Reading the Amway thread, I wonder if you have ever met someone who just didn’t understand how “the system” works.
I’d call a large portion of people on this site above to well above average in intelligence. As I’ve told people there are book smarts, and there are street smarts
You can call it the good ole boy system, the friend system, favor banking, street smarts, common sense, etc.
Here are a few examples of things which I’ve seen where people just don’t get it and are so clueless
Please feel free to comment on the number or totality
Person is at a wedding and sitting at the head table, leans over to the bride and tries to sell her a service he provides (call it anything lawn care, automotive, computer repair) someone mentioned to him away from the table that it was incredibly inappropriate to be trying to sell this service to these people (and the person selling didn’t know them bride or groom, he was at head table based on him being friends with someone else) to this day the person doesn’t think they did anything wrong.
Person goes into a courthouse type building and sees his friend who’s a cop and in normal voice across the room as he’s walking towards them, thanks for running those license plates on that one guy, here is a list of more license plates to run. He was taken into the stairwell and yelled at, quite loudly. In the opinion of people around he was trying to impress others by having a cop in his pocket.
Person gets a speeding ticket and knows that person B works with people in the legal system as well as deals with police officers a lot. Person A says so can you get this ticket fixed though one of the cops? Get the ticket fixed? What is this dukes of hazard? First of all if it could be done, you sure wouldn’t talk about it on a voice mail message or email, it would just be done. What kind of hutzpa does it take to even ask this question.
A lot of people are loudmouthed ignoramuses. IME, they’re incredibly self-centered and blind to when their usual behavior might be considered crass, rude or inappropriate.
Luckily, they’re usually easy to spot. Run. Run away as fast as you can.
When I still worked in cosmetics, I once had a woman not understand why I would purchase something for my BEST FRIEND using my employee discount, but wouldn’t extend her the same service. She’s was loudly complaining to anyone in the area who would listen.
Listen, twat. It’s not a SERVICE. I’m doing my friend a favour. You’re basically a stranger to me so you can go fuck yourself.
I’ll bet #1 is a successful sales man, even if he is a schmuck. #2 is truly clueless and I’m not sure about #3. The point is that some of these schmucks are very successful at their schmuckitude, so why would they change.
Number 1 is a very unsuccessful salesman. Successful salesmen (and saleswomen) are very good at reading cues, and know when to turn off the selling. Number 1 just guaranteed that, if the bride ever does need what he offers, she will buy from anyone but him.
These people either don’t understand the concept of boundaries, or they are willing to disregard other people’s boundaries. The guy selling to the bride, for instance, doesn’t realize that the bride wants to concentrate on her wedding, and doesn’t want to be bothered about whatever he’s got to sell. The guy who wants the cop to run some more plates doesn’t realize that the cop did him a favor, but that this sort of favor should not be revealed to the world. Etc.
A good salesman knows how not to act like a salesman. It’s a universal turn-off to almost everybody, and smacks of sleezeball (hense the term Used Car Salesman).
In your face and always going on about it, when it’s clear to anyone with at least a brainstem you couldn’t care less, or ‘right now is not the time… I’m burying my brother’. I think there’s something pathologically wrong with these types.
I used to be a used car salesman; I have friends who still are. My favorite little cousin, for instance, just started such a job. Anyway, good used car salesmen aren’t on all the time. (They don’t even WANT to be on all the time.) At most a good car saleman would have brought business cards to the wedding so he’d be ready to give one out to anybody who expressed interest.
If I learn that someone in a social setting is a car salesman, and I happen to be in the market for a new car, I’m usually likely to ask for a card. But only if I’m interested, and I like the man (or woman) anyway. I expect salespeople to carry cards, and in fact I’ve gotten some good leads this way.
However, if someone at a party comes up to me and says that s/he sells cars, and do I need a new one…the answer is always no. Because I don’t need a car from THAT particular person.
When I worked Armored, one day I was standing in line at Wendy’s. This guy starts trying to chat me up about getting a job there, which seques into a conversation about his credit card debt and subsequent bankruptcy, and then into how easy it must be for us armed guards to just steal a bag of money. Then the stupid fucker wouldn’t let it go.
So you want me to help you get a job with my company, and you think it must be really easy for us to steal the money we’re hired to move and get away with it without any suspicion? :dubious: And you think I’m somehow going to stand in a restaurant with 50 other people and agree with you and help you out or something? “Oh sure, it’s totally easy. I stole over $200k last year and they never looked twice at me. Come on by and I’ll give you a reference!”
What all these people seem to lack is discretion. We live in a cell phone world now. People think it’s okay to conduct their business in the street and grocery stores. More and more the concept of privacy, on which discretion relies so heavily, is changing radically, it seems to me. And people say the most inappropriate things at weddings these days. It’s not a roast, it’s a toast, use some discretion and say something kind and sweet. It’s not that hard, but people get it wrong all the time.
Once upon a time, in a country far far away, there was a thing called tact.
It like many of the more valuable things in the world was not distributed equally, but instead
some people were blessed with it, and some were, sadly not.
Unlike many of the more valuable things in the world, the people who did not have it
did not envy those who did. They didn’t even know that they were lacking in this valuable commododity.
Those who were rich in tact felt sorrow and pity for those who were bereft of this wealth,
and tried to share it to them, and found to their horror that the poor in tact were also blind to existance. They were worse than blind, they seemed to be unable to sense it at all. They could not see it, hear it, or witness its effects.
So they banded together, and created a cunning plan. They built a boat, and promoted it as a free trip to a monster truck show, beer fest and wet t=shirt contest. They used day glo orange signs, sky writers, spam and hired a clown who could fart out the advertising jingle while carrying a sign promoting the free trip.
The tactless came one and all, and were loaded onto the ship, which was sent off with a great party and a brass band.
A few days later, it was tactfully torpedoed, with the lossof all on board.
Everyone else lived happily ever after.
There is no moral to this story, except possibly to point out that tact and tactics have the same root.