Hovering

I get the concept of dithering.
Where you just...struggle to make a choice.
I've struggled with it often enough.
Though often enough if I realize I've dithered too much over something, like if I want to get something or not....I usually walk away and come back a different day when I have a clearer idea of what I want.

But I've seen customers in the store spend....well...waaaay too much time overthinking their decisions.
To the point where they're in the store for like an hour or two before they decide to get something.

Most of the time I don't mind it. 

There are plenty of times where I do.

Like the customers who decide to be indecisive right towards the end of my shift and cause me to clock out late.
Or the customers who pick a fish and once I catch it. Pick another fish. Then another fish. Then another fish. Then ANOTHER fish.

Like. I try and have customers tell me all their fish that they want in the first place. So I can plot how to catch them all and do it all in one fell swoop.
The people who only tell me one fish at a time and let me think that that's all they're gonna get only to decide they want one more....and then another one...and then another one....bug me. 
Just like tell me them all at once, I do have the memory capabilities to remember the six different fish you want.

And like it's hard to judge how much time a task will take if the customer is constantly prolonging said task because of their need to tell me only one fish at a time.

In any case.
Those are the major situations where I get annoyed at customers for dithering.

But today was different.
Because the customers weren't exactly dithering.
They were hovering.
Waiting.
Being indecisive only because they wanted to see all the options and not just 'some of the options'

As today was Fish Day. 

But this couple wasn't quite interested in the fish on the wall.
I mean...they did browse them and look at them and ask a couple of questions about them.
But they didn't want them.

No they were interested in the bettas. 

And like most people spend 5-15 minutes looking through the various bettas before picking one.

However.
At this point in time, my manager was doing betta water changes.
Because we do that on Friday to give the bettas fresh water in their cups.
But also because we get in new bettas on Friday and those come in blue water --a treatment to help keep the bettas from stressing out while traveling.
So we have to do water changes on them to get the water clear again so you can actually see the color of the betta.

Only like...it wasn't obvious that there were more bettas than the ones on the shelf?
They were still in the box until the very end of the water change.
A process that took a couple of hours because my manager and I had to keep breaking away from it in order to help customers.

Plus it took longer because we already had like at least 100 bettas that needed water changes already.
*exhales* 

And I wouldn't have really noticed these customers.
But my manager brought up how they'd been hovering around for a while already.
Looking at the bettas on the shelves...and also trying to look at the bettas my manager had pulled onto the cart to change their water...even though those were the exact same bettas the customers had looked at minutes earlier on the shelf.

As again, we hadn't yet pulled out the new bettas to put on the shelves.

But yah.
Those customers proceeded to hover.
Hang out.
Browse.

For two and a half hours. 

Waiting for us to complete the betta water changes.
*exhales*
If I'd known that they were waiting for the bettas in the box I may have just done them earlier so that the customers could pick from the new ones and then leave. 

Honestly, I suspected that's why they were hanging around.
But I was hoping otherwise. 

As we try and do the older bettas first in their water changes so we can keep better track of which ones have and haven't been done.

As customers love to move them around and it's easier to keep track of the fish when we focus on the old ones first and then the new ones.

In any case.
The customers waited until the very last set of new bettas were put on the shelf...
And picked their betta from the last five.

*exhales*

Like I admire their dedication for sticking around so long.
But at the same time...I do wonder if they didn't have something better to do.
Like...two and a half hours is forever long to hang around waiting to see 'all' the bettas.
Especially when I only added like thirty more...and there were already like 100 on the shelves. XP 

*shakes head* I don't get people. 

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

-Sarnic Dirchi