What a difference a day makes. Today's customers were all perfectly polite and reasonable people. Some of them were rather jolly. The most cheerful of all were an elderly couple from north Norfolk. She was bent almost through ninety degrees with some, presumably age-related, spinal problem, but her appetite for life and looking at plants appeared undiminished. They were accompanied by two friendly dogs, which had not appreciated the drive from Norfolk, especially the delays on the A14, and now wanted to trundle about and smell as many interesting things as possible to alleviate the tedium of their day so far. They were on extendable leads, of which they took full advantage. One of them managed to wind its lead 360 degrees around my legs and a pillar in the shop. The couple bought three trees, including a birch that was tall by our standards, and I was not entirely sure how I was going to get them into their car, but given they'd come all the way from Norfolk we agreed we'd find a way. They opted to have the branches at the front end, so as to leave room for the wife's legs in the passenger footwell, which seemed the right choice given the state of her spine, and I was able to tie the branches of the birch together with string so that the husband didn't have to drive home with birch twigs covering half the windscreen. One of the other trees was a ferociously spiny Crataegus, and I was worried about the dogs, which were going to have to share the back of the car with it. The owners were far more sanguine, saying that they were sensible dogs and would keep clear. The wife told me that in her younger days she had driven down the A12 with nine trees crammed into a Mini, branches poking out of every window.
Another couple had driven all the way from Sussex to collect half a dozen Pyrus calleryana 'Chanticleer'. This is a handsome ornamental pear, making a fairly upright tree if left to its own devices, and carrying white flowers in spring and splendid leaf colours in autumn. The species is from north America, though I have read accounts of planning officers whose dogmatic enthusiasm for native plants outstripped their plant knowledge, allowing planning applicants to plant 'Chanticleer', the Chaucerian name deceiving them into thinking that it must be an English tree.
A young girl called in to collect a Cedrus libani that she had been patiently waiting months for. She was amazed that I could remember her name and what plant she had come to collect, so I didn't explain that this was partly because so few of our customers are under 35. Actually, I doubt she's more than 30. She has a beautiful smile, always looks cheerful, and is rather pretty, which are other reasons to remember her. She is a florist, and wants the tree to supply greenery for flower arrangements, though she'll have to wait a few years before she can start harvesting, given that at the moment it's barely 45cm tall.
Everybody I rang to tell them that plants had now arrived that they had asked for, sometimes months ago, was either really pleased to be called because they still wanted the plant, or at least didn't mind being called. A couple wanted time to think about whether they did still want the plant, which is fair enough but pushing the envelope of our information management system to the limit. A colleague rang someone who'd been after Rubus odoratus, and they were with us that same afternoon. It is disheartening when everyone you call has found the plant elsewhere, or substituted something else. One woman I spoke to couldn't remember ordering a Ptelea trifoliata, or even remember what the plant was and what it did, but once I'd described it she said she'd have it anyway. She must have a large garden, to be able spontaneously to fit in a 7m tall shrub. Ptelea trifoliata is the hop tree, a pretty thing with greenish, hop-like scented flowers, and interesting fruits. I have one myself I grew from seed, though it is not very happy in the lean sand along the edge of the wood, and I really ought to keep it free of weeds and generously mulched with mushroom compost to try and persuade it to grow a bit faster.
The owner rang the rude woman with the dead tree yesterday evening, and pacified her, though not to the extent of promising to replace the tree until the manager had seen it. Faced with the choice between angering high spending customers and becoming a soft touch for giving out replacements, she came down on the side of firmness, but got her call in early, before the woman could go out that evening and blacken our reputation over the dinner tables of Suffolk. Apparently she took the line that I could not have been expected to know that the customer had spent a lot of money, and explained our returns policy. I tried to do that, but people like yesterday's awful woman probably listen harder when they are speaking to someone they identify as People Like Us, and not a shop assistant they have written off as a social inferior. It remains to be seen whether the manager gives her a new tree anyway, even if he thinks the old one failed due to poor cultivation, and not through any fault of ours. I wouldn't be surprised if he does, as a 'goodwill gesture'. Pish to goodwill. I've spent more than £500 with the Whichford Pottery in the past year, but I wouldn't expect a free replacement if I was stupid enough to break one of their pots shortly after purchase.
The owners were interviewing a shortlisted candidate for the plant centre job, and introduced him to those staff who were around. He currently works in a garden centre, and would like to improve his plant knowledge, which he would certainly do working with us. He told us some hair raising stories about their customers. They get people bringing back dead plants bought from other nurseries and trying to claim a refund, even to the point of swiping labels from the stock in that garden centre and putting them on the plants from elsewhere. Staff can spot this when it isn't the right label for that style or size of pot or plant. Allegedly, some customers will even damage plants of the same variety as the ones they are buying, leave them there on the garden centre bed, then come back ten days later, pick up the wilted plants, and present them at the till with their receipt, claiming these are the ones they bought, as a scam to get free extras. Thinking about it afterwards I wondered how the garden centre staff knew that was what customers were doing, and if it happened regularly or only the once. I don't think most of our customers are that devious. Loud shouty sense of entitlement is more their style.
I told the Systems Administrator about the awful woman with the dead tree, who said that she was probably married to the sort of person the SA used to work for. 'Dickhead fund manager working in Fixed Interest' was the exact phrase.
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