I've been a little tired

What I've learned at Lowe's these last few months

I’m not sure that anyone cares what I have been doing for the last three months, but here is an update.

Last year I started getting really anxious about sitting. I felt more inert than I had ever been in my life.

I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my time, so I decided to get a job at a garden center.

I applied at Home Depot first and that went nowhere fast. No reply. You know… like how most job applications seem to go.

So then I set it aside for a while and waited. Then this past March I applied at and got hired at Lowe’s. At my interview, the supervisor said: your main job will be watering plants.

I didn’t hug him, but I kinda wanted to.

I started March 15th and I’ve been working — moving plants and watering plants — now for almost exactly 3 months.

This job is seasonal (I think it was originally a “12 week contract”) so it will end soon. We are getting fewer and fewer new plants delivered every day as we go into “summer maintenance” mode. There are two permanent staff folk who stay on to maintain the indoor and outdoor plants as the season winds down.

I learned a few things, working in a corner of a single store in a multi-national retail conglomerate with 1,700+ stores.

1. Who you work with matters. Probably more than anything. My main mentor is Becky, a 70-year-old Wisconsin native who keeps that garden center shipshape and earns tremendous respect. She also knows when each MST team member’s birthdays is and brings in donuts for them, and everyone — because that’s just who she is. The entire Merchandise Service Team is a unit within the store that works together — quirky and kind and motivated.

2. Working with your body matters. It’s been since my days at the pub that I have been this active, working on my feet, and I’ve missed it. Our brains need our body to function — and we need our bodies moving to function well. I’ve added 25 hours every week of nonstop movement (well, I do get a 15 minute break) and zero sitting, and I have not felt better in ages — physically or mentally.

3. Extroverts *need* people. If you are one of the many introverts I know and love, hello. I love you. That being said, as an extrovert, COVID has blown chunks for my mental health and my social connections, and I have not recovered. Working on a team has given me many minutes of IRL face time with people everyday, something I was missing heartily as a stay at home worker. Human interactions fill my bucket — and not the texting kind.

4. Getting up at 4 a.m. isn’t too bad … but it kinda screws your later afternoons. I don’t know if these kinda hours are meant for me.

5. Plants deliver love. I’ve never been a plant person much, except I do like some gardening. But plants deliver more than color and texture and oxygen: they are a kind of love incarnate, bending in the breeze. It’s been my honor, these few months — some days so cold my fingers numbed — to take care of these plants and help most of them onto their next home.

By the way, credit to Becky and all the team that our Lowe’s in Lee’s Summit was FIFTH in sales in the nation last quarter. And YES, that was because of massive garden center sales.

I’ve never worked retail before — and this is certainly not exactly retail — but it’s been a real trip to service the plants, watch folks peruse the aisles, and help people spread that love and color around.