Three hours later, and I just started laughing at this. Completely whooshed me when I first read it. 
We have a special version of this in the non-profit world. Since donations are so critical to the daily operations of non-profits, and all your friends and coworkers are social workers and doing like 20 projects on the side, you pretty much get hit up by a different person every day for Issue of the Week Donation. And if you can’t afford to shell out ten dollars a day for the rest of your life, you not only feel like a bad friend, but you have the added bonus of feeling guilty for not caring more about the blind anorexic baby seals on crack. My Facebook News Feed is just one long guiltrip.
Maybe you could cut them a deal and read them their fortune in exchange for whatever they are selling? It’s a lose-lose!
When my dad was working (as a teacher) he did a cracking business selling bedding plants that he’d grown himself from seed. It paid the costs of supplying the plants for his own garden. That was down to the providing a good product that people actually want business model however.
Guilty as charged, I guess. But why don’t bosses mind this sort of “commercial harassment” going on in their offices—at least, the bosses who aren’t engaged in such activities themselves?
I know my co-workers and I would catch some flak from our supervisors if we kept pushing a hard-sell attitude about some completely work-unrelated product that nobody’s shown any signs of wanting. Seems like it accomplishes nothing but wasting time and causing aggravation.
Well yeah, I guess that’s another exception. At my workplace, everybody does know that this one guy sells eggs from his free-range chickens and the occasional pumpkin etc. to people who request them, and there are some similar casual para-commercial activities going on. But AFAIK nobody’s devoting serious time and effort to pitching unwanted crap to unwilling buyers, and I think there would be some negative repercussions if they tried it.
I like it when someone sells Avon at the office, and they just leave the books in the lunchroom with their name and extension number on it. That is how you sell things at work.
That’s not a bad idea. Evil laugh, I may start making that offer also.
I had the weirdest thing at one of my jobs with my crazy Avon lady. I’d buy stuff often, but she’d almost begrudge me the freaking catalog. She would be really pissy about giving me one, which seemed counter-intuitive to me. Normally I’m not too passive-aggressive, but I made sure to hunt her down when I knew a new one was coming.
I don’t mind people selling things, but the begging and hard-selling is not work-appropriate. I wish I had a girl scout parent. I didn’t end up with cookies the last few years. 
Wow. I’ve never experienced this. I would…not react well, I think.
I think they have to buy the catalogs and samples they hand out.
They do, but that’s part of the model and for catalogues at least it’s not expensive and you get them in packs of ten iirc. So she may not be buying enough in the first place but they send you extra all the time in an attempt to get you to pass out more and make more sales. Samples are pretty cheap also.
I have a friend who sells, I drop off the catalogue at work for people though not many buy. Everyone knows I’m the hookup if you want Avon though.
The school has been trying other things for fundraisers. This year it was family portraits, but on a particular date and time which did not work for me at all. Nice to not have to try and shill to everyone, but I expect next year might be back to selling.
Yeah, Avon has always had some really nice stuff. And Avon Skin So Soft is great as a bug repellent and it smells much better than something like Off! or whatever. (We used to use it when I was in Girl Scouts)
My mother works with a woman who sells Avon and she’ll bring the catalog home so we can see if we want to order something.
All I can say is HOLY SHIT.
Stuff like this makes me appreciate my employer’s policies on school fund raisers, side businesses, band candy, scout cookies, football pools, etc. Simple and to the point, the policy is NO, and violators can be and have been terminated.
That works for me.
While that might be true, it still makes me all 
because if she wanted people to buy stuff, why wouldn’t she make the catalog available to people like me who bought stuff? I wasn’t a looky-loo. The profit she made on the stuff I bought paid for the cost of the catalog. She was just crazy.
As much as I would resent having to pay to be left alone, I wish that sort of thing was available to those of us on the receiving end. If I have to get up one more time to answer the door to someone trying to sell me something…
What if they’re selling “No Soliciting” signs?
That’s the way it’s been in the last two offices I’ve worked in as well. Neither allowed outside vendors either - no burrito guys or sammitch ladies wandering through…
Where I work it’s mostly boxes of chocolates left in the lunch area with a note about which school/charity is going to be the recipient and a bag for money, occasionally there is an email sent around announcing it. Pretty low key.
When my wife was off work after having our first child she was selling ******* (another makeup mob, a bit like Avon) and I would leave a catalogue in the lunch area with her name & cell number on it. Occasionally I would drop stuff off to someone at work who ordered it.
A few days after we had a new woman start she came around asking people if they wanted to buy Avon products. A bit later that day I wandered into the lunch room to grab a drink & found an Avon catalogue on the table & my wife’s catalogue missing. :dubious: On a hunch I checked the rubbish bin & sure enough, there it was. Not wanting to assume malice at that point I grabbed it and put it back on the table (it was clean). That afternoon, same thing only this time the small section with my wife’s name & number had been torn off and was missing!
Checking the Avon catalogue revealed the name of the new co-worker and a number written I black felt-tip pen.
I let my wife know, she emailed her customers to update them on why the latest catalogue wasn’t in the lunch room & that they could get it from my desk.
I returned to the lunch room with my trusty felt-tip and a few quick changes to the phone number transformed the 1 into a 7 and a 0 into an 8. Enjoy all those calls, bitch. 
Heh - they don’t work!