hello career sighted I'm Kimberly
Williams and I'm a florist florist
purchase flowers and we designed them
for weddings funerals anniversaries
birthdays we make beautiful arrangements
or wrap bouquets and sell them to
customers I think this is a career that
you can do anywhere but our location
here in Los Angeles is wonderful because
the flower market is the second largest
in the world
I go to flower market five six days a
week different market dates are
different hours so some mornings I start
at five or six some mornings I have to
go in about four o'clock we purchase all
the flowers we load them into a van we
bring them back to the flower shop and
process them cut them clean put them in
water let them soak for a little while
and then they're ready for the designers
to make the arrangements they're also
ready to go into the refrigerator
customers can come buy them out of the
buckets or we'll make something for them
difficult day is ten to fourteen hours
and I work six days a week sometimes
seven but I love it I don't mind the
work at all I supervise a small staff I
have a couple of drivers and a designer
full-time size myself and then I have
other shop helpers that process flowers
make arrangements process orders I
travel to different locations in
California for weddings there the
occasional trip to maybe Holland to look
at the flower market there or Colombia
to meet with the Rose growers and Hawaii
Hawaii is nice too
the paperwork involved in my job
breaking down weddings ordering all the
flowers payroll bookkeeping taxes I only
find my job stressful during weddings
because I want everything to be perfect
or if you can't find that perfect
product it gets a little stressful
trying to run around and find it and or
when we have a lot of orders and then
still more orders are coming in and you
just like we're not getting it done fast
enough as fast as we're going but it's
not really a bad stress I think the best
way to learn to be a florist would be to
work in a flower shop we're gonna flower
shop during the holidays weekends after
school when you can you'll start out
washing buckets
you'll move up to prepping containers
and making some little paint-by-number
flower arrangements and then pretty soon
you'll be able to design things it takes
a little while but I think hands-on is
the best way to be a florist if you
really love flowers is really what you
want to do
I don't know that going to college would
be the best thing to do but I think
accounting it would be a wonderful
background to have some business classes
would be good you have to be pretty
easygoing and flexible we love to work
with people have an open mind it's a
very physical job I tend to be a little
slimmer because I'm on my feet and
moving around so much it's not
monotonous one day it's a wedding it's a
funeral it's a party every hour is
something different every week flowers
change like these flowers will come in
this week and they'll be gone you won't
see them again till next year there's
always new product coming and going
that's really spectacular for me because
I love flowers so much I actually have
three favorite flowers it's hard to have
just one there's just so many I love
Lily the valley
I love peonies I love daffodils they're
just full of sunshine thank you career
sighted