I did not have a good first day back from my vacation yesterday. When I started my vacation, we had a lot of beautiful, healthy plants. I was hoping someone would start marking them down as I had begun doing. I was sure someone would continue, but nope – nothing more got marked down. But worse, from the way the plants looked, nobody bothered to water the plants either. The 4-packs of petunias were all “toast” – dead. I had to throw away just over 200 of those 4-packs. I also had to throw away a bunch of dead marigolds, celosias and verbenas (all in 4-packs). I could have thrown away a lot more plants, but it started raining too much so I couldn’t do any more. And you know what really galls me? It’s the attitude of one of my garden center co-workers – the one who works too slow and hums all the time. I was ranting – oh yes, I was furious and upset and disgusted – you name it, I was livid at the ineptitude of the rest of the department that they could not keep those plants alive for a lousy 6 days while I was on vacation. I was very blunt when I told him there was no excuse for the plants to be dead like that. He just replied “Whatever”. He even pretty much blamed ME for the condition of the plants, saying, “Maybe you shouldn’t have taken your vacation in the height of the season”. WHAT? July is NOT “the height of the season”. It’s when things are winding down. It takes about 2 hours to water the plants we have left. At the ‘height of the season" it can take 4-5 hours to properly water everything. And then he said I was wring to “assume” the plants would be watered. Assume, nothing! I EXPECTED them to be watered and I had every right to expect it. Mr. “Hummer” and the other associate, Ann, are not new to the garden center and even if they were, they ought to know that plants need water. Especially since it was so hot all 6 days – upper 80’s. The “hummer” claimed he watered, but clearly he doesn’t know how to do it right. (more rant coming)…
I did not have a good first day back from my vacation yesterday. When I started my vacation, we had a lot of beautiful, healthy plants. I was hoping someone would start marking them down as I had begun doing. I was sure someone would continue, but nope – nothing more got marked down. But worse, from the way the plants looked, nobody bothered to water the plants either. The 4-packs of petunias were all “toast” – dead. I had to throw away just over 200 of those 4-packs. I also had to throw away a bunch of dead marigolds, celosias and verbenas (all in 4-packs). I could have thrown away a lot more plants, but it started raining too much so I couldn’t do any more. And you know what really galls me? It’s the attitude of one of my garden center co-workers – the one who works too slow and hums all the time. I was ranting – oh yes, I was furious and upset and disgusted – you name it, I was livid at the ineptitude of the rest of the department that they could not keep those plants alive for a lousy 6 days while I was on vacation. I was very blunt when I told him there was no excuse for the plants to be dead like that. He just replied “Whatever”. He even pretty much blamed ME for the condition of the plants, saying, “Maybe you shouldn’t have taken your vacation in the height of the season”. WHAT? July is NOT “the height of the season”. It’s when things are winding down. It takes about 2 hours to water the plants we have left. At the ‘height of the season" it can take 4-5 hours to properly water everything. And then he said I was wring to “assume” the plants would be watered. Assume, nothing! I EXPECTED them to be watered and I had every right to expect it. Mr. “Hummer” and the other associate, Ann, are not new to the garden center and even if they were, they ought to know that plants need water. Especially since it was so hot all 6 days – upper 80’s. The “hummer” claimed he watered, but clearly he doesn’t know how to do it right. (more rant coming)…