“Wow!!!” was all I could think when I checked Facebook one day and saw myself, my co-workers (Alena & Laura) and my manager (Kristi) on the cover of a magazine. I’ve been in newspapers periodically throughout my life for various reasons and don’t get me wrong, that was exciting but being on the cover of a magazine now that’s amazing! I can honestly say it was not something I was expecting to see.
Now let me go back in time for a second to explain why we were on the cover of a magazine and why it was such a surprise.
When I first started at SNIPS Landscape & Nursery, around a year and a half ago, I was hired as the Administrative Assistant. This was a brand new position and as such, I was able to pave the way as to what my job duties entailed. I did the usual administrative duties such as answering the phone, filing, data input, etc. and after a while I decided that I felt comfortable enough to take on some more responsibility and started taking care of the bookkeeping. I had dabbled with bookkeeping before and was more than willing to take on the challenge of learning all that I needed to know.
As I became more efficient with all of those tasks, I endeavored to learn more about the landscaping field. I had never worked in this field before; my previous experience was in the medical field and retail so this was a whole new world for me and let me tell you I love it! I had done landscaping and gardening with my husband in our own yard and always enjoyed it - which is what drove me to apply for a position at a landscaping company.
After getting all the administrative and bookkeeping duties under my belt, I decided I wanted to learn more and was given the opportunity to take on interior plant maintenance (taking care of plants indoors). Again, this is something that I had done many times at home, but it’s really neat to take care of large indoor gardens and green walls!
Back to how we ended up on the cover of a magazine. As a professional landscape company, we subscribe to numerous landscaping magazines and are members of landscape organizations; one in particular being Landscape Ontario.
About a month ago we were contacted by a gentleman, Allan Dennis, the editor of the Landscape Ontario magazine and e-newsletter asking if he could write an article about SNIPS Landscape & Nursery. We happily accepted the invitation from Mr. Dennis to come and write a piece about our company and a date in July was set for him to do a site visit with us.
The day that Mr. Dennis came to visit us at SNIPS we all sat down at a table together and it was your typical interview – he asks questions and we all take turns answering. Once most of the questions were answered we decided it was time to take a few pictures so that once Mr. Dennis had written the article about us he could put a picture of us in the magazine. Again, this was exciting because we then knew that our picture would be included with the article. We posed around some equipment in our yard, in front of our interior green wall and by the front garden with the SNIPS sign (aka “tombstone”).
When Mr. Dennis left that day he had told us that he was going to try to have the article written and put in the August issue of the Landscape Ontario magazine but there was no guarantee, just that it would eventually be in the magazine and we left it at that.
Now fast forward to August 6, 2013 – I was doing my usual tasks, which sometimes includes checking our Facebook page (Snips Landscaping) to see if anyone has commented on our page. So I open up Facebook and what do I see on my homepage? You guessed it! It was our picture on the cover of the August issue of Landscape Ontario’s magazine as well as a two page spread!!!
Check out the following link too see the August issue of the Landscape Ontario magazine and the article about SNIPS!
http://www.horttrades.com/landscape-ontario---august-2013.
Tasha Beck
Administrative Assistant/Bookkeeper