One day while running the cash register I noticed several kids had those balloons that you twist into animals. Looking around I see this old man in a very tall top hat by the entrance making and handing out these balloons. At first I thought this is not good but after talking with him and seeing how happy the kids were with the balloons I let him stay. He had come to town for a job and after he got here they had hired someone else. He had neither money nor a place to stay so we let him sleep on the lot. It was security for the pumpkin lot and a job for him. One Saturday he got over $300.00 in donations.
He was our most interesting character during the first year. The second year as we were looking for help up walks this guy with a backpack in hand. He too was homeless but was willing to work so we hired him to watch one of the rides. He was great with the kids, calling them by their name and throwing his hands in the air as they did. Again we let him stay at the pumpkin lot at night. Needless to say he was never late for work and he worked the most hours of anyone. The day we closed the lot I took him to the bus station where presumably he was going to Fl where he had a waiter job for the winter. I wish him well.
We found that we were pretty stressed by the end of the month the first year. The second year we found the stress to be much less. Perhaps because we knew what to expect. We had more help the second year and we also decided that we would not both be on duty all day. One of us took the mornings off and the other would take the afternoons off.
So here it is the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Good
The best for us was our Boss. He told us what he wanted and left us to do it. He was an absolute dream to work for.
It is a 30-day commit so you can see the light at the end of the tunnel right from the beginning.
Very good pay for a short time.
If you hire the right people it can be a fun job.
For the most part we had good customers, we treated them like they were friends and guess what they came back year two.
Bad
You are stuck on site for 30+ days with no days off.
If you divide the pay by the number of hours that you have to be on site it won't amount to a hill of beans.
A rotten pumpkin can be a pain.
The Ugly
The first year we had a teacher that thought we were charging too much and she instigated a boycott against our pumpkin lot.... It didn't work.
Are we glad we did it?
Absolutely!
Would we do it again?
Absolutely !
Are we going to do it again?
It's in our plans for 2007
ps a ote here our pumpkin lot boss called us the other day asking if we wanted to work this year.We told him no but resurved for next year perhaps.
