I Am Sure I Was Really Rude But.......

The door bell rang a few minutes ago and as soon as the girl asked "are you the woman of this fine home?" I knew what she was there for. In Nov of 2004 a guy came by the house selling magazines. He told me it was part of a program he was in to keep kids out of jail and yadda yadda yadda. I ended up buying a 2 year subscription of a mag that hubby likes. It cost me 60.00. I later found out I could have gone to the magazines web site and ordered a subscription for a $1.00 an issue. WTF? I could have gotten 5 years for the price I paid for 2. Do I feel ripped off? You better believe it. So since then we have had (no joke) 4 people come by with the same jive as well as 1 person selling books and one selling movies. The last girl that knocked on my door a few months ago was the breaking point for me. She thought she was so cute and so funny and all the giggling UGH! I wanted to slap her.

So back to today- I finally stopped being nice about their insistence to try and get me to buy something and their guilt trips and said a few things. The girl asked me I have heard of a group called something or other and I said, "maybe, do you sell magazines?" and she just grinned. She asked if I was interested and I told her no and explained the situation about feeling ripped off. She tries to explain to me that a lot of people feel that way but that they don't fully understand that the sellers are not getting all the profit. She showed me her little raggy list of magazines and said she would only make 25.00 from a 60.00 sale. 25 bucks off 5 minutes with a customer? I told her that sounded like a lot of money and then the guilt trip started. She said not everyone buys something though and sometimes they only make a 15.00 profit. If they don't buy then she doesn't get to eat for the day. Honey, 25.00 is what someone people around here make in 3 hours. If she were to work an 8 hour day selling magazines and made 3 or 4 sales then she is getting her pay. I really doubt she works 8 hours doing that yet I am sure she makes a couple sales a day. She told me she didn't make a sale today so that means she doesn't eat. I said, "then maybe you should find a more dependable job". I really wanted to tell her it would be cheaper for me to give her 3.00 for a happy meal.

Anyhow, I wasn't nasty with my tone or anything, I was just responding to her pathetic sales pitch. I also told her (after she said she had been out there all day) that several people have already come by and people around here probably aren't interested in any more magazines and that she might find another area more helpful. She said she didn't find anyone at home at most place. I told her that they probably all had jobs and again let her know that a lot of people have already been through her selling the same exact thing. She told me it wasn't going to stop her from trying. I said I was just trying to let her know she might not have much luck here. Usually if I'm not expecting anyone I look out the window to see if there is a car before I answer the door. That I way I know if there is no car then it's most likely not someone I wan to talk to.

4 comments:

Jen said...

You've got me lovin' my HOA right now! LOL! We have a "No Soliciting" sign at the entrance to our subdivision, so when they come knocking, I just tell them no thank you, point out the sign, and close the door. I'm not ugly about it, but I'm thru wasting my time with them.

Once, I had a guy show up and sit in front of my property for 5 minutes in his car... I watched until he got out and started to come up to the door. Halfway to the door, he bent down and "picked" at our grass. You guess it... a lawn company.

When he got to the door, I told him no thanks and that I thought it was rather rude of him to sit in front of our house to "observe" our lawn that way. He gave me some story about waiting for a co-worker. I refused to get into a "conversation with him". I just told him thanks, but no thanks again and pointed out the sign.

:D There are times HOA's can be a good thing. LOL!

Dawn said...

Good for you!

Melissia said...

Jen, I was just thinking about our HOA and had wondered why we don't have something in action about solicitors because they are all over our neighborhood. I had a guy tonight trying to sell me an all purpose cleaner. He wouldn't shut up and the two times I was able to get a word in to tell him I wasn't interested he just kept talking. I told Travis I was going to put a no soliciting sign right by the door bell so that I could open the door and say "read the sign" and shut the door and not worry about feeling guilty.

Jen said...

I would e-mail your HOA board about it. I know we had to get a vote from the neighborhood to put the sign up, but the vote passed quickly! LOL!