Why you haven't seen me much in the last couple of days

Over the weekend, I got a panicked call from the owner of one of the nicer LFS's in St. Louis. He was on a several week business trip and one of the 2 full time workers was on vacation in Ireland. The store manager just up and walked out the door in the middle of the day on Saturday. In the matter of 5 minutes I went from crazy CPA to also managing a LFS. (I just take my laptop and work on client's work and then if a customer comes in, close the laptop, step into a phone booth and turn into Superman....er I mean store manager At least, that was the plan on the phone.) Frankly, had I visited the store prior to me agreeing over the phone to take over temporarily as long as I could work on my clients during down-time, I'm not so sure that I would have agreed. Wait till you read the following:

Over the course of 3 weeks, the store manager was apparently mad at the store owner. This store has over 10,000 gallons of water (including a coral and fish quarantining factility). It's clear not a tank was cleaned in 3 weeks. Every single sump (huge 150g rubbermaid sumps) had not been topped off with water for some time and the return pumps were blowing air bubbles into most systems. One entire invert system had a dinoflagellate bloom of enormous proportions and I wondered why. I found out from a customer that they informed him the skimmer cup is overflowing and sending the skimmate right back into the sump and he told them that he had no intention of emptying the cup.

Cured LR is no longer LR. 75% of it is dried out because he didn't turn the spigot to fill the vats with RO/DI top-off water.

I could go on and on but I think you're getting the picture.

 

OMG wow, be lucky that the store employee that walked didnt pour bleach or something into the tanks, I ve heard of that happening! Do you think this is going to lead into a job? PS if I owned a LFS I would have a security cam that I could view on the internet, with all of the sensors etc. lol!

 

There's no way on God's Green Earth I would manage a LFS. I'm a CPA and dealing with people around tax time when I'm working 16~18 hour days is challenging enough. I have no desire to deal with even crazier people permanently. ;D

This started out as a friendship deal and when I saw the conditions, it turned into a save the animals deal. I'm pooped, my body hurts, but just in a couple of days, the store is already so much improved that it's amazing. However, that's because two part-timers are also pooped and even though they are young, I bet their bodies hurt too. The owner is back in town now and even though this is an investment for him, he's working like a dog as well.

Bleach would be obvious and I don't think he would do that anyway. I've already told the owner that I don't want to know what fights they had or any details because that was yesterday. You cannot change a thing about yesterday. Here's the list of things that need to be done IMO prioritized from most important to least important. Let's move forward and move on and check-off all of the tasks on this list as soon a physically possible.

 

Nice work helping out. Karma to you.

 

Good work Curt!

 

Super Curt!

 

Thats actually cool of a LFS to know of someone that they can trust! And that someone (you) would be kind enough to help! Karma!

 

good job Curt

 

Holly cow, You really have to wonder about people, How irresponsible some people can be.
You sure had your work cut out for you.

I bet you didn't get much of your own work done.

J

 

Let me know the next time you are there working and I'll come in to get a big (friend) discount on things;D .....
Good job Curt, U Da Man! Now get back to helping people on here....

We never do see you online, your in Stealth mode all the time.