Let me set the record straight. I work at Houston Garden Center. It is owned by Matt Hooper. His ""corporate office"" is a small trailer at the back of the HGC location in the south west loop. Your anger should be directed at him. Go to this location and give him heck. But do not be upset with the employees.
You must understand where they are coming from. More importantly what they are doing. My first day on the job, I worked 15 hours. I showed up at 7:30, we were done at 11. The people who had to work the next day had to be back there in 8 hours. You do the math. Many of them work at least 3 days in a row. Add in an hour for travel time, as only one other person had a car, hour for eating (probably a crummy meal, and the only real one of the day as you only get 30 minutes for lunch) and bathroom stuff, and they then have seven hours, if that's all they do, to sleep.
So, have you ever stood on your feet, working, for 15 hours straight, in the heat of a Houston summer? By hour 11, do you think they give a flip about smiling to a customer? They are making 7.25 per hour doing back breaking work. One man I worked with was in his 60s. Would you get mad at your grandfather about some dumb flower after he's spent his third day in a row working like a slave? And that's not an exaggeration. The working hours are similar to what the slaves actually did in early America.
Hopefully you can now get some glimpse of how bad these people's lives are, and why they might not be concerned with giving your rich self good customer service. So don't be mad at them. Not even the local store managers. They are hispanic and in the same situation as the employees. This is all they can do to support their families. Don't be upset with them. Admire them. Help them. Pray for them.
Matt Hooper and his cheap business practices are the cause of all of it. But here's the thing, if you put him out of business, all these people lose the only legal job they can get. So what can you do? The least you can do is be nice to anyone who works there while you buy some stupid plants, probably for more money than those people are getting paid for a 15 hour day.
So if you want to contact Matt Hooper, this is how. Go to the main location. Ask for an application. When they give it to you, fill out right there (and be appalled by the wording of the application) and then walk to the back and turn it in. They won't dare let you walk into the air conditioned trailer, because if you're looking for a job there you're probably not white, so they'll make you stand in the heat while they check your papers. When the lady comes out she will enter you into the clock, and now you work at HGC. No interview, no background check. But follow her back to the trailer, and grab the door before she locks you out, then go to Matt Hoopers little office and try to speak reason and people loving life into this man.
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