I bought some frozen apple strudel things at my last job that were quite excellent. We didn’t seem to have anybody doing cookie dough =( mrAru got Girl Scout cookied, and also some sort of chocolate frog things. I didn’t like the chocolate flavor on the frogs enough to make one an occasional self treat, they were slightly waxy.
I do agree Avon does sell some nice items. What I am trying to say is that Avon customer mentality is weird. Anyone can find Avon-like or knock-off products (like nail polish) at most stores. Customers (mostly female-hey its true :D) of Avon tend to think the items they are getting special, cute, great quality and exclusive when they are just ordinary and common specailty items you can get at your local cheap “luxury” (ex. Sears or JCPenney) store. I think even Wal-Mart sells similar jewelry of Avon quality.
I really don’t remember the prices of Avon. I think they are similar in price to most store goods but I am not sure.
… Again, I haven’t seen this attitude you describe. And since I mentioned the nail polish: I have a metric assload of nail polishes, most of which come from drugstores. I buy Avon polishes in colors I haven’t seen dupes for. Oh, and btw, their polishes are cheaper than ~75% of drugstore polishes. 
While I can get into the rant about people expecting us to buy their crap, I have another reason many people like Avon. I tell my coworker who sells Avon that I need some more hand lotion or whatever. When the order comes in, she puts it on my desk. I pay her and never have to shop for it.
I have mentioned that I’m pretty lazy, right?
Something that always bothers me is when one specific person who has always done just one fundraiser a year for a* very good cause* comes to sell his expensive candy popcorn and its just expected that we all will open our wallets.
I agree that it’s mostly obnoxious, but I will buy thin mints almost every time they’re available. I only have a few coworkers who raise funds for Girl Scouts, and they come to me because I’ve asked them to. I was a Girl Scout as a kid *and *I’m a terminal thin mint junkie!
I don’t have people trying to sell me things at work, but if I did, I’d steal your technique.
Bravo.
I keep a box in the freezer. It’s my reward for getting yard work done when it’s hot out.
And I see a huge difference between selling people something they want* at a reasonable price, as opposed to that ten-pound garbage can full of generic cheese corn that my son was “encouraged” to sell dozens of for his cub scout pack… (we said no thanks, we’ll pass on this fundraiser).
*I’ve been known to stalk coworkers: “Is Brianna selling Thin Mints yet?” "Why can’t I buy some NOW? They probably have warehouses full of them… " “Now..?” “Is it cookie time yet?” “Well, can you at least ask about the warehouses?”
This is slightly tangential. I can tolerate the discreetly placed order form for Girl Scout cookies. What bugs the shit out of me was when my son used to bring home fundraising crap he was expected to sell for his public elementary school – not to fund a class trip or the like, but for general budget support! Jesus! Can’t we just adequately fund the public school system? Or, since parents are the ones who end up buying the crap, just fucking give me the option of paying tuition and spare me the fundraiser browbeating!
Update: One of my team got hit with a stomach bug last week and still feels wiped. He just posted on FB how he wished he could shake this feeling. And of course, Mr. Healthy just responded with, “Did someone say SHAKE? I can set you up for FREE!”
GRAHR!
I would love to buy thin mints. The problem is there are at least 10 people in my office that sell them. That’s not even counting the people from other departments that come through hawking the damn things.
My son has a scholarship. I pay what it doesn’t cover. I’m still asked to chip in for PTO stuff, annual appeals, holiday presents ($36 per kid - I posted about that once), etc.
Trust me. It isn’t any better. 
The first month of school was “buy a coupon book!” and then it was “sign up your kids to go skiing!” and “enroll them in after school activities!” and etc.
Last week, it was “You know you want to buy this nice 8x10 photograph of your kid for $50!”.
Oh. My. God. I can’t wait til one of your coworkers is diagnosed with Parkinson’s…
And re multiple Girl Scouts: I just buy from the first one that asks, and then apologize to the rest. “Oh, I’m SO sorry. I just bought WAY too many from Bernadette and Boraxo’s daughter Brianna.” So far everyone’s been glad that I was supporting the cause.
And then I get home and find out that my wife just bought nine boxes from Belladonna (Brunhilda and Boromir’s youngest).
Our middle school had a campaign called ‘Bug Off’ and a $50.00 ‘donation’ exempted your kid from all fundraisers for the entire school year. It was money well spent to get out of all the other fundraisers.
I would think that bosses would be fairly ticked off that individuals are devoting time and energy during the workday, in the workplace to hawking work-unrelated stuff solely for their own personal profit. (I can see how hawking Scout-troop or school-trip stuff like Girl Scout cookies would be viewed more tolerantly, though.)
If you want to peddle crap to boost your income, do it on your own time, not your employer’s. Sheesh, even the greenest teenage office boy in a Horatio Alger Jr. novel knew that much.
I used to work at a car dealer and the mechanics there were a selling-things-person’s dream. They would buy any crap and take it home to their wives/gfriends. Wood covered in polystyrene with a hole with a tiny pothos plant dying in it: sold. Photos of waterfalls, covered in polystyrene with “woodgrain” frames: sold. “Magic” cleaner that works for laundry, dishes, your hair, the floor: sold. Gah.
Sometimes it’s the bosses that are the worst offenders. Or the bosses are running their own businesses on the side.
At our church we have a number of girls in Scouting and the way they deal with it is like this.
On one Sunday, after church, a table is set up. All the cookie hustlers are there and customer orders are spread out evenly between them.
In this way they aren’t hustling the after church crowds for several weeks in a row.
At one place that I worked several years ago, there was this one squirrely mother fucker that used to push Amway hard. He spent tons of work time hitting up co-workers and chatting with his “uplink” in the parking lot.
He used to tell anyone who would listen that in the future he wouldn’t have to work anymore. Technically, he was correct.
My boss did that. I really didn’t want to spend $14 on bread, but he made sure to ask me every single day for a week. I was the only one who didn’t buy it.
I thought I understood the Amway business model. Apparently, I was quite wrong.
You would think that, if you were terribly naive.