"Tell us about your skills," asks my resume.
...I once had to recreate a three-foot tall pillar of flowers and greens while standing over a dead body in front of a crowd of 50 mourners while the daughter of the deceased berated me for my lack of skills and demanded a refund. And I did not cry once.
(Ability to perform under pressure and multitask.)
On another occasion, I had to listen to a woman on the other end of the phone badmouth me and my aura while she pleaded for us to give her a free item because the first one was perfectly fine, but the lighting in the recipient's house was too warm.
(Call de-escalation and graceful reception of criticism.)
On a separate occasion, changed the flowers and color scheme of a high-end gala based entirely around a series of centerpieces that were scrapped two days before the event and had to engineer a waterless arrangement to meet the demands of an enormous candelabra while tying in the color schemes of four extremely clashing boardrooms- one of which required limes.
(Ability to handle a change in creative direction and keep a clear line of communication between vendor and client while incorporating the original themes of... uh... citrus)
An unrelated situation required me to take an arrangement to the neighboring coffee shop as a thank you for breaking up a fight between one of our drivers and a person in their drive-thru line, wherein our driver pulled a man out of his car and engaged in a spitting match over whether or not the man had let him into the loading dock. This was performed, regrettably, in front of the coffee shop's cameras.
(Showed effective negotiations and peacekeeping methods with affiliated businesses while keeping the integrity of the brand.)
Once, at the owners direction, I had to inform a customer that azaleas did not come in the color blue and that we could substitute white with a blue bow. During this phone call, the customer insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about and that of course they come in blue-theyre blue on the website. I told her that it was likely white and perhaps the screen color balance needed adjustment, which she refused and promptly broke into tears because we were lying to her and she would not take any substitutions. After careful deliberation, we decided on a white azalea with a blue bow.
(Calmly redirected a high energy guest in the direction of a suitable compromise while working within the appropriate guidelines.)
When upper management came by to help us combat the high turnover rate, he told us he didn't understand why it was so difficult for us to find and keep people. "Its not like this is a hard job," he said. "A trained monkey could do flowers." The comment hurt me, but I pretended it didn't.
(Received a negative comment with careful consideration and continued to work steadily when faced with criticism)
During a high volume holiday, I appointed myself to be in charge of inventory. I counted our arrangements over and over and over again to make sure all the numbers were right. Although I made meticulous work of keeping track of our inventory, keeping up with sales proved a challenge. To counteract this, I updated inventory every two hours instead of every six. This improved our accuracy, however our numbers were still off by an abnormal amount because of user error from people taking orders at other locations. I worked very hard, but we were still blamed for the innacuracy. But imagine if i had not.
(Implemented a strict and thorough inventory habit to relieve pressure on the internal system, preventing a wide margin of error and reducing waste of product.)
During a different high volume holiday, a phone call came in for another store. I took the call because it was just an order and I've done thousands of orders before. When the phone lines are busy at our main store, the phones ring at whichever store has a line open. We are not supposed to tell the caller which location they have reached, preferring to allow them to believe that they have reached the location of their choice or the call center. Previously, I had been berated by ownership (who was listening in on our calls) for transferring phone calls to the intended locations instead of taking the initiative to alter a standing order. I had no idea what that location might have, but the customer wanted tulips. I sold her a tulip special.
Unbeknownst to me, we were out of tulips company-wide. However, this was treated like common knowledge based on a spreadsheet that I was unaware of and did not know how to access. I used that spreadsheet daily from then on, regardless of its accuracy; one spreadsheet out of six that I was meant to rely on for future inventory. These inventory sheets were never, if rarely, referred to when other associates placed orders for our store.
(Developed an understanding of inventory systems and implemented them into daily use.)
After a significant amount of our funeral work, a point of pride for me and others, was diverted to the headquarters to be made there and then delivered to us each morning, it became a daily task to remake anything that was damaged in transit and make anything that failed to arrive. These were often pieces ranging from 150-500$ and could be due as early as 8am.
One such occasion was a 400$ carnation sculpture in the shape of a Cleveland Browns helmet, due by 10 am that day. Having no specialized equipment for this endeavor, I sculpted the shape of the helmet using a fishing knife we found in the parking lot. We didn't have enough orange carnations to fill the piece, so I created a sense of depth using flower-safe dyes and white carnations. I managed all this while answering phones, handling customers, and performing other daily duties. The sculpture was finished with fifteen minutes to spare, just enough time to get it to the funeral before the deadline.
This went... unnoticed.
(Completed a high-priced, labor intensive project within time constraints with improvised tools without sacrificing attention to routine responsibilities.)
...
I left.
(Enacted executive decision to act upon the betterment of one's own mental health and asserted autonomy by choosing to end an abusive relationship with one's workplace as a preference of personal health over profit of a multimillion dollar business.)
