-
-
Random Normality of a Graphical Nature
The Problems with the Public Domain
So I’m, per usual, sitting in a Starbucks trying to work on a short story (and alternately laughing at the comments on this page about Alan Moore being a hypocrite) when this older guy at the table next to me says “How are you doing today?”
OK
For those unfamiliar, when you are sitting in Starbucks staring at a computer with headphones in your ears and someone you don’t know addresses you, and that person isn’t asking to use one of your chairs or plug in something behind you, there is only one thing he has in mind.
The stranger is trying to sell you something.
He might be trying to sell any damn thing. His god, for instance. I’ve had several people try to “convert” me while I was doing homework. He might simply be trying to sell “himself.” By that I mean that the miscellaneous stranger is simply trying to engage in some polite conversation. Now I like conversation as much as the next person, but when I’m sitting in a Starbucks staring at a computer screen and I have EARPHONES IN MY EARS it should be fairly obvious that I don’t, at that moment, wish to engage with anyone in conversation. Some people are lonely though, so whatever.
Most often, however, when said stranger talks to you it’s because he’s actually trying to sell something. Usually, he’s trying to sell something in the “multi-level” format. Not familiar with MLM (multi-level marketing)? Ever hear of Amway? Know how they “recruit”? Now you get the picture. And that’s really the last thing I need when I’m trying to work because now I’m just annoyed and all I can think of is this talking squirrel that’s in my story is trying to pitch a scheme to the main character and the squirrel keeps saying “it isn’t multi-level” which, of course, means it totally IS multi-level!
I gave the guy my cell phone number and e-mail, basically, to get him the hell away from me. The beauty, of course, is that I don’t answer my cell phone if the number doesn’t pop up with a name from my address book and after that first e-mail he will be…what’s the word…blocked.
As I sit here typing this, miscellaneous stranger is now pitching someone else.
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead — The Best
Tagged Absurdity of Life, Don't talk to me when I'm at Starbucks!, MLM. Bookmark the permalink.
It’s like a call I got from these weird carpet cleaning people:
Them: Hi! We’re offering a special, a room for free blah blah blah talking too fast I don’t understand
Me: Sorry, I’m not interested.
Them: No, ma’am, it’s all free. It’s a special we’re running, all perfectly free blah blah blah talking too fast again
Me: I don’t want any, thank you.
Them: So what room can we do for you?
Me: *hang up*
I don’t automatically hang up on solicitors who manage to make it through my screenings (I was expecting a call from my dad) because I know they’re just doing their jobs and it feels bad to just get hung up on. But if they don’t get it after the first ‘no, thank you’ I do. The thing that just floored me… no pun intended… was the ‘so what room do you want us to do for you?’. Just completely ignoring me. I wanted to tell her I lived in a studio apartment with a 500 sq. foot floor and that I’d like it all done, but… I hung up.
And I’m glad I’m not in Cali. I’ve never had anyone do that to me in a coffeehouse (mainly because I don’t go to them), or any other place. It would be creepy.