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It's been a while since I've bored everyone with stories about my job, so now seems like a good time. xp

My work assignment today was at Great Hopes Plantation, the farm site near the Visitor Center. Normally, it's a very quiet place. Since it's just off the walking path to the Historic Area, and most people take the bus to get from the Visitor Center to town, it's easily bypassed; and the situation isn't helped by a confusing sign that says "TICKET REQUIRED". So even the people who already have admission passes think they need another ticket, and walk on by.

But there's been a little more activity this week because the Longaberger basket company is holding a huge conference and sales event in the parking lot next door. When I pulled in to the lot this morning, I saw several enormous tents equipped with giant fans (a good thing, since the temperature reached 100 degrees today), and lots of Longaberger employees in blue shirts wandering around. There was also an oversized basket with an open back marking the entry to the event from the sidewalk. This basket was the main tourist photo op of the day, and distracted most people from even noticing there's a historic site right next door.

Apparently, Longaberger baskets have two main attractions: the lifetime guarantee, and the opportunity to make your own basket at events such as this. However, it cost something like $80 to have one of the Longaberger people help you assemble your basket, which hardly seems worth it to me. I flipped through one of their catalogs in the break room, and the cheapest basket I saw was around $30; most of them were at least $70, and there were several designs in the hundreds. True, that lifetime guarantee softens the blow a little; but still, I can think of plenty of things I'd rather spend that sort of money on.

Not the people at this conference. I can't even count how many people I saw lugging out huge bags full of baskets. Even stranger was how many of them were morbidly obese women, some to the point where I wondered how they remained ambulatory. I wasn't the only person who noticed this phenomenon; at least two other people commented that they'd never seen so many huge women in one place. I thought for a moment of developing a theory as to why these baskets are apparently so wildly appealing to women the size of townhouses, but it was too hot to think seriously about anything.

The computers for processing credit card payments were set up in the employee break room, so every time I went in there I heard dial-up noises about every minute and a half. One of my co-workers said he'd been told the average sale at the event was $250, and they were expecting more than 6,000 sales before it's finished on Sunday. Not a bad business to be in, but I don't really get why it's so successful.