Timeshares!

I was wading through Charleston Craigslist looking for part-time jobs that don't involve intercontinental wire transfers and I happened upon a timeshare sales job. I know, timeshares... down there with car salesmen and the cell phone kiosk guys in the mall. But, I firmly believe that I will do best in profit-motivated direct sales, as long as it's something that I really feel strongly about. Do I feel strongly about timeshares?

Rewind to two weeks ago. It was Saturday before St. Patty's day and my wife and a friend of mine were walking around Downtown Charleston, using the 'holiday' excuse to drink before noon. Having had a couple of drinks before breakfast, we were feeling pretty festive and conversational. As we're walking, discussing what to do for the rest of the day, a guy behind a little stand yells out "Have y'all had lunch yet?" I look over and see a guy standing behind a little stand outside of A.W. Shucks right on the sidewalk. I tell him we just had Irish Car Bombs, then breakfast. "Oh, do y'all like to drink?" he asks. "What does it look like?" I ask, a little too loudly. He produced 3 vouchers for $25 each to some of the places we like to go. If we just go on a 90-minute presentation right around the corner at the resort, we will get our choice of $75 worth of vouchers for gas cards or local hotels and restaurants. I've been through timeshare presentations before, some really bad, some quite impressive. In fact, my wife and I had talked about signing up with one well after having gone through the presentation. But this time, as before, we just didn't feel that we should commit ourselves to vacation money. It makes sense to do if you are financially stable and like to vacation, but I would hate to be in a pinch one month and have to decide whether to make the Bluegreen payment or the car payment. Does that make sense? Anyways, we sign up and meet our salesperson. He shows us around the resort and asks us if we're here to get some free stuff. "Most def." But the resort was nice! Very nice, awesome location, great view, huge rooms, historic building, great restaurant, great staff, we're impressed! After the tour, our salesperson sits us down and starts closing in. Long story short, we didn't purchase full ownership but we did purchase the sampler pack. We get 10,000 points to use at any of their resorts for the next year for $800. It works out to about 10 nights in resorts in Miami Beach, Orlando, and Aruba, to name a few. That's $80 per night at some nice places. We will sure use them, and I would love to take my wife to Aruba affordably for our 3rd anniversary in December.

Back to today, Wednesday, April 2nd. I am still happy about the purchase, and my wife can't wait to go to Miami this Summer and Aruba this Winter. And neither can I. But, I'm going this afternoon to sign up to sell this stuff for Bluegreen, the same company I just bought from! Will it go well? It's part-time weekend work and I could use the money. They tell me the money is really good, and that's what I like to hear.