Closing Early

Working evening shifts is always....interesting.

It's a different vibe working the store later than normal.
Mostly because it gets busier.
And customers can also get grumpier.

Plus with the constant customer service...I usually end up pretty drained.

Today was different though.
Because while I was working an evening shift....it was also a short shift. Basically only 3.5 hours.
Super short.

But with our hours cut. I'll probably be working a few more shorter shifts in the upcoming weeks unless something changes.

However, the interesting and kinda stressful change of working the evening shift.
Is that corporate has come down saying that for the next little while (until the pandemic ends) we'll be closing down my department an hour before the store closes.

Which means that in the last hour we're open, we won't be selling any animals.
No fish. 
No reptiles.
No birds.
No rodents.

The only animals we will still sell in that last hour would be the crickets and feeder goldfish.

The reason why we're not selling animals?
Because we're short staffed.
And the last hour of work can get crazy busy. 

And catching fish or filling out paperwork for other animals can take a while....which can tie up our workers which can slow down helping other people which can delay us closing the store....

And we're apparently on "black out hours" aka. We have basically no leeway at all. 
We need to stick as close to the hours given to us as possible.
Which means we need to help customers and get them out of the store as soon as possible when the store closes.

So no selling animals.

Yah...customers aren't too happy about that. 
Had like three today get mad at us because we closed the department down early.

*exhales*
My manager says that they're probably going to print out signs to hang around the department telling customers that our department closes earlier than the rest of the store. 

Hopefully we get those printed sooner.
I mean, customers will still get mad.
But at least we have signs up. 

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

-Sarnic Dirchi