...I didn't get a real good look at them.

But today I had plenty of time to do so. As the snow storm had actually encouraged less traffic in our stores rather than more. 

Which pros and cons to that as I did end up spending most of my shift trying to find things to do to keep me distracted and whittle away the time. 

And for the past...I don't know? Month or so? My Daddoo has asked to keep me updated on what sort of Oranda Goldfish we got into the store as he was looking to add some 'unique' ones into his tank.

Aka anything that wasn't plain orange lol. 

Unfortunately, it ended up being a 'shortage' time with the goldfish as we went a good month or so without getting any orandas in...or if we did get them in...they were plain orange. 

However.

Yesterday we'd gotten in a bunch of orandas in. Ones that actually had some different patterns to them. 

The problem?

It was snowing/raining quite hard throughout the day.

And I had no desire to have my dad risk himself driving down to my work to grab fish. As there are some rather...tricky parts of the freeway between him and me that are well known to have issues especially in snowy weather.

Which...I could have just kept quiet. Not told him that we actually got some orandas in this week since every other Friday we hadn't.

Yet at the same time, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

So.

I ended up texting him some pictures of the fish. Telling him that I would buy the ones he wanted and place them in my tank at home until the weather got better and he could come down and grab them. 

He was game and after a bit of back and forth he ended up picking out five goldfish that he wanted me to get for him.

I ended up pulling them out of the tank -didn't want other customers to buy them- and placed them in the back where I would be able to keep an eye on them and make sure that they were doing okay.

And since I was already buying fish... ^^;; I ended up getting a few fish of my own. One of them was a burntorange colored crowntail betta, another was an oranda goldfish of my own that I liked the shade of orange on, and then I got some dwarf gouramis and danios of various colors. 

So yah. ^^;; Quite the haul I took home tonight lol. Hopefully I didn't over strain my tank. :S But since the goldfish shouldn't be in there for too long it should be okay overall. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Delayed

Friday. The day of Fish. The Day when our Fish Shipment is supposed to come in on our truck.

But...because of the pandemic and who knows what circumstances. Our trucks are no longer as reliable as they once were in when they deliver said truck.

Before the pandemic we used to be able to plan when the truck would arrive. -Usually in the morning- and schedule accordingly.

But that all went out the window a while ago.

And now the truck kinda just shows up....whenever. And despite us having the ability to track the progress of our trucks online and see when they're estimated to arrive....we usually don't know until the day of whether or not our truck will show up in the morning...or the afternoon...or in the evening....or not until Saturday.

Today was one of those days.

Where the truck was scheduled to come in around lunch time...but we then later saw it delayed until five or so. 

Did we know the reason for the delay?

Nope. No idea.

Which is usually the case as the company usually doesn't have the foresight -or care- to inform us why our truck has been delayed.

No. Usually it's the truck drivers that end up contacting us and letting us know the reason why they're not yet at our store. 

Today was such a day.

Where around lunch time the truck driver called and informed me that she had showed up yesterday morning to our DC to pick up our trailer...only to find that 'something' wasn't working.

No idea what that 'something' was. As she kinda garbled herself when she was trying to explain why she wasn't yet there. But she ended up sitting at the DC practically all day yesterday before they managed to fix it towards sunset. 

Which has to be frustrating expecting to show up and perform a job....only to find out you can't do it because 'something' is broken and needs to be fixed before you can hook up your semi to the trailer to brig it over to us.

And so the truck driver took off, headed towards us and drove as long as she was legally able to --as the truck drivers can only drive so far before they are mandated to stop and rest for a certain period of time before continuing--

Only to come out this morning and discover....that she had broken down again. And had to once again spend the first half of the day at the mechanics waiting for them to fix the issue and that she wasn't sure when she would be getting to our store.

Which gets kinda tricky because if she were to arrive after 7pm we wouldn't be able to unload the truck as we'd be down to one manager and there wouldn't be enough coverage for them to spend twenty minutes off the floor unloading a truck while the cashier and the petcare person tried to help customers.

It doesn't usually work that way. 

It was also slightly worrisome because again...this was our FISH truck. And like...having dealt with a frozen truck a couple weeks ago where the fish bags were a freezing 46 degrees and we lost like 900 fish....I was very concerned we were once again going to have a dead fish shipment. 

However. 

The fish were safe. 

The truck driver managed to make it to us around 5pm and we were able to unload the truck.

Though due to us having to deal with quite the Friday Night rush of customers in the store...it ended up taking us a good couple of hours to unload all the fish because we kept getting interrupted.

And I ended up staying half an hour late past my shift just to ensure that all the fish were put into the tanks before I left. 

But yah....crazy day. 

I'm grateful that the truck driver was willing to call us and let us know what was going on though. That way we could create a plan on what to do when she did come in and work on it from there. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

To The Shop

 The problem with being an introvert, is that after a full week of having to do customer service...my willingness to interact with other people goes way down.

To the point where I just want to go home and hermit for a month straight. 

As any interaction with a person takes energy. 

And I don't have a high battery for that. So I'm often left drained after work and it takes a lot of willpower to actually go anywhere but home after my shift ends. 

Which means I tend to put off doing errands and such until I absolutely need to do them.

It doesn't help at all, that with the pandemic, I'm rather leery of being around people constantly.

And having to constantly deal with anti-maskers and people wearing masks improperly at my job...

It's hard to want to go face that in other public places too.

Especially when previous experiences show that the places I want to go to or need to go to...have their own fair share of people who can't wear masks properly.

It's stressful having to be on guard all the time. 

In any case...last night I finally gathered up the courage/willpower to schedule an appointment to take my car in and get it checked.

As for the past little while...probably a good two or three months now if not longer.

I've noticed that the 'smoothness' of my drive has gone down.

Going certain speeds I could see my car wobbling back and forth.

Which meant that there had to be an alignment issue with my tires. 

But I'd also noticed that when braking there was a bit more ...'jumping' with my brakes. 

Like I was braking just fine. The car just felt like how an airplane feels when it's coming into land. 

And while it's not bad. It has gotten more noticeable as time has passed. 

So I went online and after some time psyching myself up...scheduled an appointment to get my brakes checked -just in case as I didn't believe anything was majorly wrong with them- and then to get my tires rotated and my alignment adjusted. 

I suppose it's slightly less scary to schedule it online rather than try and call or just drop by.

Though normally I would have just dropped by. 
However, I was using a different place than normal to try them out, and with the pandemic...I'm not sure if they switched anything in procedure and such.

Though this particular place had helped me out before when I just showed up. 

Still. Since this was a more 'major' fix than a minor one. I figured it would be safer to schedule an appointment.

*shakes head*

I don't know why I scheduled lol. The people were like ??? "Why you here?" when I showed up. lol. I told them I had an appointment and they were like ??? "Huh?" lol they went to check and yep. I had an appointment.

And then they were like "Which car is yours?" after like ten minutes....like I didn't put that into the appointment and the fact that I told them -I'm pretty sure I did- when I came in which car was mine. 

Silly silly.

In any case. 

They said that the brakes appear fine. Though when they were rotating the tires around they noticed that one of the bolts on the front left tire that is part of the braking system had snapped off.

It's not a major 'need to fix it right now!' sort of thing since there's 4 total bolts holding the thing in place. 

However. It's not an 'easy' fix either.

As apparently you have to take apart the entire apparatus in order to fix the bolt. 

Ha...yah...that means more money. 

Which would have been useful as after I explained some of the symptoms I was experiencing when braking, they also said that my brake rotors were warped. They could see hot spots and such on them.

Again. Not a 'need to fix right now!" sort of issue.

And again...it's not an easy fix thing either. Having to take apart more of the brake system and such.

But if I did replace the rotors then they could also replace the bolt at the same time.

Still...

I wasn't quite certain how much I would be spending...so I had them hold off and such until I knew how much the rest of the thing was gonna be.

I'm guessing the tire rotation didn't cost anything? As they didn't mention a cost for that. 

But the alignment. Yah my tires were not aligned. They'd become a bit duck footed, facing in to each other.

Which is a change from the last time I got my tires aligned when they were facing out and away from each other. 

But they didn't mention anything else wrong so woot!

And while I could afford to do the alignment and the rotor replacement...

I decided to just do the alignment for now.

Because I wanted to see how much fixing the alignment changed the driving for the better.

No use fixing multiple potential problems if only one of them was the issue.

And while I know the rotors need to be replaced at some point. 

It appears that fixing my alignment has solved most of the major issues.

I can feel that driving is smoother. Even if it still gets a bit bumpy at times...it's hard to tell driving in the city streets when you're being super aware of everything lol.

I'll probably notice for sure when I'm doing freeway speeds and then slowing down for the exit. 

Still.

It feels good to have my old car running smoother again. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Pale

 So this morning I was doing my usual opening tasks. Getting the animals fed and such.

And happened to drop by the office area where a couple of the other managers and coworkers had gathered around one of the dog food reps. 

As he'd brought us donuts (yay food bribe) and was talking about the best time for him to drop by so he could teach people more about the food brand he was representing. 

I had paused to listen to the conversation to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. 

And like...I had my hands up near my chest. Just kinda holding them, not really doing anything with them.

When my head manager was like "Sarnic! Are you okay? Your hands are really pale?" 

O_o??

Huh?

I glanced down at my hands...and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. 

As I am...on the paler side in general...especially right now in the middle of the winter when I don't see the sun as much.

But apparently where I was standing under the white lights and by a white wall...I guess my hands looked even paler than normal??

Pale enough that everyone else jumped on board the 'concern train' and wanted to make sure I was okay.

*shakes head* lol.

Overall yah. I'm fine. Just dealing with some sore muscles and the like. 

But nothing overall concerning health wise. 

So weird that they chose to notice my pale skin at that moment. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

A New Endcap

 So for the past couple of months we have been expecting to get in our bug endcap. Where we'll have all the bugs together in one place.

Which we had most of it installed this past weekend. Which included the shelving and the little mini fridge to store the worms that need to be refrigerated in. 

But the main piece we were missing was the new cricket bin that would come in to also go on the endcap. 

It's a...two in one? Sort of bin.

As our current set up as two separate bins on either side of our fish podium. 

But the new one will be one big bin...with a divider within it to separate the large crickets from the small ones. 

It's also nice because the new cricket bin will come with a mini sliding tray where we can sweep the dead crickets down a hole and then pull the tray out and dump that tray.

So that's gonna be nice.

And this nice new bin.

Finally. Came. In. Today. 

Now we just need to install the thing onto the shelf.

Which really could be easy...except the thing needs to apparently be bolted in? Something like that.

Which one of the other managers said that they were gonna do that...but I won't know if it's actually been bolted in and put into place until tomorrow when I go into work.

But when the cricket bin is all set up and such.....

We get the 'fun' task of having to clean out the old cricket bins and then take them down. So they're not part of our fish podium anymore.

Which that's gonna be so weird to see our podium without the crickets on them anymore.

At the same time.

It's annoying. Because I. Just. Cleaned. Those. Bins. Like two weeks ago.

And I knew when I cleaned them as part of our cleaning procedure that I would have to clean them again....

So yah. Not looking forward to that. *exhales.*

We'll see how it goes though.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Lone Truck

 So there we were. 

Done early for the night.

For once. 

Me and my coworkers were heading out to our cars, calling it a night. Ready to go home. 

And as we all got into our vehicles.

This white pick up truck with a blue triangle emblem on the side pulls up.

It parks diagonally in our curbside pick up slots. Turns off its lights.

And just sits there. 

The driver makes no effort to leave the truck. It's unknown if there's anyone inside with them.

And like...it's not unusual to occasionally have a car pull into the lot because they thought we were still open.

But this person didn't leave their truck.

I drove away along with my coworkers...but it didn't like leaving that truck alone in the lot.

So I circled around the block. 

The truck was still there as I passed.

I parked in a parking lot nearby where I could see the truck, but not be obvious about it.

No one moved. No one got out of the truck. It just sat there.

Twenty minutes. Nothing.

So after updating my Head Manager, and getting a quick picture of the vehicle just in case....I called it a night and headed home.

After all, we did set the alarm for the building before we left. So if anyone tries to break in and doesn't turn off the alarm in a set time frame...the police would be right there. 

And since I received no texts from the alarm company or my head manager about a break in...

My guess is the person in the car was just stopping by for a break.

Still. The timing was really weird....so very weird.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

Switch It Out Take Apart

So a bit ago. Like probably three years? Maybe longer? We had a new UV sterilizer system installed behind our fishwall. 

And I knew that the UV bulbs within the system needed to be changed out every now and then.

Which seemed to be every 6 months?? Yet there's also a thing saying it's only like...once every three years?

In any case.

I had no idea how to change the UV bulbs. I was never shown how with the new system. I knew the basic mechanics of it.

And people kept saying that they'd show me how to do it, or we'd figure it out together. 

Only for it to never happen. 

We kept receiving in new UV bulbs to replace the old....

But they just sat there.

And one by one the lights showing that the UV system was working...went out. Until none were lit.

But this year.

Corporate is having us do all these 'deep clean' tasks.

One of them being that we needed to switch out the UV bulbs and write down on a paper when they were last switched.

Which meant figuring out just how to do that.

Like I said. I knew the mechanics of how to do it.

And Saturday before I left for the day, me and my other manager figured out how to take apart at least one of the sleeves so that we could pull the bulb out and hook it back up again so that that manager could then work on switching out the rest of them yesterday during work.

However, that manager and one of our coworkers only managed to change out half of them.

Because they were struggling to connect the bulbs back in once they were switched.

It was only as this manager was working on switching the rest of the bulbs today that they discovered an easier way to ensure that all the bulbs were hooked up and working.

But.

Like I said at the top. This UV system is new compared to the rest of the mechanics behind the fish wall. 

And so...it doesn't quite....fit. 

There were three bulbs that were difficult to get out because various components of the older system were in the way. 

-Which is another reason they probably haven't been changed in years....it's not an easy process to replace all those bulbs. 

two of those three bulbs we managed to wiggle out without breaking them. Woot!

But the third?

No way. It was blocked from either direction.

And so we ended up having to take apart part of the older system which was a trial and a half in of itself because the bolts holding that particular piece were firmly held in place. It took far more effort than it should to get that part unhooked and far enough away from the bulb in order to pull it out. 

BUT! We got the bulb out. So HA.

Still. Far more effort than it was worth.

And in the end...two of the bulbs still didn't work. XP Beh. 

So we'll have to figure out what's wrong with that part of the system.

But at least we know how to take apart everything so that we can replace the bulbs as they go out.

Hopefully that's not anytime soon though. It was a pain.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves. 
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi