Park Seed Garden Journal

The Park Seed Company is bustling with seasonal workers and garden center customers– the busy season is upon us. The shipping department and the call center remind me a little of those 1980′s movie depictions of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, so many people talking that not one intelligible word will float above the commotion. People work diligently, and follow strict routines, obviously, one method for maintaining some semblance of sanity.

I had to moonlight in the call center, where they take all of the telephone orders, one day last week. My task was simple enough, just light data entry to relieve some of the pressure for another department. I could barely think. Imagine about 100 conversations going on at once, you’re trying to enter numbers, but all these other people keep saying other numbers out loud, all around you. It was like some kind of white-collar torture session. Most of the data entry people are locked behind glass walls in very quiet parts of the building. This was the only open terminal that had all of the necessary software, lucky me.

I enjoyed being able to help, and doing something a little different– it gave me a better appreciation of what goes on up there. Those guys in the Park Seed call-center have a difficult job, working on very strict schedules and dealing with all of the commotion. Maybe, I will see if they will let me try a few other things for a day, then I can write about it. It will be like that television show, where that guy does all those different jobs, the one’s you can’t imagine anyone enjoying.