From Bruises to Brain Strain: The Covid Pivot

 Hard labor was now my day to day reality. To try to escape the most face-to-face interactions and cash register assignments, I learned quickly that no one liked doing deep cleaning tasks. I volunteered to clean and change beddings on all the cages to get out of dealing with people as much as possible. The repetitive cleaning tasks were much more familiar, and my attention to detail kept the animals healthier and more cared for than ever. Then they said I couldn't get a raise unless I moved up, and the only position directly above me that involved the animals direct care and not the products/people/money side was the Aquatic Specialist position. There was one already, but our store was allowed two due to our high sell volume. I then immersed myself in everything fish and took over EVERYTHING in the section fully by 3 months. I knew where every single fish in the tanks was located and their habitat/social/general care requirements as well. Then the other aquatic specialist quit and I was all alone in the job with no one to delegate my duties. A few people came and went in the 2nd position, but none fully hyperfixated enough to care to learn anything about anything. They were okay at following instructions, and that was all that really mattered to me. I still can’t believe there was a time in my life where I was physically able to stock pallet after pallet of 50lb dog food bags and 40lb kitty litter buckets. I was hurt so very often and always covered in bruises, but I found it was survivable if I just slept with a heating pad every night.

Scrubbing fish tanks was a twice a week task that is beyond repetitive, you would not believe how strenuous it actually adds up to as well! Especially going up and down the ladders to get to the multiple levels of those towered banks of tanks. One day I was determined to clean the central display plant tank because it had the grossest looking acrylic waterfall ever, completely green with slime and algae. I spent a couple hours straight on a stool bent slightly forward to reach the back of this plastic waterfall feature. However, the next morning I was not able to walk or even bend my left hip at all whatsoever. I called in for three days straight, barely able to tough out the pain. Without insurance at the time, I did not go to get a $350 x-ray or $150 evaluation. I iced it and didn’t leave bed. I was able to slowly bend and put weight on it and, like most of my previous injuries, it got to a point the pain could be semi-ignored and I moved on with life, with a new chronic pain added on to my daily, already painful, life.

Also, the psychological torture that is holiday music around Christmastime should not be legal and really needs to be stopped!! The same 24 songs played on repeat for 2 months straight each and every year... It was psychological warfare, especially since half of them were Sia’s album where I swear she had a cold or something because I’ve never heard someone whine/mumble-sing so horribly out of key...even just thinking back on it back now I can hear that overly nasally tone engraved in the back of my brain, “oh that puppy in the window.” The way I got out of working the Christmas holiday time register the following years was simple. On December weekends, I was able to assist with the annual “Photos with Santa” events. I was the photographer for two years in a row and had assisted my first year before that for one day too. I was really good at making stressed and dressed up dogs look good for that one single important keepsake worthy shot. I also could avoid the register on weekends by volunteering to demo whatever product or food was supposed to be featured. I was usually just in the dog food section giving specialty diet recommendations, as I spent so many hours reading label after label learning the fine details of every brand and protein type of all dog and cat food brands.

Months went by, and then months turned into a whole year. I was now promoted so many times I was upper level management at this point. Being an expert in animals put me into the Companion Animal Leader role (CAL for short.) I was now head in charge of the lives of every animal in the store and stock quantities/ordering all of them as well. I knew exactly how many of each animal we had in the whole store, plus when and what we would be getting in. This made me the most popular source of any pet information, and being an expert also keeps you away from the register when you’re able to push tons of products and make the big sales, while educating the whole time too. I had a lovely older couple who owned a massive Discus tank and, without fail for months, they would show up every afternoon of our typical fish delivery day from that specific vendor. The Discus come in very different styles and colors, some rarer than others, but Petco sells them all as “assorted.” Watching the joy they would spark as soon as they saw the specific pattern/coloring they were currently searching for was always the best, even if they did attempt to haggle the price with me afterwards, every single purchase. These fish were like $50 a piece, so I didn’t blame them for trying! I’m sure I gave in a time or two. I would also give free snails to anyone who asked, especially if they were to be used for Pufferfish food. Our aquatic plant display was always riddled with hundreds of them, and they had no price/value to Petco, so why not!

I’d love to tell you the animals at your local pet store are better taken care of than you’d think for creatures shoved into tiny terrariums and cages, however it completely varies by quality of your management, combined with each animals’ varying needs. The spiders, millipedes, and various other creepy crawlies reeeeeeeally don’t mind a 12inch by 12inch enclosure. That baby chameleon in a 24inch by 12inch space? Probably going to die if not purchased quickly. Their housing policies are strict to be universal, however they are made from the retail positive side and not the animals care. I did everything in my power to break every rule for the benefit of every creature in that building, except the feeder goldfish. I’m sorry, but they’re rarely pets and mostly food. The things that eat them are so cute and make amazing pets. Before opening I would break EVERY rule and give a scoop of live goldfish straight into the aquatic turtle tank. Not a single employee minded, in fact some asked for me to do it because it was the most active the turtles got all day, speeding super fast around trying to snap a fish by the tail. I called it a red ear slider glitter party because the only thing left afterwards would be tons of glittering scales sparkling in the turbulent water. When we got a shipment of super large feeder goldfish in, I called my mom and had her come buy every single one because they seemed like they were meant to be pets despite being the typical pond Comet. Also! In defense of my goldfish murders... If anyone DID want one as a pet, I would pick out the brightest and prettiest of them all. Some people buy them for their horse trough too for mosquito prevention. The birds were the saddest animal in the whole building. I kept them out all morning before opening, and even while open I would often be found with a baby conure tucked into my hair somewhere. While yes, everything in the store is a baby/juvenile, these were just BABIES!!! Poor babies that could only be transported legally via cat carrier style via airplane cargo hold. They say they come to the store “hand raised,” but they came to us traumatized beyond belief, and I worked my butt off to earn the trust of every single one. Please, please, please never buy a bird from a chain pet store... They will ALWAYS see it as a win even if sold at a discounted price for being in the store 30+ days. The management will be forced to fill the empty cages as they are only products to be sold by the corporate people in charge. There was such a high employee turnover, a few days I had to run this top tier selling store in the area all alone. I felt like the ultimate knowledge on everything pet related, and the education side of changing people's lives with a new hobby/companion meant the world to me. Another year flew by. Still didn’t buy a house but with two incomes now we were finally saving and had a small safety net that seemed vital to home-ownership responsibility. Being around so many different animals and working at a place that was welcome for people to bring their own pets in to shop, is the closest I will ever come to a dream job.

Then COVID hit…

Near the beginning of it all Rayne went on spring break, and then they didn’t have them go back to school the whole year. Petco said I could go on a leave of absence and not worry about it. I was horrified at first because those animals would suffer without me, but I did not have a choice. Rayne was doing the end of 4th grade online, and I was needed at home. Oh boy did the pets LOVE THAT! The dog, cat, and lizard were so super happy. The lizard sat on Rayne’s shoulder watching his Zoom meetings and class videos on his laptop. The cat would always be nearby in Rayne’s lap or mine. Jack cat definitely interrupted a lesson or two with his cute fluffiness. Rayne and I got to be closer than ever, and he was already my best friend. We watched Youtube videos all day and played games together. We made big breakfasts every day and only argued about how Loooooooong it would take him to get his school work done. He was an amazing COVID buddy, and I will cherish our time locked in together always. My leave of absence ended, and the school said we could choose virtual for the next year, so out of safety we did. I was able to apply for unemployment while job hunting for a work at home position. Walmart had a call center job that was hiring if you had a landline, so we started the process of getting one through our internet carrier, when REI Co-op replied back to my application. REI was a dream corporation to work for, as they publicly display as a super liberal and member owned co-op. But once inside their bubble? Just another group of shady CEO money hiding liars. However... It was something I could do from home AND they would send me all the equipment I would need as well. The training was Loooooooong but easy, and I was paid well for it too. Starting out as seasonal, I had to take all kinds of calls at first. That literally meant needing to know a little bit of EVERYTHING about outdoor sports. That's where my logic and researching skills really came in handy. What didn’t come in handy is my extreme people pleasing handicap and crippling social anxiety. The metrics were impossible to meet, but being seasonal they didn’t care much, my stellar track record of exceptional service out weighed the fact it took me twice as long as they thought it should to do it. They invited me back to stay after the season was done and I was then placed on a Sales team, focusing more on products and completing sales/making orders. It was very difficult, people want to call and have you be their personal shopper for 30 mins, and even one call like that wrecks your average call time so badly for the whole day. Especially if it’s only a 4 hour shift. Everything was averages and metrics... That was the only way they could manage a staff of 800+ people. You just become a number at the end of the day, no matter how inclusive the company claims to be. Sitting for 8 hours killed my body, and masking for 8 hours straight killed my brain.