And the Good Day's Gone

Sometimes I wonder if people wake up and go: "I think I'm going to ride my high horse today while shopping."
Sure....they probably mean well in their quests to make all things right.
But in the end.
It just really really really irritates me. >.< Especially when the encounter leaves me feeling worse about myself afterwards when I was already struggling emotionally the past week from multiple stress sources.

So what happened?
There I was, having an actually pretty good day at work after having a crappy ones the previous days. I only had like an hour left in my shift and I was gearing up to do some tasking. Making a plan of what to do should it not get busy.
When... a woman came up to me, older gal with grey hair. "Hi, I have a complaint."
Was basically how she started our conversation.
I wasn't too worried about it at first. Complaints are usually something that can be fixed. Or I can pass off to a manager to have them fix it.
"Oh? What is it?"
And then she let loose.
It was our betas. They were sickly looking, their water was disgusting, she couldn't believe we would try and sell fish when they look like that. How the rival store's betas never look like this. On and on and on and on.
O.O
Out of everything...you're concerned about the health of our fish?
Really. Brava to her. For being so concerned about fish health.
But really, they were fine.
Yes the water hadn't been changed yet but I had been planning to do it today.
*cue look of disbelief on her part*
*cue me getting more and more annoyed.*
I tried to explain further. But she kept throwing everything back in my face. "This water is filthy!" "These fish shouldn't be sold! I can't believe you guys have your fish like this!"

And really. It was frustrating dealing with her, because in the heat of the moment I couldn't explain to her the situation. That I couldn't flippantly respond back to her. "Well, you can always apply here, if you get hired, then you can see how easy it is to take the time to do the beta water!"

>.<
Seriously!
She had NO IDEA how crazy my week had been. How I was by myself for practically every shift of this week. That I was short staffed because people had quit, that I didn't have TIME to do multiple things that needed to be done, that had needed to be done for a week!

She didn't know that today was the first day of the week where I actually had CoWorkers in my department WITH ME for more than an hour so that I could actually work on said tasks.
She probably didn't realize how busy our store had been. How I'd been jumping back and forth between my department and the cash register for the past couple of hours to help with the random rushes of people that would suddenly be in a line 12 long at register one. How I hadn't had time yet to do the stupid beta water changes because Hey. It was a FRIDAY. Guess what? I had to help customers with their purchases. It was a BUSY Friday. Which meant. Hey. I didn't have time for betas yet. But seriously. I WAS planning on doing it today, right after I got done cleaning up cages in the back that had been sitting there for a week and a half because I didn't have TIME or the COVERAGE to do so beforehand.

No.
All she saw was the dirty fish water.
All she saw were the betas that weren't healthy.

And all I could do at that point was say in frustration that I'm sure she could hear. "I'm going to do them right now alright?" And turn and walk away to prepare the stupid beta water.
Of course 5 minutes later, I heard the call for another cashier to come up to the front. So I went up front. Saw the woman standing there in line.
>.>
SEE LADY? ITS BUSY!!!! I'm HELPING PEOPLE! Get over your Beta Fish Soap Box! >.<
I'm so glad that she didn't get into my line. I might have actually yelled at her.....

But yah, it really bothered me.
>.> I hate it when people nitpick things. How they point out the ONE thing that I hadn't YET gotten around to. How they look at you in a condescending manner of "Your excuses are not acceptable."

To make it even worse. I knew this lady. I'd seen her in the store multiple times before. And yet she decided today to nitpick on how the betas looked? Was it like she'd never seen them before? Could she not remember how NICE the USUALLY look? Did she not stop and consider "Oh hey. These look disgusting, I bet the coworkers here are really busy with other things?"

No. >.< She did not.
She decided to make my good day a bad day.
>.< Which made the rest of work less than great as I got another person mad at me like 10 minutes later because of how crazy it got right then.... grrrrrrrrr.

Seriously. It's great that you care, but try to understand that in the retail world...there is NEVER enough TIME to get things done once the store opens to customers. They come first. (sadly) Everything else must come second. And things will not get done when there is not enough people to do them!

>.<

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

-Sarnic Dirchi