Happy Belated Mother's Day to all

I finally have some time to write a blog to contribute. Before I start, I would like to take the time to thank our dedicated staff for the excellent work they did this Mother's Day.
I have decided to discuss the Mother's Day rush. In the post-Mother's Day rush, we find ourselves receiving calls from people who for one reason or another did not like the flowers they had received or that they flowers had "died". I have no problems with these calls and tried to resolve each of them. We always want the customer to be happy. That is the way our business works. The problem I have with the tone of these calls is that we are left with the impression that people think we intentionally do this to people. Flowers are a very personal and perishable product prone many problems as many living things are. People often say to us " how can you do this to me, I have been a customer for years" as if we do this with some sort of premeditation. Why would we carry on a practice which could jeopardize our reputation?
Another point is our decision to stop accepting orders. People call, get angry, plead, question why without waiting for an answer. Customers question why we are turning away business. A decision to stop taking orders is something we analyze carefully and scrutinize seriously. It reflects the respect for the orders previously placed and our wish to produce a quality product, not a money grab. The plain truth is that flowers are a perishable product which cannot be produced en masse, stored away and then brought out when it becomes busy. I would love to service everyone, but the time restraint do place limits on what can be produced and availability of qualified personnel to produce it. It is the fact that we do respect the person who is trying to place an order that we handle the situation in this manner.
Thank you all for your continued business and trust in us.
Respectfully,
Murray

Local Celebrities.

So we're in the Saturday paper. And by we, I mostly mean I.
I'd mentioned in an earlier post that Maxine Mendelssohn had interviewed me for a little human-interest story in the Gazette, and it appears today. The day before Mother's Day, appropriately enough.

Read it HERE. Don't I look adorabibble.

People who don't vote deserve the florist they get.

To my dear fellow Montrealers (and former Montrealers, and wannabe Montrealers...)

It's time again for the Mirror's Best of Montreal issue. I take deep offense at the fact that Edgewood has never made the list of the city's top five florists, because we ARE one of the best and people should just accept that. Anyway, the only way to be formally recognized in the Mirror is for our customers to VOTE.

I'm very hungry and only have a couple of minutes here and there between answering the phone and processing Mother's Day orders, so bottom line: please click on the link below and vote for Edgewood as Best Florist. Tell your friends to vote for Edgewood. I think it would be fantastic and way overdue to finally make it into the top five.

Vote HERE!

Thanks for the support. Back to work now.

I have realized things about dust.

Edgewood is the home of the original floor that will not come clean. In our fifty years of existence, that characteristic has spread to every other surface on the property. If you dust something, that same layer of dust will regenerate and reappear within 12 hours. Yesterday, I took on the fruitless task of cleaning my desk. Not only did I knock over a vase and accidentally dial the last person I spoke to on my telephone, but when I was finished, there was virtually no difference in my desk's before and after states. The dust had come back with a vengeance. It's like shaving your legs: if you do it, the hair will grow back faster, thicker and angrier. That was some angry dust.

Meanwhile, I had some bewildered corporate clients on the phone this morning asking me if they had missed Administrative Secretary Professional Assistant Postman Sunshine Question Mark Week. "I saw no advertising for it," one customer lamented. "True, that," I replied. The powers that be really don't do a lot to promote that particular workplace observance. I have a wonderful calendar from the Bata Shoe Museum hanging on the wall in my office, and nowhere do they mention any celebration of the sort. They did, however, make a point of listing "Anzac Day" on April 25th - which is apparently a holiday in Australia - but do I see cards at my local Hallmark for Anzac Day? Who's Anzac? Does he have anything to do with shoes?

Anyway. FTD kinda screwed up on that one. As much as I love FTD, and I do. Big smile, thumbs-up!

Mother's Day is in, like, a week and a half. As the administrative co-ordinator of your dutiful neighborhood florist, I must urge each and every one of my cherished clients to get their orders in early, because nothing irks me more than people who put off ordering their flowers until the last minute. When one is up against the clock like that, you know, some people beg. And they plead. Or they get really abusive and I don't want to help them, because only really horrible people are nasty to those in the retail and service industries. But I don't like to talk about those people. They make up a small minority.
Bottom line, show Mom you care enough to order her floral gift way in advance, so that it's absolutely perfect and you're not doing anything under duress. Doesn't she deserve that much, after everything she's done for you? After she paid for the repairs on the car you wrecked, and looked the other way when her china plates were broken during a house party you threw, and welcomed you back home after that mail-order steak business failed? Hmmm?

Yeah, that's what I thought. Do me a favor, stop selling meat over the Internet and have a good Tuesday ;)