After I left my ex-husband, I moved out where I rented a single bedroom in a basement of a home. I paid $500 a month with the first month's rent and last month's rent expected. I had just barely started working at a flower shop, so I had $0 to my name. My landlord still let me move in with an agreement that I would pay him $400-500 every paycheck until I was caught up on rent and what I owed. It took me a few months, but I was able to do it! I was so proud of that room because it was mine! I paid for it and it was the first place I had that was completely mine. My landlord kept raising the rent though. I was there for 4 years and left paying $700 for that room. Ridiculous.
I got hired on at the flower shop for the call center since that's the experience I had. I was great at it too! I was moving up and was like an assistant to the call center manager. Then one day general manager of all the stores came in saying she needed help at the stores itself and asked if we would like to go and help. I was the only one to raise my hand. They trained up front for 2 days just enough to show me how to make a single wrap of flowers and make sure that I had the register down. I was then thrown into a store where it was just me for almost a week straight. I did not know what to do, arrangements were selling out of the cooler, I had never made an arrangement, I was not a floral designer, and I literally felt like walking out. After the 3rd day alone, I finally broke down to our driver manager because he was the only one to come to the store for a delivery of flowers every morning. I asked him to ask the girls at our central location if they could send me some arrangements for the cooler. It was then that I finally started exploring the store and found a design book where it tells you step by step what goes in the arrangement. I started playing around and started making arrangements. When the other employees of that location finally came in, I started asking questions and asking them to show me how to green a vase. If I was expected to either sink or swim, I chose to swim. I chose to teach myself on how to floral design by following the design book and picking things up. I eventually traveled to other locations where I did the same, I'd pick up what I could learn for the workers there. I eventually moved up to making funeral arrangements as well as simple vase arrangements. After about 2 years of traveling, I was able to get my own store that I was in charge of. I had it for a year before the building was sold. Once the building sold, I went back to our central location. I was terrified that they would throw me back into the call center. They didn't. They threw me in as one of the designers. I even got my own table. I was then expected to do daily orders as they came in. It was there that I finally was able to train with our trainer that I never knew we had where she was able to show me a little on how to do the bigger funeral arrangements such as the standing easels and the casket sprays that go on top of the caskets. I became one of the main designers. I loved it! I really opened up! From being a shy, abused woman to the most talkative and confident woman you could ever meet. I loved working there and I loved designing and I found a passion I didn't know I had. That place will always be like home to me along with the workers like family. I even married my forever husband there in the lobby, so it always and forever will hold special memories.
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