Yes, I did. I had a business meeting with two Amish men in their barn.
We would have met at the end of the day in my office, but they don't drive and it would have been difficult for them to have gotten a ride that time of day. So, my husband and I agreed that we would meet at their place.
The day was warm and it was great weather even as the afternoon turned into the evening. On our way there, we stopped at a red light at an intersection which is adjacent to the farm down the street from my home. All of the sudden, the stench overtook the car, and I look over and realize that today must have been fall fertilizing day. Ewwww -- the odor permeated the car! We quickly rolled up the windows and I took note of all of the other cars passing us having the same expression on their faces! I wished out loud that our Amish friends also didn't spend the day fertilizing their own property, for fear I'd walk away smelling like a barn.
Well.... it must have been fertilizing day for them, as well.
As we pulled up to their property, the farm odors were quite pungent. I have to admit, you do get used to it after a while, and it wasn't too bad in their "office" in one of the barns. A very stark office -- we held our meeting under a propane lantern and a battery operated hanging flashlight (I think it was the propane fumes that drowned out the methane gas fumes!)
Getting down to business, I really forgot where I was. Gone were the dairy odors, the hiss from the propane lantern and the fact that the two men sitting across from me had no buttons on their clothing. Instead, out came the pencils and papers and some number crunching. The fun part was trying to explain the internet to them. You see, Amish businessmen do use the internet, only they hire people to run their websites for them, as they will not have a computer for their own personal use. It gets hard for them to compete with the "English" as they call us regular 'ol non-Amish folks when it comes to business, especially when so much marketing is internet-based.
They need to expand their business, and they even have business coaches, but they need help in order to implement certain ideas. They do have a fax and a telephone, but only check it once or twice a day ~ and that's it. They stand firmly alongside their beliefs ~ they are all for having their products photographed and displayed online and on CDs and DVDs, but refuse to be photographed alongside their products. Yet, they feel the same pressures of the economy and have the same worries we all do. They have the same business questions we do: "How do I reach the largest pool of prospective buyers?" "How do I market my product to them?" "How can *they* find me?"
Can you imagine, as a Realtor, what it would be like if we couldn't use the internet to market ourselves?
If we couldn't have our photos on our business cards or web sites?
If we couldn't answer our own phones or emails? Receive or send faxes? Even from our "home" offices?
As we talked and the evening sun disappeared into the night, I could hear the wonderful farmland noises around me. My mind wandered during our conversation as I found myself wondering what life without electricity, without the technological luxuries I've become accustomed to, would be like. Like Gilligan's Island "No phone, no light, no luxury... as primitive as can be".
I snapped back to reality as I found myself answering my cell phone ~ ironically ~ and explaining to my Amish friends that it was my son calling who was arriving at the Lancaster Amtrack station and needed a ride. I haven't seen him in several weeks, as he's in New York working two internships in the television production field ~ a city only three hours from here yet it seemed worlds apart at that moment. The boy found it quite humorous to hear that I was on an Amish farm "talking business" ~ clearly a world apart from the world he's grown up in, as well.
I found it quite humorous too, as I drove home wondering if I still had the farmland odors permeating my clothes and hair. As I walked into the house, and the lights were turned on, the television was turned on and the computer awakened from it's sleep mode, I had a brief yearning to be back on that quiet, peaceful, dark farm that was worlds apart from my own home ... yet just a half hour drive away.
But, I could do without the farmland smell!
