I spent the spring this year working nearly every day at a local garden center, where I got paid $17 per hour, or slightly over Massachusetts' $15 minimum wage. I didn't make much, but it's one of the best jobs I've ever had.
When I applied, I was running out of funds. I'd been laid off from my job as a senior director of content in June 2025, part of a round of top-to-bottom cuts that affected dozens of positions across the organization. By January, my unemployment benefits had evaporated. My severance was nearly gone. And my bills didn't seem to care about either of those realities.
So I started applying for part-time positions while continuing to search for full-time roles in marketing and communications. I was transparent about all of this with the garden center hiring managers, who kindly added me to their team.
For about two months, I spent nearly nine hours outside multiple days a week, in all types of weather, doing physical labor and helping customers with questions about flowers, herbs, and vegetables. I was exhausted after a shift in ways I never was in my previous roles, and I loved every minute.
I realized after a couple weeks' work why that job meant so much to me.
New England had been through a long, cold, snowy winter and I was sick of it. I was also tired of spending fruitless hours online searching for jobs, networking, and applying for positions that ghosted or rejected me. Being at the garden center fed my soul and reset my mind.
I've always enjoyed helping other people, but I'd never worked in retail. During my first days on the job, I realized that everyone visiting the garden center was happy. They came in with a smile, relieved that winter was finally over, and they left with flowers I'd helped them choose. I was selling and sending them home with joy.
Without a job, I felt invisible. With a job, I felt seen, useful, and purposeful again.
I was devastated when I got laid off from my dream job last year. It felt like a spiritual amputation. The organization's leadership had talked about employees as if we were one big global family, and I'd believed it. When I lost my job, I didn't know who I was anymore.
Working at the garden center gave me an opportunity to return to my roots — pardon the pun — as a farmer's daughter who loves the reward that comes from a hard day's work.
The days feel endless when you're looking for a job. I spent hours plagued by questions: Am I searching in the right places? Why did they reject me? Do I need to change professions? Will I ever get another job? Is there something wrong with me? It was a total mind game.
Leslie Friday scheduled job interviews for her days off while working at the garden center.
Courtesy of Leslie Friday
Physical labor prevented me from experiencing that endless swirl of questions and allowed me to focus on the task at hand: Water flowers. Unload trucks. Stock tables. Help customers. Repeat. Breathe. Relax.
Employment provides an automatic community, often with people who have similar interests and ideals. Many of my former coworkers had become good friends over the years. When my colleagues and I were laid off, we weren't allowed a proper goodbye. As time passed, I felt ashamed and isolated by my unemployment.
At the garden center, my new co-workers shared my interests in plants, gardening, and wildlife, and welcomed me wholeheartedly. I made friends, played with customers' dogs, and started recognizing the regulars. I found my people.
I hadn't experienced good management in years. My last bosses had created a toxic work environment in which people hesitated to speak up, question authority, or make mistakes.
In contrast, my garden center managers knew I'm a single mother of three school-age children. They scheduled me as many hours as my co-parenting allowed and remembered which days I had to leave early for school pick-up. I will forever be grateful for their kindness and generosity.
My paychecks were modest. But after my first shifts, I calculated how much I'd made and thought about which bills I could pay. I knew the job would never cover all my expenses, and that I would need to rely on savings to stay afloat. Yet, somehow, it felt like that $17 per hour saved my life.
During my time at the garden center, I landed several interviews for full-time roles in my field and scheduled them for my days off. I got a winning offer on the 365th day after my layoff. I am now one month into my new role as a communications director for a health nonprofit, and I couldn't be happier.
It all feels a little surreal. I'm surrounded by kind people and strong managers who want to help others. I work hard and have fun. And I am once again financially stable. But it never was, nor is now, just about the money. It was about finding me again. It took me a year, and a wonderful detour among flowers and new friends, but I'm finally home.
And I still work at the garden center, every Sunday I can.
Leslie Friday is the Director of Communications at The Max Foundation, a global health nonprofit that helps people living with cancer and rare illness get access to medication, diagnostics, and support services across 80+ low- and middle-income countries. She is a writer, advocate, and mother of three children and one lovely mutt. She grew up on a farm in the Midwest but now happily calls New England her home.
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