Kenneth Barndt is the manager/floral designer of Clair's Flower Shop. He has worked there for 35 years. Coming out of high school he worked at this business as an employee and liked it, so after a while he decided that he would buy the store. To prepare for the job as a florist he took some short courses in horticulture. Horticulture is the science or art of growing flowers, fruits, vegetables, or plants. Normally, however, a college education would be required with classes on horticulture and business management. Skills that would help in this job would be to work well with people, have artistic talents, and creativity.

Kenneth Barndt's main responsibilities are to manage his employees, divide out the workload, manage the finances, and make sure everything is ready on time. He enjoys working as a florist

because he likes working with people and because being a florist calls for creativity - which is fun. In addition, flowers are a pleasing and pretty product with which to work. The downside of this job, are that you must work long hours, and there is a lot of pressure to get the arrangements completed for deadlines.

For an employee or experienced designer the salary would be competitive, based on experience. Employees work 6 days a week from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. (they have Sunday off). They have all the normal holidays off. However, days before holidays are the busiest times for Clair's Flower Shop since many people want flowers for these special occasions.

You might think that winter would effect the flower shop. However this is not so. Clair's has a greenhouse which keeps the same temperature the whole year. There are slight changes in the business as the year changes. The main change is that different seasons bring different flowers. Another change is that during spring there are more weddings, and proms.