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  • From: tanis grif <tanisgrif@yahoo.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Local Nursery Information's worth
  • Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 18:32:32 -0700 (PDT)

Great story! I'd think someone in sales would want to practice good
people-skills,
like saying "Do we have a plant ID book here so we can look up Oxalis & black
medic?" Everybody wins, & maybe the customer is impressed by the humble &
resourseful salesman.

Ag grads learn more than they want to know about the pesticides, so I'd say
the
problem is constraints of the education. I haven't kept up to see what the
entry-job options are now, but some years ago it was just sales &
grad-school! Wish
they'd told me that when I enrolled-- I'm too blunt for sales & couldn't
afford
grad-school even when it was affordable! Like you say, I've learned more
about
plants since, by following my own curiosity/ obsessiveness.


--- Donna &/or Kieran <> wrote:

> I've got a nursery story too. I worked for a few months at a nursery that
> was considered a cut above the rest, or at least they considered themselves
> that way. They didn't pay well or treat their employees well though. They
> had a Fertilome salesman who came through once a week I think it was, and
> he'd answer questions for staff and customers. One day a guy came in with
> a
> "weed" he wanted to get rid of. The "expert" took one look and said
> "oxalis". I said "black medic". The expert glared at me and said, Oxalis!
> and I said, no, it's black medic. We went through this a third time and I
> suddenly realized that it wasn't working and I'd better just remove myself
> and talk to him later. I went and pulled some oxalis to educate the guy.
> So when the customer was gone I started to apologize but he started in
> yelling at me about what an ignorant pipsqueak I was, what a mighty expert
> he was, and how much I'd embarrassed him. I tried to explain how to tell
> the two plants apart, but he wasn't done raving. I said I'd eaten oxalis
> all my life, and played in black medic when I was a little kid. I said
> just
> taste this, oxalis is named for the oxalic acid that makes it tart. He
> wasn't about to listen. I think he hated me for the rest of the time I
> worked there. I don't know if some inkling that he might be wrong was
> involved, I think he remained convinced that he was right. Anyone who
> can't
> identify oxalis... or for that matter, anyone who can't tell a legume from
> a
> non-legume...
> My theory is that it's the pesticide exposure that makes ag grads
> retarded. Or maybe it's the constraints of the education. All I know is
> that most of them come out of school as proud of their exclusive knowledge
> as med students do, and yet know as little about plants as drs know about
> the basic workings of the human body....



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  • Re: [NAFEX] Local Nursery Information's worth, tanis grif, 07/06/2007

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