My Job at the Greenhouse
While working at the brand new Mischels Greenhouse I found out it was different from any
other job I ever had. It was one of the most responsible jobs so far of my life. Four
thousand lives were almost totally in my exchange sisters, Tanya, and my hands. By us
watering them daily. Because it was so hot out-side, the greenhouse was stifling.
Watering mums was a very tedious job be-cause it was repetitious. I started daily at 9
A.M. my whole day consisted of taking care of Forty thousand mums. They sat on top of
many benchtops col-lecting sun and, heat rays waiting for us to water them. After
watering them, John, (My boss), would go behind me and pull flowers. Which means picking
out the best plants. Then Tanya and I would pick them up and put them on a rack 5x5 and
then shrink wrap them. Shrink-wrapping was mainly my job throughout the day. I would
load an 8 foot tall rack then I would wrap the rack full of mums so the mums would not
fall off. Then I would take the palette jack and pick up the rack, and load it into the
Ford truck. Loading is hard because I have to make sure they go all the way to the back
and to the side of the truck. It can't be one inch off otherwise it could hurt the
plants (They could rub together) and the racks wouldn't fit side by side. It's a
endless cycle, day after day, until all the mums are gone. When the mums are all gone,
it's a glorious feel of relief. All the benches had to be cleaned to get ready for
poinsettias. Tanya went back to Belarus to live with her real family so I asked my
friends if any of them wanted to help and only one said yes. I told my boss and a week
later my friend was working with me It was my job to "show him the ropes" with the
poinsettias. After he got the hang of things it was smooth sailing, to load poinsetias.
We did eve-rything the same as the mums except we put eight plants in a cardboard box.
Then loaded the truck box by box. The old Ford could hold nineteen hundred twenty plants
which is a lot of work when we had to load each plant one by one. All the poinsetias are
gone now, so we start with geraniums again. I have no idea how to start those. When I
started working at Mischels Greenhouse, The geraniums were already grown. I guess I will
learn all over again.
I wonder if Tanya will be back to help me. But that's another story...
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