Feb 5th 2011, 0:18:44
my politeness to telemarketers/door to door salesmen entirely depends on their persistence and approach.
If they call once, are polite on the phone, and let me go when I tell them I am not interested in their services, then they will get a polite "no thank you, I'm not interested", and I may even wish them a good day/evening.
If, on the other hand, they keep calling, are rude on the phone, or just have a terrible approach to sales, then I'm not nearly as apt to be friendly, and that's when TROLL3P comes out to play.
Perfect example - there was a tree trimming company doing door to door advertising in my neighborhood. The first time, 2 nice kids come to my door, 1 boy and 1 girl. Both very well dressed, both very polite, both very well spoken. I told them I wasn't really in need of any service at the time, but they were welcome to leave a card if they liked just so long as they removed my address from their list of addresses to market at. At that point, I probably would have even used their service had I needed it.
I watched them write down the address, and put a do not solicit note next to it.
2 weeks later, two girls show up at my house marketing for the same company. They are sloppily dressed, poorly spoken, and had an attitude that said they were quite obviously not in love with their job by any means. Before they could even finish their initial pitch, I asked to see their address list.
Sure enough, my address is listed with a do not solicit notation next to it.
I informed them they had exactly 6 and 3/4 seconds to get off my property (about the time it would take for 2 fat girls to sprint out of my front yard) before I reported them to their bosses, and their company to the better business bureau, and that if they tried to solicit at my home again, I would be answering the door with my whacking stick (yes, I really said whacking stick!).
I'm thinking they thought I was a real jerk, but I have to admit that it was extremely enjoyable to watch 2 snotty little sixteen year olds speed waddle their way out of my driveway!
btw - for those of you that are not aware, the BBB is a joke. Any company can buy a AAA rating, and ratings are not based on company quality.