Oh Look. Another Stressful Day

 *collapses face down onto my bed and screams into a pillow*

Well....today....today has been a day. *exhales*

Like yesterday already had it's own stresses as 

1. I was still coming down from 'ah my car is broken!' stress -the clicking noise went away btw.

2. We had one person leave early and another come late yesterday leaving us short staffed---but i also received a phone call about today's closing petcare shift where the worker wouldn't be able to make it in due to their plane being delayed (as they're just getting back from a trip) due to weather so I had to see if someone could switch shifts with them (they coudl!!) 

3. We were expecting a visit from our Temporary DM today so yesterday, on top of the various stressors, I also had to work to try and make my department look nice and also make sure the ENTIRE store was Faced and ALSO looking nice.

Which led to us not clocking out until our actual clock out time of 10pm last night. -I usually try to get out earlier if possible---

To find out this morning that our closing cashier also called out today and NO other cashiers could come i so my mid manager volunteered to come in a little later so she could stay a litle later into the evening and thankfully our mid cashier of the day was able to stay a couple of hours longer unti close so we HAD the coverage. But it was just stressful knowing we were still short staffed one person....though it was a rather slow day today so yay.

But there was sooooo much other stress placed upon me today too.

Luckily none of it car related so yay for small mercies.

But 1.

The temporary DM visit....well....it went?

Like apparently Core looked great, but Petcare? Petcare 'needs work' *glares into the middle distance* as well as salon. Which okay. Petcare and Salon always have areas of improvement.

But like this dude's .....I just want to strangle him?? Pretty sure he's never worked a day in Petcare in his life.

As his notes of things to 'fix' just basically added more tasks onto our already laden backs. Like...HOW are we supposed to get EVERYTHING done in the TIME FRAME you want us to get it done in when you DON'T GIVE US THE PEOPLE OR THE HOURS TO GET IT DONE IN?!

Like we have two back room areas to hold animals in. One for our new arrivals so that we can make sure the animals are healthy before they come out onto the floor. 

And the other for our 'sick' animals where we can isolate them from other animals until they get better.

And we've been told for years that it needs to be 'hospital clean'

Which okay. We do what we can.

BUT this DM's definition of hospital clean?

He wants us cleaning ALL THE FREAKING SURFACES IN THE ROOM. Every. Single. DAY. 

The walls, the door, the floor, the tables, the freaking paper towl and hand sanitizer dispensors. EVERYTHING needs to be wiped down..

BUT. We can't keep cleaning supplies in the room. Oh no. Those have to remain on a cart. We can't have brooms in the room. We can't have a little thing of drawers to store things in.

No basically the rooms should only hold the cages w/ the animals in them, the medicine with the charts (in the sick room) and like the garbage can.

It's SOOO Stupid. LIke I get it You want to keep the potential of diesese transference down. 

BUT WIPING DOWN THE WALLS?!?!?! Like none of the animlas EVER TOUCH THE WALLS. WE don't even touch the freaking walls beyond like hanging clipboards on hooks!! WHY DO THOSE NEED TO BE CLEANED?!

And like we're not even allowed to have fans in the room to help cool them down. Noooo because they could 'spread disease' which okay fair. But our back rooms are notorious for being difficult to maintain the temperature for. They get too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.

And the DM is like "Well if they don't meet temperature perameters you just need to place in a work order and if you place in enough work orders they'll come install a little unit in the room to get it fixed." 

OR YOU KNOW WE COULD JUST SOLVE THE PROBLEM AND HAVE A FREAKING FAN IN THE ROOM. because corporate is NOTOROIUS for taking forever to fix a thing IF they fix a thing so I don't foresee us ever getting 'mini unit's installed in those rooms. Ever.

And ilke this temp DM has to be a bit OCD and/or germaphobic because he was being sooo nitpicky on things. "This isn't clean enough. This doesn't go there. You can't have this, this also isn't clean enough, you need to be giving more of this."

Just. GRRRRR.

It all had me seeing Red because SERIOUSLY our Normal DM NEVER had a problem with ANY of this and it's just like the dude is creating more work to create more work and I HATE HIM for it. Ugh.

So yah. Not fun times there.

At least the dude finished the visit and LEFT before I came in for my shift because I'm not sure I would have been able to play nice if I'd been dealing with him in person. XP ugh.

In any case.

The rest of work had it's usual crazy with the added "I need to drive to the vet to grab some animals from there" stress. 

BUT ALSO

I got to call the Tech Support line AGAIN.

*exhales* this is like what? The 5th time in as many days? At this point I have to be considered some sort of expert because I've had to take apart so many pieces of the registers over the last handful of days to figure out what's going wrong with them. Ugh.

In any case.

Our new Pinpad for Register 4 arrived today!

And since I'm going to be out the rest of the week, Head manager wanted me to try and get it installed before I left as they really want to have 4 ready for black friday in a couple of weeks.

Which because of the network issues we had in getting 4's computer connected to the network, we'd been instructed to call the tech people FIRST so that we could give them the Pinpad's Mac Address so they could connect the new pinpad to the new network and hopefully save us a lot of 'turn it off and on and off and on and off and on" shenigans..

And having never taken apart a pinpad before....it was rather the interesting experience to get the old one off the mount and put the new one on the mount, but I managed it!!

And that should have been it. According to the first tech guy I spoke too it after he connected it on his end, I should have had it installed without issue on my end.

Ha.

Ha. 

HA.

Nope. I mean at least I put it together correctly so it TURNED ON and WORKED. But after starting up register 4 and getting it up and running...the pin pad only showed a "System Info" screen....and nothing else. 

Which meant ANOTHER call to the tech support line.

Where a DIFFERENT dude helped me to connect the pinpad correctly. Which involved a lot of key tapping on his side and me standing around being useless beyond a 'turn it off now on again' procedure.

BUT we got the pinpad working!!

And with that was the final test run of trying to do a transaction on register 4 to see if it would work.

Which the Transaction worked!!

But the receipt....didn't print out. 

Luckily the Tech dude called back as he said he would check back in and see if it was working....and the printig out the receipt issue was another one of those easy to fix problems.

As 1. half of the cables hadn't been plugged in and after plugging them in we neglected to turn the register off and on again. So that helped but 2.

Apparently the same cartridge that does all the things with the checks....also helps to print out the receipts. And register 4 doesn't have that cartridge in it as we don't have another new one yet to replace it.

BUT I pulled out register 3's cartridge and tested it on register 4's reciept printer and IT WORKED!

So yah. We just need to order in a new cartridge and WALLA!!!! Register 4 will be up and running and ready for black friday! Huzzah! 

*fingers crossed* That that' means the end of me having to call the tech support for register related issues.

At least I know I don't have to worry about it for a few days since I won't be at work. but boy am I glad I won't be at work.

The past three days have been sooooo stressful.

I'm ready for a break.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

Check Please?

 Along with the car drama yesterday....I also gotta have fun with more Work related Register techy calls too.

As Monday was to be the day of me calling the tech people to say "THIS is what is wrong with the check reader on Register 1. Fix It." 

*exhales* 

Like...at least the call didn't take 2 hours this time? No it only took about 20 minutes.

But it is a bit frustrating to have to do all the 'techy move this around' stuff while the dude on the phoen types away at his computer and has me do this and that and the other.

BUT.

We got it figured out what was wrong with the check reader.

And it was one of those stupid simple solutions where it would have been a waste of time to send a dude out here to fix it.

No. All the register needed....was a new strip cartridge. 

As there's this cassette tape esque device inside the printer/check reader. 

And the strip on said reader...can wear out.

Turns out. That's what happened.

So all we needed to do was to pull out the old one and put in the old one and walla!! The Check Reader is Now Fixed!!

Supposedly.

We wouldn't know for sure if the issue was fixed until we tried a check on Register 1 again.

Which....with me having car problems, and it actually being a busy Monday...I didn't want to risk taking Register 1 out of commission if the check reader still didn't work..

So we waited until tonight. After close. Since I was the closing manager today. To test the check reader.

Which I was already mostly confident it would work, as I did remember to check my bank account before I came into work today and it DID show that my check from Saturday night had gone through. (so no stolen fish for me, they were all rightfully purchased lol) 

So it would mostly be a matter of seeing if the printing on the check part of it would work or not.

Which it took a minute to be able to actually USE the register after we closed because we had 2 customers still in the store when we closed. and the First one decided that at like...idk 2 minutes before close?? He wanted to rent out a carpet cleaner. 

.....I'll never understand last minute shoppers. Never. 

And my cashier took FOREVER to fill out the paperwork for the customer to be able to rent the carpet cleaner.

But luckily I hadn't yet shut down register 2 just in case register 1 had issues so I was able to help the other customer still waiting to be checked out.

ONLY. She wanted to take advantage of our sale of "buy 3 get the 4th treat free" deal by splitting up her purchase so that she'd save more money on the 'free' treat rather than less.

As usually the least expensive item receives the discount.

So she bought 4 $25 treats on one transaction to get 1 of those $25 treats free.

And then she bought the rest of her stuff and 4 other under $8 treats on the second purchase.

Which turned a maybe 5 minute transaction into a Ten minute transaction.

Which worked well enough I guess as me and the other cashier ended up finishing with our customers about the same time so we could kick them out of the store close together.

Which meant that I could FINALLY test out another check on register 1. 

AND IT WORKED!!

Woot. No "Did I steal this aquarium gravel and decor?" question for me tonight!

So yay for 1 broken thing fixed on register.

Now I just need to wait for the pinpad on Register 4 to come in to see if THAT finally fixes all our problems so that we can have 4 up and running for black friday.

Guess we'll see.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

Whelp. It's the Battery....Right?

 Whelp.

I've had a rather stressful day today.

So like.....a few weeks ago I helped to jump an old ladies car right?? With my own car???

And like....I had noticed after helping her start her car that when I left for the day, that when I started my own car...it had had a delayed starting sound to it.

Kinda like the "Hey your car battery is dying" sort of sound.

Which was semi concerning because like....I'd literally just bought a new car battery?? Like I remember it being cold when I got it so it had to have happened sometime between October of last year and March of this year. But like...it's a recent new battery. So it shouldn't be dying just yet!!

And like, I'd chalked it up to just the stress of starting the other person's car and it would be fine after that point

Only....my car continued to have a delayed start when I'd try to turn it on.

And it was getting to the point where I was like "Huh, I should go get that looked at."

And like I was literally planning to take my car to the Autozone to get the battery checked later THIS week on one of my days off.

ONLY

This morning when I went to leave for work....

My car wouldn't start.

It made that ancient chugging "I'm tryign to start up" noise and the clicked a bunch.

but no car started.

Which when it's seven in the morning and both your roomies are asleep....is not a good thing.

So I was like "Okay, I need to either get a) my car started by a roomie helping me to jumpstart my car or b) have a roomie take me into work.

And I like dithered for a good two minutes on which roomie to wake up before finally knocking on upstair's roomie door.

Which is NOT fun to do to be like "Hey....my car won't stop can you help me?"

Especially since I knew she'd had a late night before and also that she didn't have to get up for her own job for another couple of hours. 

*exhales*

In the end we decided that it would be best if she just took me into work and would come pick me up after as she was concerned my car would die AT work if we got it jumpstarted here at the house and I would have to get it jumpstarted there to get back home.

So she took me into work with the plan to get my car jumpstarted when I got home so that I could drive down to the Autozone to get a new battery since this one was /obviously/ bad. 

Fast Forward to this afternoon after getting home from work.

And we're having to play a bit of ring around the rosie with our cars.

Because unlucky me...I'd parked on the right side of the garage. And my battery was on the Right side of my car.

While BOTH my roomies car batteries were on the LEFT side of their cars. 

So the jumper cables couldn't Reach both batteries. *exhales*

We ended up enlisting the aid of two neighbor guys to help me roll my car out of the garage, and then push it back into the left side of the garage so that my roomie could pull into the right side of the garage and her left battery would be close to my right battery and Walla!! We could get my car jumped!!

*shakes head*

Funnily enough....like the old lady I helped before...my car wouldn't start up until we fully completed the circuit on the batteries. So instead of 'grounding' the black clamp to somethign metal in my car, we needed to place the clamp on the negative point of the battery to get my car to start up.

And I was like WOOT!! It's started! Time to go get to autozone.

Only. As I was backing up out of the driveway. I noticed my clock in my car was flickering. :S And none of the dials were really responding. So to try and test it out I switched from reverse to drive to pull back into the garage to see if the dials would show me using slight accleration....and my car died again. Right there in the driveway. 

*exhales* 

Like. That's not a Good Sign. 

As that probably meant that that wasn't the battery that was the issue. XP booooo. 

No apparently there's a part called an Alternator that helps to keep your car charged between driving???? And my roomie thought I hadn't been driving enough to keep the charge going or recharge the charger?? whatever. It wasn't working.

but like....my car was at my house....and if it couldn't hold a charge long enough to get to a mechanic....how in the world was I going to get my car fixed?!!? 

I tried knocking on the other next door neighbor's door...because he's a bit of a car guy with his friends as they come over every weekend to do car related things it feels like....only he doesn't answer.

So.

I call the next best person I know.

Which is my brother.

Like he's not a mechanic, but Mav has worked on his own cars before with the help of his best friend who IS a mechanic. A Semi-Truck Mechanic. But still. They've done car related things!

And so I explained my problem to him and he's like "Yep. Sounds like the alternator. Let me youtube it real quick and see if I can fix it. Oh look! I think i can fix it!!"

And then was a whole unhelpful time of us trying to figure out just what type of car I had and what engine I had and what part would be needed for said car. And the stupid little Car Manual that i had would NOT give me ANY of the numbers I needed to figure out the right part.

Like whoever made the manual in the year 2000 forgot the "Oh your car is this type with this body and this engine and this other fancy terminology."

In any case.

My brother was confident he could buy the right part and then drive down here and fix my car for me which YAY! 

lol as I desperately needed to have a car. Because I have work shifts both Tues and Wed so I need to be able to get places those two days at least.

But I was like "Okay, worst case scenario. I will just borrow my Dad's car." Because in the unlucky/lucky part of this scenario was that today was the first day of yet another cruise for him. So like...it was frustrating to not have him here to help me out with figuring out what to do with my car but like that meant he wouldn't be using HIS CAR so worst case scenario if it wasn't the alternator or Mav couldn't fix it....I could borrow his car until he got back and we'd figure out where and when to get me a new car at that point.

ONLY.

When I informed Daddoo that I was going to have Mav bring down his car just in case I needed to borrow it. -And if I did then Mav's wife would come pick him up from my house after she got off work to take him back home- My dad informed me that....he'd taken the car keys with him on the trip. 

*face palm*

WHY?!!?

Like. Every. Single. Other. Cruise. He's gone on. He's LEFT behind a key. 

WHY THIS CRUISE?! WHY TAKE THEM!?

And I was like "What about the spare keys?"

Nope. No go there. My step-mom had taken hers with her. So the cars at my dad's house are basically just sitting hunks of metal until they get back from their trip. *exhales* 

So. Frustrating.

So now I was like....Okay...now what?

Because I knew my brother and his wife would need both their cars. And my one roomie wouldn't be able to give me a ride into work because she is also leaving on a trip tomorrow and leaving her car with her parents -as they're closer to the airport- and my other roomie wouldn't be able to take me into work because we worked opposite shifts this week where she wouldn't get home until AFTER I needed to get into work.

So I was like. Sister!! Kikay would let me borrow HER car. Since she doesn't always use hers.

Only she kinda hemmed and hawed and was like "Maaaaaaybe???" It was like a 'tenatitive' yes to borrowing it for just two days if needed. 

So basically.

I was screwed. And like...while I knew my sister was a kinda option I've also never driven her car further than like....a block? And the thought of having to make a 40 minute drive IN THE DARK in a car car when I'm used to driving taller cars...on the HIGHWAY....yah....I would do it if I'd have to but I was half convinced I would die if I did.

In any case.

Basically everything now was riding on my brother's ability to fix my car.

Because the only other possible option at this point would to be to beg my fellow managers to give me a ride into and from work for Tues and Wed.

*exhales*

Such good/bad timing. Like the 'good' timing is that I only work 3 days this week so the stress is only for Tues and Wed. The bad is like....the fact that EVERYONE is gone on vacation this week. UGH.

In any case.

My brother arrived like an hour after dark. (because yay daylight savings making it dark at 530pm now) 

And we managed to jump start my car enough to get it pulled back into the garage -where there was a bit more light- and onto some blocks -so that my brother could get under the car easier if needed- and then he went to work.

And guys...Youtube is mostly your friend. It's amazing how much you can google/youtube to get answers on how to fix things.

Didn't tell us that the alternator in my car had THREE bolts instead of 2 like we originally thought.

But Hey. My brother -after remembering to disconnect the battery, and a quick trip to Home Depot to get a 12mm wrench to better fit a narrow spot to get the stupid bolt undone...---

Managed to take out the old part and insert the new part!!!

It took about 3 hours because yah....never done this before.

BUT. He got everything back in it's place without breaking anything so woot!! lol. 

And after a quick jumpstart with his car....My car started back up!! Woot!!!

We did a quick test drive too and it didn't die on the road and would start up and shut off normally. So double woot!!

The only slight concern I have at this point is that the engine is making a 'clicking' noise as we drive kinda like the baseball card in the tires of a bike sort of sound. Which everyone else is like "Well I think it sounds normal for an old car." but I'm like "No it hasn't made that noise before!" sooo yah.....we'll see if it still happens after sitting overnight. But like....if anything I do plan to do an oil change on the car soon as it might just be making noise from having low oil from what my neighbor says....so yah.

But!

My car is FIXED.

So I don't have to worry (so long as my car starts tomorrow) about how I'm going to get to work anymore. So woot!!

lol and funfact about Alternators.

Apparently they're supposed to last either 7 years OR about 150,000 miles.

And my 22 year old car....has just under 156,000 miles on it. 

So like. 

That alternator did its job so well! To last 22 years!? Because like...no one in the family could remember it needing to be replaced before. So yah. Ancient machinery part did it's job well. lol.

So grateful that my brother was able to come down and get my car fixed for me. So grateful. 

One less stressor to deal with.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Check Reader

 So. 

In a last minuteish preparation for Black Friday, we've been trying to make sure all our registers are fully functioning right? Right. 

And one of those 'test' things that we needed to figure out was just What Exactly was Wrong with the Check Reader on Register 1.

Because apparently the tech guys don't like the vague "It's just not working" answer. No. They want specific details. Like is it the strip, the wire, the computer, some other random part?

Which in a way makes sense because like....you don't really want to have to send a guy all the way out to the store if the issue is like a two second "turn it off and on" again sort of solution.

So. Since I was working a closing shift tonight. 

And I happen to be one of those people who still uses checks on occasion. I decided to bring in my checkbook to work and after we had closed for the night, would attempt to buy something using the check on the Register 1. Just to see what exactly went wrong.

So.

I ended up attempting to purchase some angelfish. As I've gotten back into a kick of buying them for my 125 gallon tank and we got in 4 rather pretty ones that were still there at the end of the night. Sooooo. Fish!! 

In any case.

After the last super slow customer had finally left the store.

I had the cashier ring me up for fish.

And used a check to pay for it.

Which is a whole process in of itself. 

-Which is why we're glad that it's rare for people to use checks. Usually it's little old ladies buying a bunch of cat stuff--

In any case.

You have to put the check in the reader a certain way. And then press buttons on the register to make the machiney thing scan the check and do its beeping thing and then flip the check over to do more scanny beepy printy things and walla! Check read.

IF the check machine is working properly.

Which this one was not.

No we got to the flippy part of the check process and the register suddenly was like "Communication error!!!" 

And then totally froze out the computer. Like it would only give you 1 option after that point and no amount of manager key usage or other button pressing would get you away from an endless loop of "Try it again. It still didn't work. Try it again. It still didn't work." 

So we had to like totally shut down register 1.

-Which is why I waited until after we'd closed because losing a register right before the closing rush can be BAD. 

So while Register 1 was restarting....

I went to register 2. Where I knew the check reader was working. To try and use my check there.

As we weren't certain that the check had actually 'gone through' on 1 or not since no receipt printed out.

But when we got to the check reading part of Register 2's thing....

It barely did the first scan through before it was like "ERROR!! DUPLICATE CHECK!!"

Which....did that mean the check went through on 1?? It had to right?? But no receipt printed out....and the transaction wasn't showing up in my history on the register....so did I or did I not purchase the fish??

After a brief call to my head manager to explain the issue.

We decided that I would take the fish home. And head manager would try to do some research on their end, and I would double check my bank account for the next couple of days. 

And we would basically worry about if I'd paid or not on Monday.

Sooooo I may or may not have technically stolen fish tonight?? lol Depends on if it turns out I actually paid for them tonight or not.

So I guess borrowing with permission is the correct term.

So yay new fish!!

But boooo not working Check Reader. Though now, come Monday, I'll know exactly what to tell the tech dude on the phone what is wrong with Register's one check machine thingy. 

So here's to hoping that that's a quicker fix than Register 4's 2 hour long phone conversation attempting to get it connected to the register. *shakes head* 

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

Faulty Connection

 I was on the phone for two hours today at work.

Which is notable because like....working in retail most of our phone calls end up lasting under 5 minutes. 

At most if a customer is being more difficult...it could last up to thirty minutes.

But two hours?? Is a bit extreme.

Except in this case....it was because I was on the phone with our tech support.

As we've been trying to get our Register 4 up and running. 

Why? 

Because corporate came down and was like "Make sure ALL your registers are working."

And Register 4?? 

Hasn't worked in a long loooongggg time. 

Like I've worked there for a decade and....I'm not actually sure it was even working when I started.

Though I think when I started we had 5 registers at that point?? But got rid of one soon after?? But yah...I know Register 4 hasn't worked in at least 6 years or so. Because we've been talking about taking it out for years.

Like that was the plan. To take it out.

And because that was the plan....register 4 ended up being a bit of a Frankenstein creation. As we would take working pieces from that register to replace the broken pieces on the other 3 registers.

So it's been a bit of a....process to get Register 4 up and running.

The main issue was that it wasn't connecting to our store network.

Because we recently had an upgrade in that.

And because Register 4 was planned to be taken out....it was rather pointless to hook it up to the network if it was going away.

Only it's not going away now.

The last I dealt with register 4 and getting it 'fixed' the issues was that. And I'd been told to replace a cord and that they'd 'get back to us' after that was replaced. 

And I never heard back.

But today my head manager was like "Hey, where are we with this?" 

Soooo I got on the phone...expecting it to be like a 30 minute thing at most. Mostly a check in and such.

But No.

So turns out that the computer HAD been connected to the new network. Only it wasn't talking to said network. 

And the tech thought it was because a wire hadn't been replaced.

But the wire he was wanting me to replace was a different one from the one I'd been told to replace.

But it turns out, after testing a couple different things, that the wire itself works, only the phone said wire was supposed to go into....isn't working. 

Which is weird because that phone was working before we started messing wtih everything so who knows why that suddenly stopped working.

In any case, I was told to place the wire that was supposed to go into the phone directly into the register instead basically by passing the phone. 

And then?

Then it became a game of "Off and On" where the Tech had me turn on the register then off the register then on then off then on then off on off on off.

I probably turned that Register on and off like a good dozen times. *exhales*

Why did I have to do it so much?

Because the Register HAD been connected to a new IP address on the network....but every time we turned the register on....it kept trying to connect to the OLD IP address.

And the dude on the other side was struuuuggglllinng to get it to connect. At one point he even had to call in an engineer on his side to figure out what in the world was going on. 

BUT!!!

In the end. After 2 hours of me being stuck hanging out by the machine turning it on and off. We finally got Register 4 connected and up and running! Woot!! 

So we're soooo close to having it be useable in the store now.

The only other thing that is the main concern now is to get our pinpad for that register up and running because it's in a "Maintenance Required" standby phase that means that it's been....locked from tampering?? somethign like that.

Basically we have to get it replaced.

But after that....so long as the scanners and such on the register work....we should have Register 4 up and fully running soon!! 

*fingers crossed* that we get it all worked out quickly.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

A Quick In and Out

 I do have to say...that the 11-7 midshift is my least favorite shift.

Especially since the last...three?? four?? 11-7 related shifts I've had have had me involved in throwing freight from the truck onto our shelves.

And like...stocking is okay. I don't mind it. In small doses.

But like when my entire shift is dedicated to the task??

Nope. I do not like it.

Though it's understandable I've been expected to do more freight as one of our main stockers has been out for the past couple of weeks, so the team has been down a member meaning not as much gets done in the mornings leaving more for me to do in the evenings.

*shakes head*

In any case.

I was able to get a small break from trying to finish the last of the freight from our truck by heading off to the vet.

As we'd dropped off a chinchilla with eye issues off this morning.

And a couple hours before the end of my shift they finally called back to say that the chinchilla was ready to go back to us.

Diagnoises? Poor thing has gluacoma in the eye. Therefore he needs to get surgery to get the eye removed as there's nothing else the vet can do otherwise.

The surprising thing about going to grab the chinchilla from the vet....was how quickly I was able to pick it up?

Like. Due to the crazy at the store I made it over to them barely 15 minutes before they closed. 

And like...in the past when we've come by...it's ended up being a wait to get our animal back. Anywhere from 10 minutes to like a good 45 minutes of waiting.

But today when I pulled in....I was literally the only car in the parking lot.

And they already had the chinchilla out and waiting for pick up when I walked in. I basically just had to pay for the vet visit, get the needed meds instruction from the tech, and off I went. Like I spent maybe 3 minutes at most inside the building. It was crazy!

lol though a really good thing, as work has been one of those busy Thursdays and I had literally vanished to go to the vet in the middle of the dinner rush. So the sooner I got back to provide an extra body on the floor to help customers the better.

So yah.

It helped to pass the time a bit. And I got to take a small break away from the chaos.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

Let It Snow

 We had the first major snow storm of the winter today.

I mean, it snowed like....two weeks or so ago?? But it was mostly in the mountains.

This was the first storm to actually stick in the valleys and give...at least my area...a good two or three inches of snow, though I know other parts of the state received higher amounts. Like I heard my hometown got like 8 inches?

In any case.

It's kinda weird that it's still....snowing?

Like I'm used to most storms only lasting a couple of hours.

But this morning when I finally got out of bed like around 930ish...it was raining and who knew how long it had been raining for, but it was raining heavily enough that when I relcutantly ventured out to go grab the groceries I desperately needed....the rain thick enough that the windshield wipers were going like crazy...but also the cars on the roads were kicking up a lot of water into the air.

Which made driving along the freeway quite the experience. Nothing like driving thorugh a thick layer of mist where you can barely see the car's taillights in front of you.

I nearly chose to take the backroads back home to just avoid dealing with the misty driving, but when I got off the exit there was an accident up the road at the next intersection. I have no idea how big it was originally but there were 2 cars and 2 ambulances and like a good 6 police officers....soooo big enough??

In any case. I chose to take the familiar freeway back instead of dealing with the unknown city street driving...as in many ways that can be scarier with all the stopping and going and multiple points of access.

At least on the freeway there's a limited amount of ways you could interact with the cars around you.

But! I got home safely.

And had the excellent timing to get home like...maybe ten minutes before the storm switched from rain to snow.

And boy did it snow.

Like again, I'm used to storms only lasting a couple of hours.

But it's nearly midnight now and the snow is still falling steadily a good 12 hours later.

Which is great because my state desperately needs the moisture.

It's just weird. Weird to have it snowing for so long. 

Though it's very enjoyable....when I'm inside and nice and warm lol.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi