My boss, Flo, is one of the most amazing people ever. Spunky, strong and kind. She's the type who will let you have the day off early but still pay you for an 8 hour day just because. Or buy the whole crew lunch. Or let you borrow any of her equipment, including the dump trucks and Walkers, so your lawn can look nice too.
She has to deal with a lot of people every day....homeowners and property managers and such. Some are nice. Some are not so much. It takes a lot out of you to deal with the not-so-nice people. Kudos to Flo. She's tougher than a lot of people.
Flo always says that everyone should have to work landscape maintenance at some point in their life. I totally agree. You learn the best way to lay out your landscaping so you can get lawn mowers through (seriously, someone has randomly spaced boulders in their grass and you can't even get a push mower through...you gotta string trim the whole thing!), which trees will overpopulate your yard with suckers and runners, what kind of plants the deer will just decimate... and just how hard landscape maintenance can be.
Then there are the complainers. I can handle them to a point, especially if they're nice about it. But some of the complainers are just plain nasty. Obviously, they have never worked a day of their life in the dirt. Perhaps they don't realize that when we're mowing and trimming a line of housing units, each one more identical than the last, we need to divvy up our energy along a half-mile stretch of units. Most people compliment our work and tell us we're pretty and make us the most amazing blueberry pancakes I've ever tasted. And then to some people, we can never be good enough.
That brings me to the case of Princess Pantsless. She lives in an $800,000 condo right near the middle of the aforementioned half-mile stretch of identical units. Princess Pantsless is a 50-something-year-old woman who always wears the big bug-eyed sunglasses. Her newly inflated boobs obviously loft her ego to another level. She cornered my sister and I earlier this summer and half-heartedly apologized for "not being dressed". Indeed, she was wearing just a shirt that barely reached mid-thigh and must believe bras are for squares. She wanted to inform us that her shrubs "looked crappy". I apologized and let her know that there had been sort of a pandemic through the development of the sand cherries going belly-up. Our crew had been replacing them all week. She wanted hers done now. Also, she had torn out a bunch of lilacs and wanted us to lay sod where she had done that. We don't lay sod...but I told her we could reseed it... She sure used the word "crappy" a lot.
When we informed Flo of the 'requests' she asked if it was from the lady who never wears pants. Yes it was. Apparently, she's always drawing attention to the fact that she's not wearing them. 'Pardon my nudity. I'm so rich I don't need to wear pants...' We did her bidding and figured she'd be happy. Not so.
Just today, she attacked Kasidy, again, not wearing pants, to let her know that she and her husband thought their lawn looked "disgustingly crappy" and went on to complain about the grass wasn't cut to the exact height they wanted, etc., etc. When Flo went to discuss the altercation with them, they told her to "get the f*** off their property". Gladly. They are the only people who have told us they thought we were doing a terrible job. They're going to get an earful from the head of the homeowner's association. He's on our side. :) We're gonna skip their lawn from here on out.
My point is: be nice to your landscape maintenance worker (make us some blueberry pancakes?) and we will go out of our way to make sure your lawn is extra well-cared for. Even if you're a random unit in a half-mile stretch. Be a nasty, and we'll skip your lawn.
Plus, Kasidy has a thing about making therapeutic pinata effigies to destroy... Princess Pantsless is next on the list. Flo wants in on the action too.
But Flo always says that in heaven, it'll be those nasty people who'll be mowing her lawn while she sips a rum and coke on the patio. Doesn't that just sound heavenly?
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