I spent the past two days at a conference. As at most business conferences, there was an exhibit hall where dozens of vendors set up display tables. For hours on end, vendors stood (or sat) at those tables, saying "hello" to everyone who passed by, hoping to strike up conversations with prospective customers. If you've ever been to one of these events, you know the drill.
When I go to these things, I always marvel at the tchotchkes that vendors use to lure people to their tables. Vendor tables are overflowing with cheap giveaways. Walk down aisle one and you see pencils, yo-yo's, beer coozies, and mouse pads. Turn down the next aisle and you'll find lens cleaners, luggage tags, pens, rulers, and potato chip bag clips. If you're really lucky, you might find something really special like a super-grippy plastic jar opener. Mostly though, it's just cheap plastic items, all garishly colored and labeled with vendor names. No matter, though -- it's all free!
Seeing all those giveaways always reminds me of opening up the junk drawer in my mother's kitchen when I was growing up in Elmira. Whenever I pulled that drawer open, I always wondered two things: where did she get this stuff and why hasn't she thrown it away already? I don't get home much any more but, whenever I do, I always check that drawer. Rather unsurprisingly, it's still filled with the same stuff that was there 30 years ago.
Back to the conferece. Basically, everything that the vendors give away at these things is complete trash. But, try telling that to the conference attendees. They stroll through the hall, bags in hand (that's right, bags), flitting from one table to the next. Put them in costumes and you'd mistake them for trick-or-treaters on Halloween. They don't care what's sitting on those tables. All they know is that it's free and they want it.
At this particular conference, I literally saw people walking out with three and four full shopping bags. Some of the attendees even brought their kids in late in the day, handed bags to them, and sent them off to grab as much loot as they could. As I sat there watching this craziness, I wondered to myself what they were going to do with all this crap when they finally got it home. Like trick-or-treaters, would they spill it out on the family room floor, organize it into piles, and plan how they were going to enjoy it all? Or, did they get home, lug the bags out of their car, ask themselves what the hell they were thinking, and promptly toss it all in the trash?
My heart hopes that it was the latter. Sadly, my head tells me I'm probably wrong about that. I love America.