The Long Delay

Whew. It was kinda a crazy day at work.
Well not kinda, work is always crazy on Saturdays.

But today was a bit more....tense. 

Why?

Because our Truck, which besides carrying more product to place on the shelves but was also carrying our weekly shipment of LIVE fish......was missing.

It had been supposed to show up YESTERDAY morning. 
YESTERDAY.
But no truck showed up.
Which meant we had no fish.

Which meant that I had rather disappointed and potentially angry customers who probably felt lied to...because I and other coworkers have been telling people all week that our fish come on Fridays.
And here it was Friday.
With no fish.

It was bad.
Super bad.

Because our tanks were basically empty as it was.
Because our fish shipment the week before had been small.
Tiny to what we needed.

And so we desperately were in need of fish.

So to have our truck not show up?
That was a big deal.

And when I walked into work this morning.
It STILL hadn't shown up.
As we'd gotten word that it would show up this morning. 
But it wasn't there.
Which was a big deal because it should have already been there.

But it wasn't.
And calling the store that was supposed to get the truck before us -At 4 am- 
Resulted in the news that the truck hadn't yet shown up for them either.
And it was hours past due for them. 

And calling our supplier....yielded us no answers as no one was there to pick up the phone. 
>.< (why do they get weekends off?) 

So we had no idea where our truck was.
Had it broken down?
Been abducted by aliens?
Gotten stuck?
Never been sent in the first place?
Taken a detour down to Timbuctoo?

Nor did we know when it would be showing up.
In an hour? Midday? That night? Tomorrow? Never? Next Friday? 
Who knew!!

We didn't.
Not until about 230. 
When we finally got word that the truck was heading to us.

And then it FINALLY showed up.
Right as I was getting off my shift at 330.

And the Head Manager was like "Yah we're not going to put out the fish into their tanks until after we close tonight." 

To which I was thinking. 
()_() ARE YOU CRAZY!!!

Like, I have customers who are going home empty handed and disappointed because our fish tanks are literally EMPTY. And you want to wait?!

Like...that just seems like opposite sense for a manager. Because shouldn't we be wanting to MAKE money? And we can't make money if we don't have the product on the floor...or the fish in the tanks. And it's the BUSIEST day of the week! Why would we not want to put the fish out right then?

Simply for that reason. It's the Busiest day of the week.
With customers coming in needing help...
It didn't make sense to draw our coworkers away from the customers to get the fish out.
Even though the fish is what some of the customers were coming in to get.
*shakes head*

The only thing the manager was going to let us do was bring out the bettas in the fish shipment.
As we had....none. 
And those are the most popular of the fish.
And easy to unload since they're already in their cups. 

Though I doubt the manager was expecting there to be four boxes of them lol. 

And I really don't think he was expecting the smell either.

As....our truck was like 40 hours late. 
Which meant that the fish had been in their boxes for 40 hours longer than they should have been.

And who knows how that 40 hours was spent.
Were they cooking in an unACed truck? Were they kept cool in the shade? who knows.
But with the 90 degree whether we've been having...
I was pretty right in predicting the fish would be dead. 

You could smell the death wafting from the boxes.

And so the manager had us open one box to see how it looked.
And half the bags held dead fish.

Which spurred the head manager into changing his mind.

I should have been off at that point.
But I was like "I can stay an extra hour to get the fish out." 
Because then my coworkers could focus on the customers,
While me and my manager would sort through the fish in the back away from customer's eyes, and then bring the bags that still held live fish up to the fish wall to be put into their tanks.

It took an hour.
But we managed to get the rest of the fish in!! Woot!!
And considering the length of time....
I'm actually surprised we didn't have as many dead as I was expecting. 

Like out of 14 boxes...we ended up with just like two boxes full of dead fish. 

Which just goes to show that most fish are hardier than you think they are. 

*exhales*
Hopefully next weeks shipment fairs a bit better. :S 
I really don't want to have to tell customers again that certain fish they are wanting 'didn't come in'
(aka, they died. Those poor Neon Tetras. So sensitive) 

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

-Sarnic Dirchi