Misadventures In Landscaping
A few years ago I decided to take a job as a landscaper. It was a beautiful job, a wonderful marvelous job, a job which led me to do many wonderful things that I never knew myself to be capable of before in my whole entire existence. A job where I had no real supervision, and no experience - and I was sent out into the world to wreak havoc wherever I could.
On the first two days the only thing about landscaping I experienced was the fact that when your fellow landscapers who are supposed to teach you the ropes don't show up, you get to spend the first hour flipping channels and watching Night Court until your boss (Jack) says, "OK - come back tomorrow and we'll have some work for you."
On the third day of Landscaping I experienced work with Jack. This is where he decided my fellow landscapers were all terrible deadbeat quitters and that I would therefore be the entire landscape crew for a while. He went out and showed me vital things about landscaping, like what things are nasty weeds and what are beautiful plants. He also demonstrated proper landscaping terminology, like "Move this (bad word) pile of (bad word) over there next to that (bad word)." It's a nice & to the point sort of terminology.
On the fourth day Jack said to me, "So, have you ever used a chainsaw before?" "No, no I haven't." "Okay, come here." We go outside, he points to the chainsaw - I look at it. "You just push this button, & pull this cord," he says, "There you go, have fun." And off I went by myself for the day. My boss had lots of faith in me.
On the 7th day I finally got coworkers. So there we were, a fine crew: me with one week of landscaping experience, and Joe with no landscaping experience, and another kid who I think had 3 weeks experience somewhere else but I swear knew less than either me or Joe. We were landscaping professionals! Landscaping engineers if you will! Roaming the land! Doing good for our fellow men & spreading joy wherever we went!
We had many amazing adventures and astounding experiences, experiences like:
Learning Experience #1
One beautiful thing I learned in landscaping was that you buy sand & mulch in measurements called 'yards', and we'd order it like so: "We'll take one yard of top soil." "Where you want it?" "Back of the truck." So up comes a guy with one of those power shovel things full of top soil, and he stops before putting it in the truck. "What the crud is he doing?" I say to Joe, "I don't know" and we motioned to him to dump it in. We head back to our yard, all happy for our deeds well done, and then we go out to look for our tools.
"Where the heck are they?" "Didn't we just have them here?" and we're running around to look for them. Then I look at Joe and get this sinking feeling - "Um, we left them in the back of the truck didn't we?" and then went back to the truck and dug into the top soil to get all of our tools back out. Unfortunately the shovels were also buried, so we had to use the next best thing: hands.
Learning Experience #2
We show up to work at 8 a.m., Jack looks at us, "Any of you guys ever towed a 30 foot trailer before?" "Nope" we all say. "Hmm..okay..." he looks around at all of us, I'm screaming inside, 'PLEASE don't pick me, PLEASE don't pick me!' and he throws the keys at Joe, "OK - you're gonna learn how to tow a trailer today."
Learning Experience #3
While we fertilized lawns we also went around spraying weed killer all over the grass as well. One time our boss also told us to go out and fertilize about thirty rounds, and right after he told us that, he said, "also, head to the store and pick up some Roundup." We, being the landscaping geniuses that we were, decided by association, that since he wanted us to pick up some Roundup, that what he wanted us to do was use the roundup to spray on the lawns.
We ran around happy as clams spreading joy and spraying roundup everywhere. The one kid was so happy he even sprayed a smiley face in the lawn with the roundup. "Please take good care of my lawn, we just barely got it just the way we want it after 10 years of hard work," one lady said. "Don't worry," I said with the smile of a super hero doing good deeds, "We'll take good care of you!"
We proudly told our boss what we did the next day, and all he said was, "Oh (bad word) oh (cuss word), well, I guess we'll be doing a lot of resodding this summer."
On the first two days the only thing about landscaping I experienced was the fact that when your fellow landscapers who are supposed to teach you the ropes don't show up, you get to spend the first hour flipping channels and watching Night Court until your boss (Jack) says, "OK - come back tomorrow and we'll have some work for you."
On the third day of Landscaping I experienced work with Jack. This is where he decided my fellow landscapers were all terrible deadbeat quitters and that I would therefore be the entire landscape crew for a while. He went out and showed me vital things about landscaping, like what things are nasty weeds and what are beautiful plants. He also demonstrated proper landscaping terminology, like "Move this (bad word) pile of (bad word) over there next to that (bad word)." It's a nice & to the point sort of terminology.
On the fourth day Jack said to me, "So, have you ever used a chainsaw before?" "No, no I haven't." "Okay, come here." We go outside, he points to the chainsaw - I look at it. "You just push this button, & pull this cord," he says, "There you go, have fun." And off I went by myself for the day. My boss had lots of faith in me.
On the 7th day I finally got coworkers. So there we were, a fine crew: me with one week of landscaping experience, and Joe with no landscaping experience, and another kid who I think had 3 weeks experience somewhere else but I swear knew less than either me or Joe. We were landscaping professionals! Landscaping engineers if you will! Roaming the land! Doing good for our fellow men & spreading joy wherever we went!
We had many amazing adventures and astounding experiences, experiences like:
Learning Experience #1
One beautiful thing I learned in landscaping was that you buy sand & mulch in measurements called 'yards', and we'd order it like so: "We'll take one yard of top soil." "Where you want it?" "Back of the truck." So up comes a guy with one of those power shovel things full of top soil, and he stops before putting it in the truck. "What the crud is he doing?" I say to Joe, "I don't know" and we motioned to him to dump it in. We head back to our yard, all happy for our deeds well done, and then we go out to look for our tools.
"Where the heck are they?" "Didn't we just have them here?" and we're running around to look for them. Then I look at Joe and get this sinking feeling - "Um, we left them in the back of the truck didn't we?" and then went back to the truck and dug into the top soil to get all of our tools back out. Unfortunately the shovels were also buried, so we had to use the next best thing: hands.
Learning Experience #2
We show up to work at 8 a.m., Jack looks at us, "Any of you guys ever towed a 30 foot trailer before?" "Nope" we all say. "Hmm..okay..." he looks around at all of us, I'm screaming inside, 'PLEASE don't pick me, PLEASE don't pick me!' and he throws the keys at Joe, "OK - you're gonna learn how to tow a trailer today."
Learning Experience #3
While we fertilized lawns we also went around spraying weed killer all over the grass as well. One time our boss also told us to go out and fertilize about thirty rounds, and right after he told us that, he said, "also, head to the store and pick up some Roundup." We, being the landscaping geniuses that we were, decided by association, that since he wanted us to pick up some Roundup, that what he wanted us to do was use the roundup to spray on the lawns.
We ran around happy as clams spreading joy and spraying roundup everywhere. The one kid was so happy he even sprayed a smiley face in the lawn with the roundup. "Please take good care of my lawn, we just barely got it just the way we want it after 10 years of hard work," one lady said. "Don't worry," I said with the smile of a super hero doing good deeds, "We'll take good care of you!"
We proudly told our boss what we did the next day, and all he said was, "Oh (bad word) oh (cuss word), well, I guess we'll be doing a lot of resodding this summer."
posted by CT at 7:10 PM
2 Comments:
that was some pretty funny shiz
Nice post. Indeed, landscaping takes so much hardwork and effort. I can't imagine myself doing my own landscaping at home. Much worse is to become a professional landscaper. Good thing you shared your experience as a landscaper for those who are aspiring to become one.
snohomish landscaping
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