Valentine's Day has come & gone. Another year under our belts. (In the life of a florist, time is measured by this holiday. T - 8 days and counting. Start calculating strategy. What mistakes were made this year. What day does it fall next year. Potential staffing. etc)
With that in mind, I thought I would take a few minutes and relive a few of highlights of Val Day past. Sort of flashback if you will.
One time in band camp . . . Oops sorry wrong flashback. One time during Val. Day, a husband signed the card "Your secret admirer" and denied all knowledge of the flowers to his wife. Wife calls me crying & hysterical. She believed she had a stalker. After 2 hours of searching thru 300 invoices, (Pre computer era) , wife calls. He finally confessed. I wasn't amused. Bought computer system next month.
One time Val. Day, woman got flowers. Card apparently was not signed and as it turned out they were not from husband. Husband showed up with cops demanding I give him all info from order. After he stood 10 inches from my nose screaming at me, I made new policy. If I know anonymous card is going out, I tell customer that I will rat him out completely if recipient calls me. So far no more irate husbands and I only have had one walk out.
This wasn't Val Day, but it is in top ten of most memorable orders. An old old old lady about 5 foot nothing walked in shakingly using a cane. (Total granny from Big Bad Wolf story). I wait on her. She throws down a 100 dollar bill and says she wants a huge funeral arrangement to go to the nursing home. I immediately think she is slightly addled but still sweet. I think she wants a dear friend to receive flowers to provide comfort on the loss of a spouse. After all who would send a traditional sympathy piece in a paper mache bucket to a nursing home resident? I ask if she meant a beautiful vased piece. Old sweet granny in 0.3 seconds became the witch from Hansel & Gretel and I got scared. She started scribbling a message on an enclosure card. I did not mean to spy but I can read upside down. My eyes grew wide and I became more scared. Her demeanor was changing and in my eyes, warts were suddenly appearing, and ominous music was playing. It said " Your wife is dead!" At that she threw the card down & left. I had gotten her name but not her number. It took me a few minutes to come back to reality. I wanted no part of whatever this was. I called the nursing home & asked the administrator if she knew this person. The answer was a resounding yes. Not good. She had been terrorizing her husband for years and the home put a stop to her visits that were unsupervised. Long story short, money went back & I learned hateful comes in all sizes. YIkes.
Then there was the time that a husband ordered a black bouquet for his wife's 50 birthday. He assured us she would think it was hysterical. OK. She didn't. No humor. And she just knew her husband knew better. If fact, she had asked him. Totally threw me under the bus. I took the rap thinking at least I will be able to salvage any future business with him. Nope. Apparently there is such a thing as florist loyalty. What was I thinking?
I received a call from a customer. He started screaming at me. Yes screaming. He had sent his wife flowers and he had dictated a huge message almost a novella to me. I made one typo. He said it had changed the tone of the message and almost cost him his marriage. I went back & reread it. Tone intact. The if to of fiasco wasn't any impact to the message at all . I think there was more at play than that card. . . . . . but I now triple check everything.
Oh an oldie but goodie. A man was sending flowers to a woman in another state & paying cash for it. The woman wasn't his wife. One day he calls, orders flowers & said I can't make it in put it on my account. Six months later, still no payment. I finally leave message on his phone asking if I had a wrong address and should I just send it to his wife at her work. 2 days later, bill was paid.
And one last one that in our opinion is a timeless card message from a man to his wife, " Roses are Red, Violets are blue. I love you more that Han Solo loves Chu"
With that I will leave you. Til next month, have fun, smile, & laugh a little each day.
