Au contraire, Jonmarzie. People are rude to door-to-door salesmen because said salesmen have intruded upon their personal living quarters, unasked-for, to offer unwanted products, at a generally inconvenient time, interrupting us doing something we WANT to do to have to tell someone to go away, often causing consternation among our dogs/kids/etc., and generally intruding where they are NOT WANTED.
I had a large, clear “no soliciting” sign directly above my doorbell where it could NOT be missed for four years. As far as I can tell, it was not respected one single time. Door-to-door salesmen HAVE to be rude or they wouldn’t have the nerve to intrude upon peoples’ homes, where they are so clearly not wanted, in the first place. With or without a “no soliciting sign.”
I think what’s sad is this attitude that we should all be grateful for contact with door-to-door salesman. Apparently, we’re all so socially starved that talking to door-to-door salesmen would be the highlight of our conversational and social days!
How could you tell it was not respected one single time. Do you have a video camera that records who comes to the door and doesn’t knock? Or are you just assuming that because a few ignore the sign, everyone does?
This is what I have an issue with. Obviously, if someone has a no soliciting sign, they don’t want solicitors, and I never knocked on those doors. Frankly, odds are I’d be wasting my time if I tried to get a contribution - waste of my time. However, if you don’t have a no soliciting sign, how can I tell I’m “clearly not wanted.”
When you knock on someone’s door, unsolicited, to sell them something, the odds are good that (1) you are unwanted; and (2) you are interrupting somebody’s life. Enough so that it’s rude.
A more extreme example is the man who pinches a girl’s rear end on the subway. Yes, it’s remotely possible that such attentions are not unwanted, but sufficiently unlikely to make the act rude.
Agree. If folks don’t understand by now that door-to-door sales are per se rude, there is no convincing them.
Seriously, if the odds are good that I am unwanted, then it would follow that I (or any other political canvasser / salesperson) wouldn’t get any signatures or contributions or sales. Right?
Then how come the goal was $120 of contributions a night and 30-60 signatures, and that goal was often met? I’m not an uber-solicitor or anything, but enough people were at least willing to hear me out. If odds are good that salespeople are unwanted, why do companies employ salespeople?
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This is a very faulty comparison. Making assumptions based on appearance, ethnicity, religion, is one thing. Making assumptions based on a job is another.
Many folks are rude to salesman because being nice does not make them go away. 5 minutes spent politely trying to get a salesman to leave means that I’m 5 minutes closer to death. If you waste 5 minutes of my life, I will NEVER have them back.
The little brass ring on my door is there so that family or friends can tell me that they have arrived, so that I can let them in. It is not an open invitation for any wandering asshole to force themselves into my life and attempt to separate me from my time and money.
Because they know that a certain (low) percentage of the time, the person will make a sale. As with spam or telemarketing, companies balance the cost of making all the sales pitches against the profit from the small number of sales that are made. The trouble is that they don’t factor in the costs imposed upon folks who don’t want their lives interrupted by these pitches.
Anyway, the exact arguments you make could be made about spam and telemarketing. Is it your position that these practices are not rude?
Again, I’m refering to your original statement about “clearly not wanted.” If everyone hated door to door salesmen with the passion you seem to have, then it would not be profitable. It is profitable, therefore some people must not mind them. If some people don’t mind them, they are not “clearly not wanted.”
You brought up the example of pinching a girl’s bum in a subway. The counter-example is a woman in a single’s bar who is getting pissed off that strange men are asking her for a date. Door to door salesmen are somewhere in between those two extremes.
Assuming that there was an equivalent of a “No Soliciting” sign for spam and telemarketing, I don’t think these practices are rude. For telemarketing, this is happening via the “Do Not Call” list. Sort of. For spam, well, good luck on that.
Please show me where I made any claims that door-to-door salesmen are “clearly not wanted.”
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Ok, so is it your position that any intrusive sales technique that is profitable is not rude (assuming it’s done in a polite manner)?
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The “do not call” list has not yet been implemented. Just so we’re clear, is it your position that telemarketing – as practiced right now – is not necessarily rude?
There you go, simply lying again. I have called you an asshole for the crime of trespassing on private property in order to solicit someone who has clearly posted that they do not wish any solicitations, thereby distrubing them at home in spite of the fact that they told you that such behavior would disturb them. I don’t care what your excuse is for your assholery,
I’ve got better things to do with my life than keep track of the gender of every idiot on the internet with an abiguous screen name. If you’re going to whine about people calling you a ‘he’ instead of a ‘she’, pick an obviously female name or a signature that mentions that you’re female.
You explicitly said:“No, just that you get into a routine, walking from door to door, and occasionally miss some of the details, especially in the dark.” The ‘accident’ was that you were too lazy to read a damn sign before disturbing someone in their home. While you can try to lie about it being an ‘accident’, it’s clearly not something beyond your control but rather that you were unwilling to put forth the trivial effort to glance over for a sign before harassing someoen.
You’re down to telling outright lies about stuff that you’ve said before (the ‘occasionally miss some of the details’ bit, which is a tad different than the original tale), and my mistakes that are ‘mounting up?’ Gee, I didn’t read something that you never wrote, and I forgot your gender since you chose an androgenous screen name.
Since telemarketers have provided nothing comprable to a ‘no soliciting’ sign, and in fact actively work to get around filters against their obnoxiousness, they’re all assholes until the DNC list comes online, not just some. I’ve made the point before.
My apologies. I should have said “the” statement that door to door salesmen are not wanted. Not your statement. I was just asking for a cite.
What I’m saying is what I did - go from door to door, tell people about what we’re working on politics-wise, and ask for contributions, fell within the normal bounds of “politeness,” IMHO. If no one answered, I didn’t repeatedly knock on their door, if there was a no soliciting sign, I didn’t knock, I stopped if people said they weren’t interested. I can sleep soundly at night.
So, for your first question, no, obviously. I’ve already addressed stuff like spam. For your second question, again, “as practiced right now” is vague. Is telemarketing inherently rude? I’d say no. Can people be rude while telemarketing? Of course. But people can be rude walking down the street.
So, are you saying that you never made a mistake? You’ve never overlooked something, you’ve never forgot anything or inconvienced someone? People screw up sometimes, and while we strive to do our best, an occassional mistake doesn’t make someone lazy.
Sorry for the hijack, but this pushed a few buttons. Fuck off.
Sure - I tend to look at rudeness as not following the standards of politeness and decorum. A secondary definition is not to make people uncomfortable. However, you can’t know what’s going to make someone uncomfortable all the time - if you say “How’s your dad fighting that cancer,” when he just died a week ago isn’t rude per se - you couldn’t have known. Asking that same question at the funeral on the other hand…
Rude is like tall - there’s degrees and degrees. But door to door isn’t frowned upon in the areas I’m in. And you can’t know that someone doesn’t want door to door folks unless there’s a sign. And since a sign is a pretty easy investment (we have one - it cost a few dollars and 10 minutes to put it up), I figure anyone who doesn’t want d2d will put one up.
I’m cool to agree to disagree - in one sense, we’re arguing about opinions, which is rather pointless. And I’ll turn the question back to you: what is rude to you (aside from telemarketers, that is)?
