Horticultural Technician

Courtney Heitman

Working with flowers can’t be that bad, can it?

My first job I started at the ripe age of 15. I worked in a greenhouse. It started off great but then the retail opened and the weather got hotter. What most people don’t realize is that greenhouses trap lots of heat. So that nice balmy 80 degree day in May is easily 95 degrees in a greenhouse. There are some days in July that greenhouses can get up to 150 degrees.

Now the obnoxious heat is just the tip of the iceberg, you also have to carry flats of plants. Flats are these long plastic box like things that hold anywhere from 12 to 40 individual plants. Now you have efficient when carrying them because carrying just one at a time will take forever to restock the retail. But the thing about plants is, you can’t stack them like normal boxes. So you have to carry 3 or 4 of them on your arms while balancing them and trying not to get paper cut like cuts all over your hands and arms from the thin plastic that they are made out of.

Not so horrible yet but then you have to carry bags of soil that weigh 50 plus pounds, deal with other employees watering the plants and the random puddles of water that get left behing. All the while managing to still look presentable, because you are working in a retail store.