Waking up when the alarm went off at six and realising that I was due to spend a day in the plant centre with a cold was not a moment of unalloyed joy. Still, it is probably safer to be sub-par in charge of plants than if I were still having to make decisions about the ramifications of the Eurozone crisis.
We were peacefully watering when at 9.15am the phone rang. I answered it, and it was The Lady Who Wants 16 Lavenders, which made two moments of not unalloyed joy in one morning. She and I have a history going back about 3 weeks. She spoke originally to a colleague of mine, who palmed her off on (sorry, passed her on to) me, on the grounds that I was going to be at work the next day and he wasn't. He did warn me she sounded dotty. She wanted some lavender for a hedge, but didn't know how many plants, so he told her the correct spacings and left her to measure the length of hedge, work out the number of plants and call me the next day. I was then to call the supplier and place the order. I never get involved in ordering, so the supplier has no idea who I am, but my colleague thought it would be fine. The Lady rang me the next day and said she wanted 16 plants. My colleague had already quoted her a price, which seemed to me unwise when we didn't know how large the plants would be or how much they'd cost us, but I couldn't help that. I assured her that we would honour my colleague's quoted price, assuming we could get plants in 1L pots, and rang the supplier.
The woman I had been told to ring said she didn't know if they had the plants, and she would have to speak to somebody called Carl and check. I asked her if she could ring me back to confirm the plants were available, and she said she would, and didn't. The next time I saw my colleague I updated him on progress to date and gave the paperwork back to him. The next week The Lady Who Wants 16 Lavenders rang me again, to find out about the whereabouts of the lavenders, and I had to apologise and explain that I knew no more than when I last spoke to her. It transpired that her gardener had hurt his back, and we had a very confusing conversation at the end of which I though we'd established that she definitely wanted the plants, but wasn't sure when given the lack of a gardener, and that we would try to get the plants for her with no obligation, and if she decided she couldn't take them we would just put them into general stock. I thought that was pretty good of us, given that lavender is a tricky thing to nurse through winter in a black plastic pot and get looking nice for sale come next spring, and we didn't especially want 16 of them for stock.
She rang again this morning to say that her gardener was now better, and she wanted to place an order for the plants, which is what I thought she did last Monday. She wanted to know when the plants would be in, and I apologised and explained that I would have to find out and ring her back, as I only worked part time and hadn't been at work at all since the last day we spoke, so didn't know until I'd checked if we were able to get the plants. I don't know if she had expected me to be there 24/7, working on sourcing her lavenders, but she seemed to find my ignorance quite incomprehensible. I promised her I would find out. As soon as the call ended I asked the manager, who seemed not to know anything about it. Three quarters of an hour later the phone rang again, and it was The Lady Who Wants 16 Lavenders. She had been engaged on another call, she explained, and thought I might have been trying to call her back. I began to feel as though I were being slowly engulfed by an octopus. I apologised that the manager had been busy with a lorry load of irises that had just arrived (which was almost true, though actually it was just two dutch trollies), and suggested that as I only worked part time and was not going to be in again until the weekend, and given that the manager did the ordering, it would be best if I were to give her the manager's name as a point of contact.
As I was finishing my mid-morning cup of tea, and the manager was just starting his, there was a phone call for him. It was the Lady Who Wants 16 Lavenders. I had tried to warn him. I must speak to my colleague when I next see him, and suggest (forcefully) that he should not involve me in any more customer orders from suppliers. I can't keep track of what's happening when I'm sometimes not in for a week at a time, and it makes us look unprofessional, and causes me more stress than I think my hourly rate warrants. If I wanted stress I could still be paid to worry about the Eurozone crisis.
The phone rang again. It was a sweet-sounding old (from his voice) boy who had bought a long handled brush for cleaning the cracks between paving stones, made by my least favourite tool company. The first time he used it the handle fell off, and when he looked at it the head had only been held on to the shaft by a staple. I looked at the ones in the shop and sure enough they were only stapled on. He lived quite a way away, and didn't really want to have to drive over to bring it back. I decided that he was genuine and gave him a refund over the phone. In fact, it would have been a simple task to put a screw in to hold the head and handle together, but only if you had a drill, and a screw, and a screwdriver, and either strong hands to hold the work while you drilled or else a vice, and he may not have had any of those things, and anyway why should you have to mend something you have just paid £9.95 for that broke the first time you used it.
Then I went and potted irises, which was restful in comparison.
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