I’m sitting here at a table at one of the many local Starbucks, and am distracted from my work by some lady who has just walked in the door and gone up to counter and started giving a sales pitch to the SB employees to try and get them to buy tickets to some paintball place out in Simi Valley.
It is pretty ridiculous, as they don’t want to be rude and tell her to go away, and they can’t really leave themselves since they have to be there to do work. Pretty sleazy sales tactic I would say.
Now there are customers in line behind the sales person, and she’s still rattling off her spiel, not even moving so that real customers can order and the employees can do their work. Unbelievable.
13 Comments
I hate that. We get those sales people all the time where I work. Big sign on the window that says “No Solicitors”. They just walk in, go down the hall calling for people. One time this guy walked in and set a remote control car down and started driving it all over the office!
But I have to say, holding up the Starbucks line is the worst.
You know what, some people make their living this way. They may not be able to do anything else. Do you know how hard that is? Where’s our compassion people? Where’s the hospitality? Instead of being annoyed and judging it, why not give the perosn the courtesy of listening to their “spieil.” Find out something about the person, get into their life a little.
I really don’t have any problem with sales people in general. I just think that it’s inappropriate for one to come in and try to sell something to the employees of a store (personally, not to the store, but to the workers themselves). It just seems like they’re only doing it because they have a captive audience.
If someone wants to do “cold call” sales, they should either go door to door or find some other means where the people they are approaching at least have the option of ending it if they aren’t interested.
For the most part, I don’t mind listening to anyone, no matter what they have to say. I’ll even sit through a couple minutes of a totally impersonal scripted sales pitch (which is what this lady was doing - the “keep talking until they get out their wallets” approach). However, if I had the kind of job where I was forced to stay in a public place and serve (and be nice to) anyone who walked in, this kind of thing could be really annoying.
when i worked at the comic shop we got people trying to sell to the employees and to the customers. eventually the boss put up a “no solicitors” sign with the actual law printed on the bottom. after that we could just point out the sign when they “missed it.” sometimes they would try to argue over their job title and say they weren’t solicitors, but if we mentioned calling the police and see what they thought, they would usually leave pretty quickly.
I’m not against the “people” that are “making a living” this way, but I am against the tactics they use. It’s all about pressure, and catching you off guard, and nagging you until you give in. I mean, if you are making a living at selling remote control cars to office workers in industial site buildings, I doubt if it’s much of a living. I do not like their way of unwelcomed intrusion. They don’t knock. The ignore signs. They don’t take no as an answer. Telemarketers are almost as bad, but you can hang up on them if they don’t understand the “n” word. Sorry, but I think there are alot better jobs with more integrity to be had out there.
I believe the law is that if the sign is up you can call the police and it could be considered trespassing.
I am impressed by your ability to concentrate in a busy Starbucks to accomphlish work.
Jared can tune anything out.Try to talk to him sometime while playing guitar.
i can do it when i’m listening to my ipod. which is odd because you’d think all the death metal would be as distracting as starbucks traffic…
I meant while HE is playing the guitar. I just realized it sounded like I was saying you shoudl play the guitar and try to talk to him. ha ha. Funny.
Ha, yeah, I never listen to people who are playing guitars.
good, then you can focus on the lyrics: “eating a hippy ain’t a sin/ find yourself a hippy and dig in…”
np, I knew what you meant.
JB plays the guitar well.
Maybe he takes too much Focus Factor since he is older now.