Panicking...but Why?

I don't understand how the managers always get so stressed when our District Manager visits. 

Like...she comes in every other month it feels like.
And every time she says she's going to come in.
It's the same old panic.
Where the managers are rushing about to get the store looking clean and shiny and make sure all the planograms for our products are properly set.

*exhales*
And I don't get it.
I don't get why they stress so much about it.
I mean I'm probably missing some aspects of these visits.
Like the paperwork half of it where they sit in the office for forever looking at things.

But overall....
I feel like it's a lot of stress....for nothing. 
We usually do alright with these visits.
No one gets fired....

Yet every time the managers are like "It's gotta look perfect or we're getting FIRED!!!! AHHHH!!!!" 

….
I've yet to see a manager get fired after these visits. 
>.> No...they usually get fired for other reasons. 
But for a visit not going well?
Nope. 

But the managers still react like it's a strong possibility. 
And it makes them....paranoid.

Like today.

Today I had the bird bedding change to do. 
It was all normal things.
Normal procedure.
It was taking the normal amount of time to do things....
Like I'd just finished cleaning the cages and replacing the bedding for the birds, when I needed to go take a lunch before my fellow opener left for the day. 

I hadn't yet put back the perches or toys or food or water.
But that's a normal occurrence. 
I usually only get the cages cleaned before needing to go on lunch and then when I get back I put everything back in. 

Yet....
When I came back from lunch.
I discovered that my head manager had briefly switched out places with our cashier -who is also trained in my department, while my coworker was in the middle of helping a customer with a cat adoption--
But my manager had the cashier placing food and water in the bird cages.
Because he was concerned they'd gone too long without food and water.
And that he would get fired for not having food and water in the cages.

O.o

Like...…..
……..
I really didn't have words.

Because, yes, there was a rule waaaayyy back like four years ago? three years ago?
Where you're never supposed to let the animals be without food and water for long than...an hour I think?

But that was 3-4 years ago.
It's...well it hasn't been brought up in a long while.
Especially since the philosophy of opening changed to "Do the jobs while helping customers"
Which means that the bedding changes take a lot longer because they're done last, while the store is open, instead of first before the store is opened. 

It hasn't been an issue.
Due to customers the bedding changes can often take my entire shift.
But birds?
*shrugs*
That's an easy bedding change.
Normally doesn't take me longer than two or three hours depending on how many cages we have with birds in them and how dirty the glass is.
The birds have been fine without their food and water that long. 

But the way my manager was acting...it was like they were going to drop dead from starvation in the next fifteen minutes if we didn't.
Or he was going to get fired if we didn't. 

*shakes head* 
The birds today had only been without their food and water for a couple of hours by the point I got back from Lunch.
They would have gotten their food and water within the next 15-30 minutes depending on how much I was interrupted by customers.

So like...it was odd to have the manager freak out about it today.
When he hadn't before.
It hadn't been an issue for him before.
But for whatever reason he'd remembered that "one hour rule" today and figured that the DM would remember it and he'd get in trouble and...*exhales*
I don't know why he even thought of it.
The DM hardly ever spends any time in my department. Mostly she focuses on products on the shelves, and occasionally goes "Why is there nothing in this tank? How is the bedding change going?" 
And I answer "Oh those tanks are being cleaned today, or the cages are being cleaned, the bedding change is going good." 

Like...it's never a major issue.....

And it's one of those things where I doubt the manager is going to bring it up again after today.
Because the DM isn't going to be in tomorrow or next week (most likely) and sooo...why do we need to worry about how long the bedding change is taking or how long the animals don't have food and water in their cages while said bedding change is happening? 

So that's probably why I find it frustrating.
Because the managers only seem to notice my department if "things are going wrong"
or if "things aren't getting done quickly." 

If the DM hadn't come in today I doubt the head manager would have said anything.
I probably would have been the one to put out the food and water instead of the cashier.

Yah...
I don't get it.
I don't get the stress over these visits. 
I really don't.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

All the Lights

So the saga with my fishtank lights continues.

As I tried to buy a bulb a couple of days ago, only to discover it was already broken when I got home.
And I return trip to the store resulted in the discovery that the one other bulb on the shelf too was broken. 
So I went home emptyhanded.

Well yesterday, knowing that there was company coming over,
I decided to buy a different style of bulb.
Instead of the regular white light bulb, I'd go for a 'color max' bulb that would 'enhance the color of the fish' because it would give off a more pinkish light? Or something? 
*shrugs*
But at least it would be a light. 
And if I didn't like it, I would only need to keep it until we got in more white light bulbs and then I could return the pinkish one and get the white one.
Easy peasy.

Only.
After double checking the bulb to make sure it wasn't rattling before I bought it.
I took it home. 
Put it in the hood.
Turned it on.

To nothing.
The bulb didn't turn on!!

*exhales*
Had I really bought ANOTHER broken lightbulb?

But. I decided to test it.
So I pulled out the other lightbulb in the other hood on my tank.
And put the pink bulb in.

It turned on.

I put the white bulb from that hood into the other one...
And it didn't work.

Which meant....
That it wasn't the bulb that was broken.
But the hood. 

*exhales* 
Which meant I needed to buy a new hood for the tank, not a bulb. 

Except...we don't really carry bulb hoods anymore.
Everything's gone more LED.

And the LED lights? Expensive. 
*shakes head* 

And it would be weird to have one LED light and one Bulb light.
Because they give off different brightnesses. 
So I'd need to get LED lights for the entire tank setup.

But that's $$$$
Money I don't really want to spend.
But like...I don't want only half my light working.

Except.
I had this thought today.
Where twice a year, my work increases the discount we get. Doubling it. 
And I realized....that had to be coming up soon. 
Because it's usually around this time of year that it happens. 

And if it was happening soon, then I could wait until then, and then buy the LED lights and get a discount on them. 
So like woo!!

Only I needed to find out when that was happening.

And after asking a manager, 
I discovered that this doubling of our normal discount....
Starts tomorrow. 

:D :D :D

YES!

So really I just need to wait another day, or maybe two to buy the new lights!!!
Woot!!!

^^;;
Hopefully this works out. 
*fingers crossed* 

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

....Late

Well....it's been a while since I've been late to work.

I woke up this morning to the vibrating of my phone and opened my eyes to see that it was work calling.
Which lead to a moment of confusion of 'why is work calling me?' 
Until I looked at the clock...
And saw that it was 7am. 

….I was supposed to have been to work half an hour ago. *groans*  

I barely missed picking up the phone to talk to my manager.
Which meant I had to call back. 
Which should have been a simple thirty second dealeo.
But apparently said manager had left a message and then walked away from the phone as it took like six tries to get someone to pick up.  *shakes head* 

In any case.

I was late to work by an hour.

All because my alarms didn't go off.

Why hadn't they gone off?
Because I'd turned them off yesterday when I was preparing to call out from work and I didn't want them waking me up....and I'd forgotten to turn them back on because I basically almost never turn them off and so last night just assumed they were on....

Yah, I made sure they were on before I left to rush to work lol. 

The interesting thing about this....
Is I do wonder how long it would have been before the managers noticed I wasn't there?

I mean...like in my first year at work I had a similar occurrence happen where my alarm, for whatever reason, didn't go off and it was like 9am before people realized that I hadn't come in to work yet and called to make sure I was okay.

Today though, the managers noticed earlier....
Because my fellow opener had called to call out sick. 

So they were down two people in my department.
And probably only realized I hadn't shown up yet because they checked the schedule to see who was coming in. 

In any case. 

The manager was like "Oh so and so called out, so I would probably skip the bedding changes of today" 

O.o Excuse me?
Huh?
Skip the bedding change?
Ha.
Ha. 
No.

Today was the small pet bedding change. The hamsters, guinea pigs, mice, and chinchillas.
It's basically the one bedding change that you can't really get away with skipping a week on.
Because it's the most obvious when the bedding gets messy. 

Besides....
I was only an hour late to work.
I'd opened the department before coming in later like that.
And hadn't had an issue.
And I had an entire shift to do so in.

So I was like Nu-uh, I'm doing the bedding change.

And I did.
I got the rest of the department open -managing to do that before we opened HA!
And then spent the rest of my shift focusing on the bedding change and tada! 
I got it done. XD So There!!

But, the interesting thing of today was like...the head manager asked "Who is opened with you" 
When he saw me working on the bedding change.
And I was like "No one, they called out."
His response was to say: ()_() And vp manager didn't call in a replacement?!

^^;; Heh...
Oh yah...
That's a thing isn't it?
Where if someone calls out sick...you can call in someone else to work their shift.

It's just been that for the past six months...that hasn't really been an option due to most of my coworkers being in school. So like, nobody was available to come in if someone called out. 
So it's kinda slipped my mind that that is something we could do.

But like, I'm also quite used to working by myself as well.
If someone calls out, I'm very capable (so long as we don't get crazy crazy busy with customers) of opening the entire department by myself with no issue. 

*laughs*
But yah....I didn't dare bring up to the Head Manager that I was late to work today.
Didn't really seem to matter in the moment since the department was basically open at that point. ^^;;

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

An Almost Absence

I nearly called in sick today for work. 

Like it's probably the closest I've come to actually really doing it. 

I turned off my normal alarms.
Set one for a specific time for me to 'wake up to' even though I hadn't really slept last night.
And when it went off I was going to call the manager and be like "Hey, I can't come in because I have a migraine so bad it's making me nauseous and shaky and such. So I'm calling out." 

Because it was that bad.
Like pretty sure I've hard worse nuclear headaches.
I've gone to work on worse nuclear headaches, ones where I can barely stand up and work because the pain is so bad. (I did leave work early after that one) 

But last night....it was...just bad.
Like I went to bed at 1130ish.
Woke up at 2ish.
And the pain was still there.
The headache was still pounding away.
Around 3ish I got up and took a shower to have the heat pound into my skin.
At 330ish I jumped back into the shower to again try my luck.
My stomach was twisting and turning to the point where I dared not move so I wouldn't upset it.
But like I was both too hot. And too cold. Shaking so hard.

And yah....I was like "Oh no, I can't go to work on this." 
At 5 something I made the plan.
I would call into work.
I would call out.
I would just sleep the day away and hope the headache would just vanish if I could fall asleep. 

I had it all planned out.
I just needed to wait for the manager to get to the store before I could call the store.
Which meant that he should show up at 6.
But if people were late to work then he wouldn't be able to come in until the others showed up.
So I would give it an extra five minutes before I called out. 

And I really hoped that the manager would answer.
That they phones would be working.
Because I didn't want 630 when I was scheduled to come in to come and go and have them be like "Where's Sarnic?!" because I couldn't reach them. 

And of course there was the guilt.
Because like...it's never fun to come into work on a Monday Morning and find someone calling out.
But like...they'd be understanding for me right?
Because I never call out sick. 
So if I'm calling out sick then it must be serious.

But because there's been a lot of coworkers calling out sick recently, I'd heard that they started requiring doctors notes and such.
So like what if they needed one.
I didn't want to go to a doctor!

And then I remembered....
It was Monday.
And for like the past month of Mondays....
I've been the only one scheduled to open in my department for like my entire shift. 

So if I called out....
There would be no one there to open.
And who knew when they'd be able to bring someone in.
No one would be in a couple of hours later to pick up the slack because I was scheduled alone.
So maybe I call out a couple of hours and go in a little later?
So I can still do the work? Still get the department open but not as quick. 

Like I didn't want my department to suffer because I couldn't come into work. 

And at like 5:55amish
I cautiously sat up in bed.
Just testing to see how I felt sitting up.
Which I wasn't feeling as bad as I had like 20 minutes ago. 
So I got up to get ready for work -like bare minimum get ready for work. 
And was still alright.
Headache wasn't as bad. 
It wasn't good but I've had worse headaches.

Sooo I went to work.
And thankfully didn't have to interact with people much.
Because I did not have the energy to do so.
I still had the headache.
the radio would make me wince if someone spoke too loud and suddenly. 

But I survived.
I got work done.
I did the things. 

lol though when I told my manager I was like on day 3 of my migraine he gave me this look of disbelief.
Like "How do you do that?!" 
"Why do you get so many?!"

Cus I'm stubborn. That's how I go to work on headaches. Because I'm stubborn and loyal and don't want to let people down.

Why do I get so many? Because I get tense and the tension causes most of the headaches. 
"So don't be tense!"
Ha. Easier said than done. *shakes head*

But yah.
I didn't call into work.
I survived. 
Hopefully this headache will be gone in the morning so I don't have to go to work twice in a row with the aching behind my eyes. 
But we'll see. 

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

Rattle Rattle

I went on quite the mini adventure after work yesterday.

You see, one of the lightbulbs on my 125 gallon had burnt out. 
Which foo. >.< Bad lightbulb. 
It left half my tank in darkness, which makes it hard to appreciate the entire thing.

So after my shift yesterday, I picked up a new lightbulb from work to take home.

But when I got home and pulled the new bulb out of the box....

It made a rattling noise. 

>.>
<.<
That's not a good sound.
Rattling within a lightbulb is Not. A. Good. Sign.
Because it means something within is broken which means more than likely the parts that make the lightbulb turn on...are broken.

Placing the lightbulb in the hood.
I confirmed it.
Broken.

I'd bought a broken lightbulb. >.< 

Which thankfully I can return it. You know since I just bought it.
But there was a bit of a struggle with "Do I go right back to work right now?"
-Which I was loathe to do because I had just escaped the place and it's headache causing radio conversations. 
Or do I wait until Monday when I next work and return it then.

I was in a stubborn, gonna make myself suffer mood, so I chose to drive back to work to replace my lightbulb.
I wanted my entire tank to have light so I could fully enjoy it! 

But this time I was smart.
When I walked into the store and went to the bulbs.
I pulled the one still on the shelf out of it's box to test it.

Only to discover that it too rattled.
So I went up to my manager and was like "I think these are both broken, cus I tested this one I bought and it didn't work but this one rattles so I think it also doesn't work."

He was like "Sooo what do you want me to do about it? I have no way to test it."

Which I wasn't expecting him to test it, I was expecting him to take the broken lightbulb still on the shelf to the back of the store to be taken out of inventory in the scangun so we could get more in. 

*shakes head*
But I figured I'd test it anyway.
And I knew we had a display tank that had the same size of bulb in it.
So I took out that bulb, put in the one in the store....and it worked. O.o Which was weird because it rattled.
So I was like "maybe the bulb isn't broken?" and tried the one I'd just bought.
Nope.
Broken.
So I grabbed the bulb that rattled and still worked and....it no longer worked. It would flicker if I jostled it just right into working, but yah....still broken. 

And that was the last one on the shelf.
Though...I realized today that there might have been more somewhere in our overstock, but since I was suffering from a headache I didn't think of that yesterday. 

So I ended up just returning the broken bulb and getting my money back and heading home. 

Unfortunately, we're not getting another truck into the store until Wednesday.
So it's unlikely that I'll be able to replace my broken light until then,
Though I am going to double check when I get into work tomorrow and make sure we don't have extras in the topstock somewhere first. 

That or maybe I'll just go away from the bulbs and go buy a much more expensive LED thing to use on my tank. >.>
We'll see....

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

Too Much Chatter

There are days at work when I'm less chatty then other days.
And by less chatty, I mean, I'm not as prone to talking into the radios and interacting with my coworkers.

Sometimes it's because I have a headache. 
Othertimes it's because I'm lost in my own head working on story ideas and such to try and write when I get home from work. 

Today it was the latter.....at first.
I was being on the quiet side. Lost in my own thoughts as I was switching between two or three different story ideas.

When the vice manager -second in command kinda brought up the fact that I was being more quiet today.
Which...I hadn't yet really had a reason to interact with anyone. We hadn't yet opened, and I had nobody in my department with me and the stockers were busy in other areas of the store....so no reason to be talking.

But he was concerned that I might be suffering from a headache.
Because he's noticed that I get quiet when I have those ---which yah, it takes energy to talk and having a headache drains my energy hardcore.

And he's noticed that I usually end up with headaches on Saturdays.....
O.o Which had been a trend I hadn't noticed lol. Do I? Do I usually get them that day? 

It caught me off guard.
And I said something like "Well that's because I have to do more customer service today"

Because it's true. A ton more people come into the store and I'm usually starting my shift later which means I'm dealing with customers for longer....and it drains me.
Especially if the customers are irritating in their questions/needs, kids are being loud, dogs barking...etc. 
If it gets too grating it can cause a headache.
And if it doesn't cause a headache it definitely tires me out.

But this morning?
Nope. No headache.

Though there's this awful pattern where if people ask me if I have a headache and I say 'No' then I usually end up with one a couple of hours later. 

*exhales*
So guess what happened?
Yah.
Headache. 

It may have been triggered as early as that conversation with my Vice Manager because he then proceeded to mention the Reptile Event we had today.

And I was like "Yah, I know nothing about that."
Which *shakes head* apparently he'd been thinking I was in charge of it? 
But nope.
I had seen the signs for the event, but no one had approached me directly to be in charge of it.
Though I halfway expected this to be the case.
The managers aren't the best at communicating and if the event in the store involves the handling of live animals....it usually means I'm the one in charge of it. 

So having it confirmed that it was expected I would be in charge of it.
Not really that stressful, but definitely irritating. 

So long as I was able to get my department open before the event started -meaning no major time consuming interactions with customers then it's no big deal.

*exhales*
No what definitely triggered the headache was the chattiness of my Head Manager.

He goes through phases really.
Most work days you barely hear from him over the radio.
But then there's days....like today....where he's constantly using the radios to talk and such. 

It was much much worse today.

On the manager's more 'chatty' days. I can expect to hear his voice off and on throughout the day. Nothing too long. Like maybe a back and forth conversation that lasts thirty seconds before silence.

Which is fine.
I can deal with chatter in my ear every now and then.
I've even kinda gotten used to the varying degress of loudness my coworkers have with said radios. The ones you can barely hear and the others that are nearly yelling in your ear from how loud they are.

But today.
It was near constant chatter.
For like minutes on end from my manager.

A morning greeting. 
Followed soon by conversations
Followed by telling us what sales we had going on.
Followed by comments people had left for us in surveys.

It was a constant barrage of noise in my ear.
Useless, unhelpful noise. 
Because it's singularly difficult to talk to a customer and be coherent when there's this constant drone of noise buzzing in your ear.

I literally had to pull the ear piece out of my ear and let it hang for a couple of minutes so I could focus on talking to the customer without being distracted.
And would put the earpiece back into my ear to find him still talking!

This wasn't just once though.
No, I had to pull my earpiece out multiple times over the course of my shift because I couldn't focus on the customer.

It was also annoying because he spent at least 5 minutes talking nonstop over the radio....which meant that for 5 minutes we couldn't communicate with each other. As if another person tries to talk while someone else is talking...it just comes across as static. 

*shakes head*

Needless to say.
It made work difficult.
To have his voice constantly ringing in my ears. 
Though it wasn't only his voice. There was a lot of chatter over the radios today.
With us being more proactive in making sure all the customers were getting the help they needed.

Which meant a lot of noise.

Noise I hadn't been prepared for.
Because again, the radios aren't always that active. 
Mostly they're used for requests for register assistance and to inform my department that a customer needs help somewhere within it. 

*exhales* If I had known that the manager was going to be chatty. That we were going to be constantly talking....
I probably would have been better off.
Because I would have had time to prepare for it.

But I didn't.
So I was caught off guard with my defenses down.
And therefore the entire situation tensed me up to the point where I was half a second away from telling the manager over the radio that I needed ten minutes of silence because all the chatter was giving me a headache.

It didn't even help on break because even though I would take the earpiece out of my ear, the noise of the chatter was still loud enough I could hear it....
So it felt like I wasn't getting any peace and quiet at all.

Add into that more customer interaction.
Add into that the fact I was in charge of the event and had to be more outgoing and social.

Lead to the headache pounding away at my skull. 

*exhales* 
Yah. I don't like it when there's too much chatter over the radios.
It doesn't sit well with me. Especially when it goes on for my entire shift.

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

Bringing Out A Talent

I spent today doing something that I haven't done in...well forever. Not since I was in school really. 
I spent the day drawing.

Mostly because I had a concept for a story in my head.
And really just felt it would be better to see the characters visually instead of trying to write out what they looked like. 

So I pulled out a little notebook sized sketchbook I had, grabbed pencils and erasers.

And set to work! :D 

It was really fun to do, though definitely time consuming and my arm/hand is quite cramped now after I've spent all day trying to get the characters to look right. 

Lol 
The amusing thing though,
Was that I took a picture of the first drawing I finished.
So I could be like "Look what I drew!" lol. 

I was really just expecting a "oh that's nice!" sort of response. 

But my friend was like ()_() 
YOU DREW THIS?!

O.o Yah?

"DANG! How come I've never seen this before?!?!? You're so GOOD!" 

^^;; 
Heh...
Ummm. 
Well.... 

*shrugs*
The easy answer is basically: "Because everyone else was doing it." 

I'm the type of person where if I see someone excelling in something....I try to not excel in it too? 
Like it took me a long while to say "I love the Flash" because I had a highschool friend who's favorite superhero was The Flash, so like....I was like "Oh you like him? Okay, he can be your favorite." 
Because I didn't want to compete.
Didn't want to steal their thunder.
Steal their thing.

It's the same thing with drawing.
My family draws, my friends draw, a lot of people I know...well draw.
And I didn't want to steal their thunder by being like "Oh you draw?! Me too!!" 
I wanted them to have their thing and such. 

So I haven't really pursued drawing as a pastime, mostly for that reason.

But today I was bitten by the drawing bug.
So a drawing I went!! :D lol. 
^^;; 

It was fun. So much fun.
And not as difficult (there were difficult parts yes) as I was thinking it would be. 
Mostly because I wasn't trying to draw things from pure imagination.
I ended up googling pictures I could use as references to help me get dimensions and postures right lol. 

But yah.
^^;;
Yay for doing something different today! :D

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

-Sarnic Dirchi