Salespeople in person

[KathyK]

Hello All,

I was at work on Saturday afternoon.  We were having a huge sidewalk 
sale and we were quite busy.  A woman came up to the counter, so I 
said, "Can I help you?" like a good little worker bee.  

Instead of some question about the sale or an item to purchase she 
said, "You wear perfume, right?"

I said the first thing that came to mind: The truth.  "Absolutely 
not!  It gives me a nasty headache."  She wrinkled her forehead at 
this, which for some reason indicated to me that I should 
elaborate.  So I cheerfully added, "I can't even stand using 
shampoo.  It kills me."  

She sort of glanced at the top of my head and left, evidently to go 
spray cologne all over my boss' son, who was watching the 
merchandise.  

Later that night, a man and a woman came into the store.  Again I 
mistook them for customers.  Again they were trying to sell me 
perfume.  I told them the same thing I told the other people.  They 
tried to sell to my workers.  One girl said she had no money, so did 
the guy, and the other girl said she wore only $5 perfume.  After 
making some remark about stepping into "bizarro world" they left.

This is not the first time this has happened.  I've been offered 
some equivalent to health insurance, more perfume, makeup, and I've 
been asked to donate to various charities, including a woman who 
comes around every few months with a letter essentially just asking 
for money for herself because she's deaf and has children to support 
or something.  

That reminded me of this whole telemarketing thing.  I find someone 
coming to the place I work and attempting to sell things to me or my 
workers much worse than telemarketers bothering me at home.  In 
essence these folks are stealing money from my bosses when they 
waste my time with their sales pitch.  

And why sell to people at work, anyway?  Because it's a captive 
audience?  And they only seem to go for the younger people.  Are we 
more naive and more likely to buy from them?  

Still I can't be rude to them.  Sometimes I'm a little too nice.  
The guy selling the sort-of insurance took maybe 20 minutes to get 
rid of because I was much too nice about it for a while.  He was 
very aggressive but I didn't give in.  I just ended up wasting both 
our time (oops!).  I'll bet it's a lot harder to be rude in person 
than on the phone but at least I have the backup response that I'm 
too busy *working* to talk to them.  But I feel bad dismissing them 
just like that, too.  Okay, that's just sad.

Anyway, I only bring it up because I thought it was funny the 
perfume people showed up right around the same time as this 
discussion about telemarketing.  

Have a wonderful night!

KathyK