DREWspective

So yesterday I headed back to Pets at Home to claim the plant that the nice staff person forgot to put in my bag. As mentioned in my last post, I thought it would be a good test of their customer service, which up until now wasn’t anything to talk out loud about.

So I approached the counter, armed with a pack of goldfish pellets that I thought would be more useful for the fish than flakes. Having been straight ignored by one of the staff, I was eventually seen to by another. I explained the situation.

Apparently I was supposed to check the contents of the bag before leaving the store first of all. Fair enough, but a little difficult when carrying two live fish in a brown paper bag.

Failing that, the "correct" action to take, according to the staff member, was to call the store and tell them the plant was missing.
Am I the only person here who wouldn’t have thought of that? After all, if the staff were just standing around, ignoring potential customers and taking an age to give people service, what do you think would happen over the phone?
And besides, what would you do if you had to travel for two hours via public transport, only realising an item was missing when you were well on your way? Chances are, you’d go back the next day.

Luckily, because this staff member had seen me standing in anxiety around the store several times, he made a gesture of goodwill. As a result, I received two plants for the price of one.

Unfortunately I was dismissed straight afterwards, so I didn’t bother with the fish food.

From the aquarium across the road from where I work at the moment, I had been sold a shit, expensive gravel cleaner. It’s the kind that requires pumping of the large tube rather than squeezing.

I’d tried on two occasions to get it working properly, doing as best as I could to follow the poorly-worded instructions on the back of the box. It didn’t work. All I ended up doing was removing water.

So I’m going to opt for one of those squeezy gravel cleaners instead, and hopefully I can sell that piece of shit on.

And before I end this post:

To all those smug, arrongant goldfish keepers around the Internet, who’ve exercised their ALL CAPS fetishes and have bullied and verbally beaten up newcomers and question-askers, because they say 10 gallons of water per goldfish is a supposed MINIMUM requirement:

F*** YOU.

Okay, I’ve managed to track down a 30 gallon tank (which I will probably have a nightmare getting home tonight) which should be enough to house the fish. But the hours of anxiety and stress about getting a bigger tank are entirely down to these people. I wish I could find every single one of them and smack them across the face with a small but inexpensive glass tank.

Go and read some of the comments made about goldfish and minimum tank sizes. I guarantee, you never see me being that way over video editing, or illustration, for example.

I’ve been in negotiations with a US company that sells various three-dimensional foam shapes.

Unfortunately their online shop is designed so that customers must reside in the US, so I sent an e-mail asking whether they’d ship to the UK. Luckily they did.

The communication process was painfully slow, and one of the items in their catalogue was no longer being made. A week later (yesterday), a payment went through on my card; I found out through a call from the card company, who gave me quite a scare.

So right now I’m waiting just on the shapes. I’ve finally received the paints, which came sometime last week.

Anxiety on two levels.

Last week I’d bought two goldfish, yet to be named. I’d decided to buy another two—much smaller ones—just yesterday; their names are Snipes and Tiger.

The first hit of anxiety occured on Friday, when I was looking for information on goldfish. A couple of places insisted that goldfish have at least 10 gallons of water each in a tank! So if you wanted 3 goldfish, a 30 gallon tank is apparently the bare minimum,

I panicked, because the tank I have right now is 21 litres, or 4.6 gallons. I searched around for affordable, larger tanks, almost forgetting that I have very limited room. In theory I could fit a 3×1x1.5 foot tank in my room

But having talked to a staff member of a small pet store, there should be no problem at the moment. Besides, even a high profile store like Pets at Home sold tanks this "small" (and even smaller!) apparently for goldfish.
It clearly says somewhere in the ; packaging for my tank that four fish cold be kept in it, as long as they were the right size.  According to the new knowledge, it wouldn’t even be big enough for one!

But you know, Pets at Home are supposed to be knowledgable about fish. If the tank was barlely big enough for one fish, why would they sell it? Coincidentally, neither they nor the other place (Maidenhead Aquatics, a great place) asked how big the tank was they were only concerned about water quality (some more than others!).

The second bit of anxiety came when actually buying the fish. As we’ve hinted at before, customer service is one area where Pets at Home falls flat on its face.

It took a while before I’d decided which (and what size) fancy goldfish to get. But a small bunch of people had gathered around the tanks, making life as difficult for anyone else as your typical UK citizen does.
I kid you not when I say it took ten to fifteen minutes to be served, during which I was ignored by staff or frustrated because the people who did get served made their minds up on the spot. Just when it looked like I was getting somewhere, one smarmy bastard (who’d already been served) wanted a gold loach; one of the hardest fish to catch, as it was among regular goldfish.

It was almost like around the 1920s, when white (or lighter-coloured) people got served before black pople, no matter how late they arrived.

The waiting, and worry that someone would take "my fish", made me very anxious. It generally is not a good idea to keep me waiting, and an even worse idea to serve someone who arrived later than me. Had it not been for the voucher I’d gotten for buying the tank, I’d have almost no reason to go back.

But now there’s another problem: they didn’t pack a potted plant that I’d paid for, so now I have to go back! We shall see how good or the customer service at Pets at Home really is.

Amber, a good friend of mine from Canada, said something very profound earlier: that I have nothing to be upset over.

The conversation made me think: why am I so down on myself most of the time? Why do people get down on themselves?

My answer is that even I, a person who disagrees a lot with how society works, fall into the trap of trying to please everybody.

It’s a horrible trap to fall into. What makes it such a horrible trap i that people naturally don’t know what they want, and as long as you try to give them what they say they want, they control you. You’ll end up being unhappy with yourself, and certinly other people: either you’ll fall short of their demands, or you’ll get frustrated because, by the time they’ve figured out what they want, they’ve changed their minds again.

Whatever kind of person you are at this moment, realise that you are unique and very valuable as a person. You may not believe it right now, but it’s true. And it’s true whether you believe we’re all different or the same. Don’t let anyone tell you or suggest that you’re not valuable.

The biggest thing I’ve picked up over the last two years is this: real happiness comes from making other people happy, rather than [just] yourself.

It’s a very hard thing for me to accept personally, because I’ve associated making other people happy with being screwed over. And with good reason too; nearly every single time I’ve made an exchange of something with someone in the past, the other person has left a lot happier than me (and in many cases I’ve been left nothing at all). These transactions have been as trivial as exchanging photos over the Internet, and as serious as loaning money or investing time and energy.

It says a lot about someone when they won’t fulfil their end of a deal, but unfortunately—like most people we dislike—they’ve gotten over it in a nanosecond, while the "loser" is left with the expense.

I consider myself to be generous to a fault, and people don’t realise (or care - pick one) just how much I give as a person. Maybe it’s because these days we think we’re entitled to what we get? I don’t know, but people in general just aren’t as appreciative as they probably should be. We see it all the time, especially on birthdays and at Christmas, but on an ordinary day also. We brag about about a lot of things, but don’t stop to think what life would be like without them.

On the same point, you don’t need me to tell you that a lot of people love to take and give nothing in return. We call these people female. (Just kidding.)  What might surprise you is that these people aren’t happy either; remember what I’ve said about being selfish? I certainly have felt remorseful when receiving without giving, especially from my parents but also from peopl who’ve invested time and energy in me.

I’ve realised, though, that disappointment is usually present when you give something and expect to receive something in return. Or when you’ve received something that you didn’t expect.

Giving—in my opinion—is a deep-down, sincere gesture in which the giver wishes to enrich (or improve) another person’s life in some way. Have you ever noticed that, When you don’t appreciate what you’ve been given, you eventually feel bad about yourself? (If you don’t then stay the hell away from me.)

I remember the beginning of Rocky III, where Sylvester Stallone says in a short speech, "people do things for each other because they want to".
While I completely disagree that "I owe you nothing" should be used as some sort of get-out clause or defence, giving something shouldn’t always mean that the receiver is obligated to return the favour. Yet, it can a very dificult thing to give without expecting something back, especially if you’re giving almost everything you have.

I’ve thought about things today, and came to the conclusion that I am generally unhappy because I’m directed towards myself, as opposed to other people [as well].  I’ve been hurt so much, so many times, that I’m always thinking about how I can protect myself, and how I can prevent myself from being screwed over again. Ironically I get screwed over if I do open up, but staying defensive clearly gets me nowhere.

This weblog entry could go on and on, branching off into subjetcts such as appreciation, giving people what they want, acceptance, self-love and so on.

My point today is my realisation that being a happy person comes from making and seeing other people happy; but what nobody tells you—what nobody told me—is that it doesn’t mean you sacrifice your happiness.

I think this post is begging for a part two.