What the FWAC is going on out there?!
Like many I have a love hate relationship with Facebook. I love it as can get instant feedback to a story and drive traffic to theflorist.co.uk, hate it because it highlights just how poor the skill base is amongst some florists … if indeed I can call them that!
The classic one was the florist who asked could she leave a bride’s bouquet in her fridge if she cleared the food out!!!! Not sure what food she ate but it was clear that she hadn’t the foggiest about temperature requirements for flowers.
Then there are the ones who go online and say, “I’ve been asked to make this for a client, can someone tell me how to do it?” ‘This’ usually being a somewhat complex bridal bouquet that the bride has pulled from Pinterest (the other bête noire of many a florist) that not only requires a degree of dexterity but, being a bouquet, is actually HUGELY important because there are no second chances.
There was once even a person who came on asking how to make a simple hurricane lamp in a wreath ring design and didn’t just for help once but then came back to ask more question again and again until the thread was more like a step-by-step feature for what I consider to be one of the most basic of designs.
And it’s a problem that is getting worse. Since first writing about this back in 2016, and thanks in part to the Pandemic which encouraged everyone to think they could be a florist, the number of wanabee florists has soared.
Yes, some have fallen by the wayside now they realise it’s not that easy never mind the fact flower sales have dropped so opportunities are less but there are still thousands of them!
And far from realising that there is more to good floristry than just bunging a few flowers in some foam or tying them together (badly) with tatty ribbon, Fwacers* (the c is hard) realise that if they put a question on Facebook someone will help them and so – certainly in some groups – the questions are getting more and more asinine, never mind repetitive. I totally get that there are days when you have a 'moment' and cannot, for the life of you, remember a flower name or need colour guidance (how many white roses are there!!) but when it becomes a daily thing I slightly glaze over!
Which is why I have stopped helping anyone who, to me, is not a commercial florist (i.e. making a living out of it) or a trainee who obviously hasn’t got the wish to get off their derrieres to learn the skill like so many of my core readers.
It may be harsh but having built up 30+ years of knowledge and experience based on sheer hard work and constant learning I struggle to help people who are not only patently taking business away from someone paying rent, rates, taxes etc (be it a shop or studio) but who run the risk of seriously spoiling the customers’ expectations and dreams and put them off buying flowers altogether.
There will be some who will say ‘oh but Carrie we have to help the next generation of florists as we need them to keep the industry alive.’
Yes, we desperately need to encourage new blood into the industry – I totally get that and the skills shortage is real. But helping everyone without question is not, in my humble opinion, keeping the industry alive; it’s killing it on its feet by allowing, nay encouraging, hoards of people to think they can be a florist by looking at YouTube or sucking information from other florists, and yet still producing a second-rate service (see my example below) and in the process hurting florists who do do it properly.
In terms of what the answer is that is trickier.
You can’t say a florist HAS to have reams of qualifications because I know of many, many gifted designers who have little or none – although in fairness most of the best tend to have gone to a formal college or worked in shops for several years before setting out on their own. Online is great but it dos not replace practical and in person experience.
You can’t say a florist HAS to have a classic shop because again there are many very good florists who work out of fully equipped home studios and industrial units and anyway, I know some really garbage ‘proper’ shops where the floristry is just as abysmal as that being produced by the Fwacers.
And you can’t stop people from setting up Facebook groups ... there is obviously an appetite, and I can see it creates revenue opportunities for those that do ... you only have to hope they will be strong enough to weed out the ‘users’ and why I have left so many who don't.
In an ideal world floristry should be a formal profession where you have a certain level of skill before practicing. That is never, well not in my lifetime, ever going to happen in the UK so we need to find another way. For me, being very selective on how I respond to requests for help on FB is currently my default position – preferring instead to create content that they need to take time to read or responding to direct emails but what would you do? I'd love to hear what others think.
Oh yes and in case you think I am being rude FWAC’ERS are Florists Without A Clue … any resemblance to any other word is purely coincidental!
**** What I received the other day and why I get so worried for our professsion
PS:
This design was delivered to my Mother-in-Law in August. It cost the sender just short of £60. It was 38cm tall at its highest point. The roses were no better than the local Co-oP range ... maybe that’s where they came from, the Alstroe and Peony dead on their feet and the care leaflet was a scratty, badly photocopied, and not even neatly cut, piece of paper ... don't get me started on the ribbon! To me this is not professional floristry yet the person who made it proclaims themselves an expert.
