Door-to-Door Magazine Salesmen

Should have offered to buy him a non refundable bus ticket for a trip home.

When I was unemployed for a stretch, I responded to an ad for a job in "Marketing!". When I got there, they had one side basically doing that (except they were selling coupon books), and the side they were trying to recruit me for was going door to door to convince people to let a contractor come out and give them estimates on new gutters. After an embarrassingly awkward afternoon, I asked the kid who was driving around why the hell he was doing it. He said basically that he wasn't making a lot of money yet, but he knew he would. I suggested selling drugs instead and bid him adieu.

Oh, and everyone there is instructed to make up a complete bullshit story. I'm sure the dude you were talking to couldn't pick out New Orleans on a map.

He should have appealed to your emotions by telling you that the "manager" in the car around the corner would beat him if he didn't make the sale.

He was giving you a line. If he was genuine he wouldn't have kept trying different tacts. So why would anyone want to purchase something, or trust them with their info from someone that's obviously lying? He should quit and get another job if this one is too much of a hassle or unfruitful for him.

Though I have met people apart of those door to door magazine sales jobs trapped in another state trying to get enough money together for a ticket home.

Ah yes, the old "I just need _____ points to (insert goal here)." Funny how they're always just your sale away from being able to pay for college/get home to their family/build an orphanage/cure cancer.

Unless I'm expecting someone, I don't even answer the door anymore. It's either someone trying to sell me something, or someone trying to convert me. Or possibly a home invasion.

My favorite opening line (usually from somewhat-sorta-kinda-but-not-really attractive females when I opened the door and they realized I was male) -- "Would you like to adopt me?!" then the whole spiel about the points and the trip to St. Croix or whatever and blah blah...

A fun time-killer when I was still dealing with the magazine pushers back in Texas was to invite them into the apartment, offer them something to drink and listen to their entire story. I'd occasionally ask a question or two, peruse the catalog, respond to their b/s stories with b/s anecdotes of my own. I'd keep that up until they realized I was just stringing them along with absolutely no intent to buy a magazine subscription and they left.

I was working full time nights then and, since they usually came in the mornings, was conveniently home with nothing better to do... so I figured it was a noble use of my time to keep those bottom feeders away from the nice old people in my apartment complex.

"Good evening Sir, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack but now I am off it and trying to stay clean. That is why I am selling magazine subscriptions."

First thing I thought of.

Nooj! They did the same thing to me, only last week! It was a nondescript "Workforstudents.com" plastered EVERYWHERE on campus with little other information, and you know, being poor and needing more money, I figured, "hey, I'll send them an email." I thought it might be some kind of job placement thingamabob. Called them up, submitted a little application (with little to no word on what sort of company they were) and they told me to come in for an interview.

Basically, selling Cutco cutlery door to door or arranging 'appointments' like Avon and selling them to the customer directly. I was so pissed that they couldn't have let me know that beforehand. I "got" the job, but didn't show up to the training sessions. A few days later I saw the manager actually on campus handing out cards. Luckily, big black sunglasses obscured my identity and I employed my "no thanks" handwave I learned up in New York.

Fuck that, fuck that so much.

God, I see so many of these things around here that I've gotten to the point where I have no problem slamming my door or rolling up my window in someone's face. There are people trying to scam you out of money on literally every corner. My favourite recent one is the "Orthodox Jew" (suit, beard, sideburns, yarmulka, the whole schpiel...) who left him wallet at home and needs cash to fill up his car so he can get home - except his face betrays the fact that he's high as a kite and not even vaguely Jewish.

The best thing for these sorts of encounters (if you have the time) is try to "out-uncomfortable" them. It's hard to give a definitive approach to the magazine guys, because each one is different.

Perhaps tell them you used to work for a similar organization and you know how it goes. Then regale them with a really, really long-winded diatribe that just gets really creepy.

If it's the Mormons/Jehovah's Witnesses/etc. trying to convert you, I find it's best to invite them into your home and just start consuming the biggest quantities of drugs (harder the better) and pornography (harder the better) that you have access to at the moment.

For what it's worth, I know a guy who made an absolute killing selling Cutco knives for something like 2 years. He had a large extended family, and everyone in it (and all of their friends) bought the knives from him. When he'd exhausted all of his personal contacts, he quit and got a regular job JOB type job. Those knives bought him a shitload of toys, I remember that.

Once I told a couple of nice, clean cut Mormon gentlemen that I was ready to convert if they'd pay me. That seemed to shut them up pretty quickly.

Hum.. what?

Lets go cut them Nooj. Cut them real good. I'll drive.

/grumbles

Racism all up in dis bitch

Um I've never had to deal with these guys but the Latina viejas on the bus/subway/whatever trying to get you to go to their church and conocer a Dios need to stop interrupting me while I'm trying to read.

Something about beaners. Or just beans. Beans are tasty.

I almost fell into something like that right when I got out of college it was an even bigger load of bullshit than selling knives. The company offered a sales opportunity with "no mundane paperwork" and so I go to my first interview and they want to bring me back for a day long interview where I basically went out with this dude making sales calls all day. The job was going door to door at small businesses and getting them locked into long term deals for their electricity to avoid paying the constant mark up that most companies charge. So basically the sales involved were a simple question and then having the guy at whatever company fill out a bunch of bullshit paperwork and then filling out your own bullshit and making a phone call to get the service turned on.

The whole day was brutal the guy was dumb as a rock, the job was basically doing what they advertise the job not being and you get to spend all day driving around the state of Massachusetts all for a job that paid solely by commission. The whole thing felt like a cult was trying to suck me in. By the end they offered me a job if I was willing to come back in the next morning and start my training. My meeting was Thursday and I asked if it would be ok to take the weekend to think about it and they told me no. I almost took it because I had just moved to Boston and my parents were helping to support me and I wanted to stop that but then I called my Dad in the car and told him about my day and he told me not to take the job.

As for door to door people we get Jehovah's Witnesses every once in a while. The first time they came I was baked as shit and having gone to Catholic school just kinda fucked with the guy until I got bored. Since then I either haven't been home or they rang when I was hungover as hell and didn't want to deal with them. Don't people know that Saturday mornings are just a bad time to make people take you seriously?

I had one of those magazine guys knock on my door at like 9 one night. It's pitch dark out, and he starts out with his sales pitch:

"I'm selling magazines to keep me off the streets so I can be safe."

I couldn't stop laughing. Dude is lugging his big rubberware container down the sidewalk in the dark so that he can get off the streets and be safe.

That's pretty cool of you. I can see the elderly really getting the worst of it too.

Can we go back to Nooj's racism? He's kinda getting off easy on it due to his good history here.

Damn, nooj, you would fit right in where I live. (wink)

But it's OK, he's Asian. I always thought that Asian people had a fear of blacks.. or was that Indians?

Hawaiians

A racist Korean grocer is nothing new. To me, this is the winning post.

What's there really to discuss? people react to strangers based on their social/ethnic background. I assume nooj's mentioning it means he's aware that it's not the correct attitude to take.

I mean, the problem when discussing racism (or sexism, homophobia, etc.) is that people immediatley summon up this image of a straight-up unrepentant bigot - the REAL racist - and it allows them to think that as long as you're not that guy, it's not something you have to worry about. But something as ancient and prevalent as racism isn't something you can just innoculate yourself against; if you live in a racist society you're gonna have racist thoughts, racist reactions, every now and then, even if they're on a purely subconcious level. Being aware of that, and trying your best to fight it, is the important part.

Well yeah -- Miss Anderson downstairs was on a fixed income, had a heart of gold and loved anybody that even gave her 5 minutes of their time... they'd-a taken her to town.

One time, I even gave one of them a lift on the pretense we were going to the ATM so I could get some cash to pay for the subscription. I took her back to the hotel from which they were operating after explaining that I would be stopping by my management office on my way back home and informing them of the subscription people being back in town. She started to get angry... but quickly realized that she was in MY truck and pretty much didn't have much to say. She was probably running the mental over/under on whether or not I was gonna chop her up and eat her.

Which, understandably, was about a 50/50 split for her. I remember that truck.

I have never ever had someone try to sell me a magazine. I don't understand why you'd buy a subscrition from a traveling saleman in the first place.. don't most people just mail in the cards or sign up online? Seems like a terrible business model. My moms house has people stop by to offer to help with tree clearing and stuff. Sometimes she takes them up on it (though at this point we have the right number of trees and don't want to lose any more), but it's never involved a sad story. They just give you a card or fridge magnet with their number on it and offer to give you an estimate on stuff

Part of me almost wishes someone would try to foist unwanted magazines upon me, because it sounds kind of fun to have someone try out a bunch of improbable lines on you

When I really think about it though, I think the truth is I'd find it weird and unwelcome. I don't know if race had anything to do with it or not, but like three months ago my doorbell rang at like 11 30 PM and I went down and answered it (I was already freaked out by the late night doorbell), and it was an Indian/Pakistani woman standing there, and her Husband was scowling over by his car. She was trying to get me to give directions, and even though I kind of knew how to give them I said I didn't and gave her directions to where they could ask someone else (she had poor english, and it would have taken more time than I wanted to take to try to work through more complex directions with her, and her husband was scowling away and I just wanted to get back inside). I don't think race had something to do with my reaction (I don't like strangers, especally at night), but my first reaction upon peaking out the door definitely was "Arabs!?". I think that was about surprise at their ethnicity rather than some negative reaction, because I'm definitly friends with alot of Indian and Arab people


PS I once had someone try to sell me American flags in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sure it could have ended in a mugging tragedy. I still get freaked out thinking about it. That was in 2009 and so maybe that played into my reaction to the lost Pakistani people

Kate if someone ever comes to your door and tries to sell you magazines please record the ensuing conversation and post it here thanks in advance

OK but like I said I don't think that happens in this area, people just mail in the subscription cards

Im pretty sure Nooj would had reacted different if it had been a white man:

But then he would want a coke, and it would all go downhill from there!
Hope you're not too attached to that baseball bat.

Here in the SC I have run into the black pastor from Florida trying to get home to his congregation and needing gas money. One even used a cane. Exact same story too.

It wasn't racism. It was bigotry. Big fucking difference and nothing at all to take him to task for. It may not have even risen to bigotry, maybe prejudice.

*EDIT* What Roffle said. Nooj had a cultural reaction, not a racist one.

Rusty? that makes you liable to be sued for giving thetanus to a beaten mugger.
Better fix that.

Did he have hairless arms and legs?



Man, I got caught in a pyramid scheme sales pitch one time. I went in for what I thought was a general interview/job fair at a Verizon headquarters building. Turns out it was a pyramid work at home marketing scheme that was renting a conference room at the Verizon building.

I sat there for 15 minutes listening to bullshit, fresh out of college, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, till finally I asked what the fuck kinda products they were selling. The guy wanted to start back in on the pyramid bullshit so I promptly excused myself.

At least the guy was white and had a big cowboy hat.

I actually was going to buy a couple of magazines from one of those guys once, until i saw how much it cost! I's like a 200% markup vs. what you could get if you sent in the subscription card.

I also fell victim to the nondescript "Marketing" job. Spent half a day following a guy door to door, trying to sell discount coupon books. At lunchtime I made him take me back to the office. Wasn't too happy because I was cutting into his "sales time".

We get a lot of magazine salesmen in our area, but if I don't know the person through the peep hole in my door, it doesn't open period. It's just dangerous. I read about an elderly couple who were murdered, the woman was raped, and then both were burned. A lot of these salesmen are convicted felons, some of them are violent criminals.

I remember once when I was still living with my folks, it was just me and my dad home. These two black guys rang the doorbell and I could see them from my upstairs bed room. They looked shady as all hell. Wearing all black, black hoodies and black leather gloves and weren't carrying anything. I ran downstairs and my dad was already at the door. Apparently one of the guys had their hand over the peep hole and he said they were selling magazines for a church trip or some shit. My dad started yelling at them to take their hand off the peep hole but they kept saying, "Sir, if you open the door, we can talk." For two minutes, just back and forth and it definitely didn't feel right. My dad whispered to me to get one of our handguns. Finally my dad lost it and yelled, "If you don't take your hand off my door so I can see your fucking face, I'm going to throw the door open and my son is going to shoot the both of you!" He heard them start arguing then they just took off.

Anyway, here are the kinds of people you could pontentially open your door to:


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Here's an interesting article about magazine sales-persons

That is extremely frightening, TRH.. I don't know why anyone would risk that when you can just stick the stupid subscription cards in the mail instead. I fully recant my previously stated curiosity about the magazine sales pitch experience. Also, I am now of the opinion that my reticence to offer directions to strangers at 11 30 PM was totally reasonable and not at all racist.

PS Rather than threaten a gun which would invite retaliation perhaps, I'd simply say "I've just dialed 911 on my cell, have fun in jail" which would probably engage their "flight" reflex

EDIT: The fact that all this menace and violence surrounds the magazine sales industry is to me completely baffling.

Also there's this website which was started by a man who's daughter was killed by these people.

That website is completely unnavigable, but thank you for the link TRH. I did not need further evidence to fear guests bearing magazines, you already convinced me

Sorry, I just got the address from another article. I tried checking it out, but "Societies and Lifestyles" is blocked at work. Dumb.