chocolate is part of the answer, the other part is Tequila.

It's not easy, is it? I've been there and done that before I opened my own business. I tried to picture some of the clients as large dollar bills with legs. If they didn't walk through that door to "bug" us, we'd be sitting behind a typewriter or slapping burgers. God bless 'em.

I should probably have a good night's sleep before I respond, but...

I have had about 2 days off in the last 60. There is never enuff time/help/resources/energy to do all that i would like for my customers. Over the years, I've gotten better at preparing for the spring rush, but there is only so much one can do...

One couple was absolutely insistent that i come by their property and "look around and give them some ideas". I told them I hadn't seen my family for a month, and they would just have to wait until July or August...

Personally, I find that vats of black coffee, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and chocolate for sure get me thru any given day. That, and a perpetual love of the plants, and a powerful sense of humor....

Brian

I will never do retail again.

EVER!

Hello!

Our spring is just beginning here. I am not an owner so I dont have to do it all. Floor sales, plant displays and the roses are my responsibility. Keeping my cool this time of year is easier, its cooler, everything seems new the real gardeners are still out. You are a zone ahead and in full swing, full of new gardeners and exhausted.

I work part time. wont go full time until the youngest is out of the house, maybe never.

On bad days I just remind myself " I get paid for this, this person is making that possible." Most days (99%)its better than being indoors. My specility is dealing with couples who dissagree. When my Boss calls on the intercom and says oh so sweetly "I need you up front........." I know whats waiting.

Lets see a bad day = 100 degrees, last order waiting to be put away, bedding wilting, co worker leaving early, customer sneaking in the gate as I am closing it "just to look" then the phone rings and the owner is calling from the Lake "which is so beautiful today" to see how it went and if we were busy. LOL

On a bad day I stop on the way home for a Gatorade and a bag of cheetos..... way better than chocolate!!!!

Chocolate Margaritas.
I started working in a retail nursery/garden center recently, and actually was lucky that it was raining my first day -- kept the number of customers to a managible level (although a lot came armed with umbrellas, determined to buy!). It's supposed to rain again this weekend, so I'm getting eased mercifully into the madness!

Think I'll pack peanutbutter and honey sammiches for lunch!

Oh, come on. I have read a zillion posts over the last few years from people leaving the corporate world to open a retail shop to do what they love and deal with the great subculture of gardeners. Surely, the days are only long because you are wanting to be out there in that ideal situation. It has to be better than 40 hours of climate control clicking a mouse.

Oh, that's right, there is reality.

wilted viola:

make sure you get your breaks, even if they are short, just get away from customers for a few minutes, get to the bathroom (damn, that is important!), and have a drink of water, or wash your face - it will refresh you.

eat a balanced lunch - don't wolf it.

remember that the spring rush actually slows down eventually - that will always give you hope.

dwell on the customers that you really enjoyed working with, and try not to think about that one bad egg who was a total pain in the a--

treat customers as you would like to be treated - it will pay you dividends for years to come . . . .

to all of you who work in retail - bless your hearts, you are a hearty lot. I did it for 13 years, and that was enough for me, although after another 12 years in the wholesale business, I still miss some parts of retail, mostly those really nice customers who make your day. It takes a special person to work retail, whether it is in the garden center business, or in any other service related industry (I grew up in the restaurant business, and have quite an appreciation for any service worker).

Spring is here, and most of you are working long hours in both good and bad weather. Hope you make it through unscathed!

PP

Bought chocolate. Hope it lasts thru the weekend.

Will try not to wolf lunch. Might even try to clock out for lunch. Dare I turn my radio off for 30 minutes??? Dare I turn it off when hiding in the toilet:) Dare I take a break? Yes, I know I need them. Boy, do I need them.

And, maybe, just maybe, a miracle will happen and the full time helper I am to have will apply for a job and be hired today and they will be plant knowledgeable, customer friendly, ready to start immediately, and ready to run like heck the next 3 days. (I can dream, can't I?)

Thanks all for your words of wisdom.

Still wilted after a night's sleep

Working retail and working nursery retail are two completely different experiences.

Gardening is leisure for 95% of the people that walk into the nursery (other than landscapers, etc). Most of these people know what they want, or just enjoy walking through the nursery. Most questions are "will this plant....." type questions. A little more difficult are plant identification problems wherein someone thinks "3 ft shrub with white flowers and glossy green leaves" is a sufficient enough description for you to identify, but these people aren't that bad. Somewhat frustration are the people that insist there MUST be an evergreen plant that will bloom all year long, never drop leaves, will never freeze and never needs to be watered. There are a few people that are a PITA, but you may only run into one a week, not ten a day.

Being busy is good. It is not nearly as stressful as working in Target where the store manager is never satisfied with how your department looks.

The problem with ordering merchandise while customers are asking questions isn't normally a problem. Understand this: When I am ordering plants from the grower's salesperson I am the grower's customer. The salesperson is usually ok if I make him wait while I sell something because it means I will have to order additional products. While it takes a little longer for him to complete an order patience is always a win-win situation for both parties. Once...that is only one time...have I had a grower's salesperson get impatient with me and left because he felt he didn't have the time to wait around while I was answering customer's questions. I ended up not ordering from him for a little over a month because I just ordered the same plants from other growers that would allow me the time to help customers. After a month he figured out how things work. To be fair about it, if I thought there was no possible way that I could take the time out to make an order I would either ask them to stop by later, or leave me a copy of their availability and fax it to them.

I wouldn't be working retail except for the fact it's plants. I fully appreciate retail employees who give great service--just never had a desire to do it. Till I fell in love with plants.

(BTW, only needed one chocolate bar yesterday. I did try to ignore a lot of ringing phones and radio calls.)

My orders are all placed by fax--but if I don't get them in on time, I lose out. Either on choice material, or too late for a delivery at all for the week. At least I don't have salespeople standing there waiting for me.

I should be starting the ordering on the weekend, but instead I am to do customer service. Early in the week when I should be rushing thru the ordering process, I am still filling in on customer service and two of us seem to be answering the majority of phone calls coming into the business. Which is substantial this time of year.

So for any of you who order (annuals especially), what's your routine? This year I am trying something new. I take a thorough inventory late Sunday/Monday a.m. and then begin my ordering. It's really helped to avoid overstocking/understocking on items. In fact, this year the current inventory has remained the best looking ever because of my careful ordering. I finish ordering Tuesday evening. But need to come in on my days off to get in a couple more large orders for the weekend. I find that making all the week's buying decisions on Monday/Tues. doesn't work unless I know absolutely what the weather will be like for the next week. And that just doesn't ever happen. Our sales area is not conducive to warehousing plants (not enough sun or air circulation) so I just can't be ordering annuals too far in advance.

If anyone has any great tips on how you get all the ordering done, and when you do it, let me know!

And I hope you all make it thru today and tomorrow.

perkin' up viola

"And, maybe, just maybe, a miracle will happen and the full time helper I am to have will apply for a job and be hired today and they will be plant knowledgeable, customer friendly, ready to start immediately, and ready to run like heck the next 3 days. (I can dream, can't I?)"

Do nurseries hire part-timers? On my frequent nursery forays, I often find myself answering (or helping out) when a customer asks a plant-ID or plant-use question. I can run, but I can't lift 40 pounds.

Habitat: I have two part-timers--between them they work about 3 days a week.

Running happens. Lifting is an absolute: holding hanging baskets up high/trying to hang them, lugging flats of plants uphill by cart. And then there's the constant shuffling of flats on the tables--which means leaning over, arms extended, with heavy flats in your hands. Back-breaking work.

My first year there I helped unload an order of concrete statuary, bird baths, and benches. After we're all finished the deliveryman tells me thanks, and that he always does it by himself. I never offered to help again!

We have other part-timers, too--students and people with other jobs. I suspect all nurseries do the same.

If you're interested in part-time work, ask at your favorite nursery. The pay is probably lousy, but you should get a great discount. And first pick on some of the unusual and new items.

Only half a candy bar needed today. It was a great day!

Hint: Use your legs (thigh and calf muscles) to move those plant flats. Keep your knees slightly bent, never rigid, and "push from the ground." Your back and arms just become conduits for the power generated by your (much stronger) legs.

Same goes for lifting. Never stoop forward or use your back muscles. Have an experienced lifter (either a gym dude/dudette or someone at the nursery with a hoisting permit) show you how.

What's a hoisting permit? Sounds like something most people could use. (When my mom was in the hospital, it seemed only one out of a couple dozen nurses knew how to move her properly.) I've found several years of doing Pilates important in reminding me to use my core muscles.

Re lifting: in our garden center the young guys are there to do the lifting: we have a lot of experienced mature staff and and they are invaluable in working with the public. What's 'heavy'? That's up to each and every employee. It could be 20 pounds or 100 pounds. The minimum lifting requiremets is a flat of pots when arranging the shelves. Better to have the 65-year-old 100 pound garden guru on the floor and helping to generate sales and good will than to have them dreading coming into work because of the physical requirements. Besides, my experience is the 18-year old young guy would rather load bags of compost into a trunk than discuss hosta varieties.

Of course, they get the tips.

Last retail place I worked a customer thought I was a jerk because the tree they picked out turned out to have a tremendously heavy, (overwatered) clay rootball, the weight of which caught me by surprise, causing the top to get whipped around as the handles of the handtruck flew out of my hands and the pot smacked onto the ground (still on the truck). Neither assurances that the other one in stock would look the same later, or that they their original choice would still grow, were greeted with confidence. Later, the kid who loaded it into their car, who could not care less about plants or gardening, was rewarded with "Thanks, man" (and maybe a tip after I walked away).

Like I said, the last retail place I worked. Decades of experience are good for something better than clerking.

Short person, waist high table with higher table above and set back, long reach. No way not to extend arms with flats in hands. Ouch. Not my design for tables. Plus they are of a material on which you cannot slide flats, so even when going sideways, one must pick up and replace the flat. Ouch, ouch.

I hear Cheetos calling...

Lifting may be a part of the job that's unavoidable, even if it's not expected of us older, knowledgeable horticulture folk. ;-)

For example, yesterday we had a genuine "Nor'easter" here in Massachusetts, with 45 mph winds and driving rain. I spent much of the morning either picking up displays that had been blown over, or intentionally laying down large, heavy objects so they wouldn't crash down on a customer. (Customers still were coming to the garden center, driven by guilt over Mother's Day looming over the weekend.)

It was sometimes grueling work, but I was the only "front yard" person working that day because of the weather. So, I had to do the lifting as well as helping and yakking with the customers. That's just the way it is, and one should always be ready to have to lift, push, carry or schlep something when you work at a garden center or nursery.

We do have lots of young guys to do the really heavy moving - ball and burlap nursery shrubs and trees, rock pallets, etc. with a fork lift and manual labor. But the rest of us still have to move flats of plants, carry large pots and ornaments, and set up displays that are sometimes weighty.

Habitat,

Dunno why I mentioned the hoisting permit - A hoisting permit or license is what you need to legally (at least in Massachusetts) operate a forklift, front end and bucket loader, bulldozer, crane, earth moving equipment, specialty lawn mowers and other large, heavy equipment used to "hoist" things. I guess it popped into my head because all the guys I know who operate such equipment are good at proper lifting because they typically have to do so when changing the parts on the vehicle (such as switching a 'dozer shovel for an auger or forklift attachment). It just stuck in my head.

Construction workers, are another good source of advice on lifting.

So are ex-nurses. LOL.

I am fifty eight and can still lift bale after bale of soggy pro-mix chest high to stack them. I'll second the suggestion to let your legs do as much work as you can and protect that back. We got a nice deere garden tractor with a bucket on it a few years ago and it works on hydraulics. Oh God, I thought I died and went to heaven.

No one in our garden center is expected to endanger their health because of the financial imperative of the moment. I wouldn't move heavy signs or anything else because they are endangering customers. The store would just have to close. Employee safety (their backs) NEVER takes a second place to anything else.

Now, of course, that's a consideration when employees are hired. Much easier in a larger establishment than in a smaller one in which understandibly everyone is expected to do everything.

Re: Mother's Day. Wow! Talk about 2 different worlds. We were nuts before 4PM and then the dead zone. Never known it so slow on a Sunday evening. I was pleasantly surprised how more people want to but mom a plant or shrub for the garden than a colorful annual basket or pot.

viola8,

PLEASE be careful with those flats! I did some damage to my shoulder/rotator cuff last spring and it's still not totally healed. I'm tall, but I still had to stretch with those flats (our tables were made out of pallets, four across, so it was a good stretch from either side, and nothing would slide well because the wood was too rough).

I know to lift with my legs to save my back, but I'm still not sure how I could have prevented the rotator cuff damage. Anyone?

I use lightweight boards to make a "skid steer" and slide the flats along them to their destination. If they need to go a bit farther, I use a stick or another piece of board to push the flats until they reach their resting spot. The timber they sit on keeps them moving smoothly - nothing to snag on. When they get to the end, I lift the ends of the boards and slide the flats off.

No shoulder injuries, no strain. You keep your body naturally aligned and let the "tools" do the work.

viola, I sympathize entirely :-)) Between my managerial/buying position for a retail garden center AND running my own design business, spring is a tough time to even slow down enough to take a breath. And in my 12 month gardening climate, I doubt even our spring rush can compete with those located in more limiting climates. My day at the nursery passes in a blur but even with the seasonal crunch, schmoozing with and helping customers is the best part. Unfortunately, I seem to get tied up with more office work at this time of year than I'd prefer.

Taking enough breaks is really important - that few minutes away from the sales floor can make all the difference in attitude and enthusiasm. And try to compartmentalize as best as you can - it's tough to give good customer service when you are preoccupied with restocking or ordering for the coming week. And don't forget to have a social life - as tired as you may feel, meeting friends for drinks or dinner occasionally can really recharge your spirits, not to mention spending some quality time with your family or just by yourself. Don't skip days off just because it's the busy season - good garden center managers understand that proper time off is essential to having a good humored and well balanced, enthusiastic sales staff. Organize an afterhours potluck or other gathering - we had a Cinqo di Mayo BBQ afterhours last week to unwind from the Mother's Day weekend prep and gear up for the coming weekend and it was a great stress-reliever (not to mention a ton of good food - don't all nursery workers focus on food??).

Believe it or not, I find coming home and spending a bit of time in my own garden is a great diversion from all the other activities. Yes, I work with plants all day long (and with garden designs well into the night) but finding a few moments to spend putzing around my own garden seems to put everything else into proper perspective. But I sure wouldn't mind having a personal assistant to tend to my other affairs - just finding time to return calls, pay bills, take the dogs in for grooming (or me for a haircut) and the car for servicing, even emptying the dishwasher sometimes seems more than I can manage. Just remember that the crunch period passes - sometimes all too soon - and pace yourself.