The boss announced that we must tackle the hairy bittercress in the herbaceous tunnel, before it ripened and shed its seeds everywhere. He added generously that the manager could use one of the plant centre staff up until 10.00am. As we were both watering until gone twenty past nine this was a slightly symbolic gesture, but I managed to spend an hour and a quarter over there before it got too busy in the plant centre. Hairy bittercress grown in a nice, warm, irrigated tunnel displays a vigour not possessed by the starvelings that try to colonise my gravel, and make huge, plump plants fully 20cm tall. I think we may have missed the boat slightly with the seed shedding, though.
We had to hose dollops of peacock ordure off the ramp up to the back of the shop. My colleague believes that at this time of the year they like to look at themselves reflected in the glass of the door. At least they don't show any interest in the parked cars: I have heard of peacocks attacking their reflections in the panels of a well-polished motor. Mine will be quite safe anyway, as it hasn't been washed since winter, and not for quite a long time before that. I keep thinking that I really must wash it, but it would be a great excuse to be able to say that you would have a clean car, except that then it might be attacked by peacocks.
One of the hens made repeated forays into the shop, presumably looking for cake crumbs after yesterday's Yellow Book festivities. Another hen, or maybe the same one, managed to get locked into the staff room. Chickens and carpets don't mix. The carpet is an unfortunate shade of pink, donated by a former staff member who had a mate who was refurbishing a pub, and was already pretty grubby, but it is marginally worse now.
Most of the customers were delightful, though I did get one peeved and self-righteous one who was not very happy that we hadn't rung her to warn her that the cistus she had been told would be arriving in around three weeks when she ordered it about three weeks ago was still expected in three weeks as of today. I apologised for that and explained that ordering in plants from small suppliers wasn't as straightforward as ordering baked beans, and that unfortunately as it was a very busy time of year and the list of people waiting for plants ran to 12 pages of A4, we didn't have the resources to call each of them to keep them updated on progress obtaining their plants. Actually, I've never tried ordering baked beans, and for all I know it is fiendishly complicated. How do you explain politely to querulous and possibly rather dim people that the level of personal service they are expecting for their nineteen quid is wildly unrealistic?
No comments:
Post a Comment