I love to take my work home. A lot of people think that’s a bad thing, but I work in a lawn and garden center. So that means tending to my landscaping and taking home plants to fill it out.

Although I manage some construction materials that fall into the lawn and garden area, like fencing and stakes, I mainly work with caring for the plants. Our center specializes in some more exotic plant species that require a little more work than automated sprinklers that a lot of big chain lawn and garden carriers use to care for their plants.

That means I get to teach a lot of our customers about caring for these plants. When I was explaining to a young couple about some house plants that they were buying – they had never cared for plants before – I was having to ask them to repeat what they were saying several times because I couldn't understand them because of my hearing loss. It was a little embarrassing, so when I got off work that day I researched hearing aid packages and settled on one.

I now feel more comfortable working with my customers so I can focus on helping them learn to care for their plants instead of straining to hear them.