Notice of Violation

 So I had this 'customer' come into the store today.

And like...I did wonder if he was a representative of something. Because he was wearing like a grey polo shirt and formal pants and was carrying a clipboard.

Though I was thinking he was a rep for one of our dog food brands if anything.

But at the same time...maybe he just needed to carry a random clipboard thing around?

Because the guy asked me a ton of questions about birds as he was thinking about getting his kids a couple of parakeets and wanted to know everything about them.

And it ended up with me having to point out pictures of parakeets on the packaging of the bird food in order to show him the difference between the female and male parakeets because he wasn't quite understanding the concept of the 'color' differences there. 

My guess is that the cones in his eyes aren't as prone to being able to tell more minute differences in color...but who knows.

In any case.

Once I finished this like thirty minute interaction with him he then asked if we carried any hemp products.

Which yes? We carry them for cats and dogs. They're basically chews that can help for a variety of issues like calming down a dog, allergies, skin and coat, bladder support etc.

The dude asked to be shown them, so I directed him to the dog ones....

And didn't think anything more about it.

Though I did see that he was talking to my other manager on duty a little bit later on...I assumed that he just had more questions and I was grateful that they were talking to him and not me because I was already tired of having pointless conversations.

-pointless meaning I spend a ton of time talking to a person only for them to not buy anything in the end when they gave off the impression they were going to be buying something today. 

It was a little while later, right when my other manager was leaving for the day.

That I happened to walk into our office and see this "Notice of Violation" sitting on the desk.

Apparently...the dude I was talking to was a Representative of our State's Agriculture and Food department.

And we apparently didn't have a 'license' to sell Hemp products. 

Which is...odd because like our store isn't just a 'mom and pop' store. No it's a huge nationwide corporation. And I'm certain the lawyers or whoever needed to be in charge of licensing product to sell would have taken care of any licensing issues at the beginning of the year.

Like nobody wants to be hit with a lawsuit. Or a notice of violation. So I'm certain we would have had all our bases covered to allow the selling of hemp products.

But at the same time like....none of these are used for people. They're all for animal use only. (though you know there's gonna be the stupid person who will try and use it) 

In any case...I flagged down my other manager before they left the store.
And they indicated that it sounded like there was a new program my state is trying to start up where they want all businesses to register that they're selling hemp products so the state can try and keep better track of who all is selling what. 

So if it's a new thing....then it's possible corporate hadn't yet received word that they were no longer in compliance in my state.

Who knows. It's a mess. I don't get it. 

In any case.

My other manager wasn't thinking it was that big of a deal but I was like "hey hang on a second" 

And contacted our Head Manager who contacted our District Manager who then had me call the 'Incident Hotline' so I could fill out an "Incident Report" so that corporate and the lawyers and anyone else needing to be involved would be made aware that we'd received this notice.

-Though I do wonder if our other sister stores have also received this notice as like....we have a good 12 stores in the state and surely our one store can't be the only one in violation.

Like...is it because we didn't have a certificate hanging somewhere interesting?

Or is the guy just taking offense to our store in particular? Were we the first hit? Who knows. 

But yah I had the fun time of trying to fill out an Incident Report over the phone and faxing the papers we received over to the right people and yah....

Fun times.

Especially when it's like two days before Christmas.

And my closing manager with me is running around like crazy trying to back up cashier -cus the line was reaching the back of the store, take out curbside pick up orders, help customers around the store etc. 

I felt bad. Leaving them to it with my poor petcare person stuck with a difficult customer and the cashier trying to ring up customers as fast as they could.

So yah.

Stressful day. Hopefully the higher ups can figure out everything and get us into compliance and whatever else they need to do.

Guess we'll see.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi