Flower Piano 2026
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve worked this lovely event in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park — to be specific, in the Botanical Garden. (Here’s a link to the event site). For years I worked the West side of the Garden where the pianos were spread out in a variety of groves and meadows.
As lovely as this was, working this area involved an incredible amount of walking to cover our trash eco-stations scattered around the grounds. And the stations didn’t collect all that much trash so it was a great deal of work for the few bags of trash collected. (Which is my reward.)
As a result, three or four years ago I switched to working the Great Meadow between the Garden’s two entrances. This is where the most people gather and where the most trash is deposited. And there’s also a VIP area adjacent to the Great Meadow that is also busy at times.
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For me this is perfect as I’m busy for the entirety of my shift and I end up collecting many many bags of trash (for other people to haul away.)
The other thing to know about this event is that, while Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown also takes place over two weekends, only FP runs through the weekdays in between. I worked a weekday once but it was much too slow for me, so now I only work the weekends.
This weekend — the first of the two — should have been routine except that our company is working a bunch of other events as well, so we are going to be under-staffed at FP. This suits me, as my fellow workers “tend” to just get in my way. What is going to be more “interesting” is that the manager for the afternoon — when I’m working — is the boss, who hasn’t worked here for years. I’ve been trying to bring her up to speed, but we will see how it works out. We do have almost nineteen years of occasionally working together, so it should be fine. But it is easier when I work with the usual managers.
The good news is that after a spell of hot weather (finally) it is supposed to be back down in the 60s F for the weekend.
The bad news is that the shifts this year are longer so I have to take a half hour lunch break. For most of our events this wouldn’t be a problem but there aren’t many food options in the Park so we have to bring something and then carry it around for hours before eating it. The old six hour shifts avoided this problem. At least I can bitch and whine about it.
And Opera in the Park is currently scheduled for the next day (Sunday) a short distance away in Golden Gate Park. I say it is scheduled because the SF Opera orchestra union has also promised a strike if they don’t have a new contract by then. I’m scheduled to work that event, but if they strike on Saturday I may not get either event.
I have mixed feelings about this as opera is one of the few forms of music I don’t like, plus there’s really not much for us to do there until the concert ends and we have to clean up the mess before it gets dark. I’ve repeatedly tried to get assigned to FP on the first Sunday as well as the two Saturdays, but without success. It will be pretty funny if I end up not working at all on one of our busiest days of the season.
