Door to Door

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Originally Posted by Pike

my guess is that they were Jehovah's Witnesses since lady Mormon missionaries are more rare. But they're the same; just kids who are 19 or 20 and are probably into geeky stuff.

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I had two women in their 30's/40's show up a couple of months ago. One was even black despite Heavenly Father only changing his mind about black people being evil in 1978!

I had just woken up, I was ill, and in my pajamas. I don't think they quite knew how to handle a bleary eyed and confused looking man blinking at them. They invited me to some sort of Jesus rising from the dead or Jesus birthday event at their LDS church. I had no idea what the smurf they were talking about and on autopilot I took the Jesus leaflet from them. I mumbled out a thanks to them for it while I strained my sleep-filled eyes at it, trying to make sense of what it was I'd just been given. They didn't seem to want to talk to me very much and left - they probably thought I was wasted. It lasted less than a minute.

People have shown up my door asking for me because my parents alerted them that their eldest daughter had moved home and they wanted to invite me to church. I politely told them I was an atheist and no thank you, and they actually put on their worst pouty faces before I closed the door.

Psychotic and I ran into a pair on the way out to Loony BoB's wedding and said, "look, those are your people!" but I had to correct him because men and women missionaries are never allowed to mix!

If I'm the only one home and a religious representative turns up, I make the effort with them. Most of the time, they probably expect (and get) nothing from people, just the usual "no thanks". They do a pretty thankless job, and I know it's voluntary but it must suck to always get a "no thanks". That, and I am religious so I'd probably enjoy a friendly chat. At least I could say my day was different than the usual fare - I take it as an opportunity to learn about different religions. Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses aren't really common in England, nor is there opportunity to learn about their beliefs and so forth.

If my mother or brother or guests are in the house however, then I default to the usual "no thanks". My family would find it highly unusual if I spoke to these people and be like "Jordan, what the hell are you doing?"

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

I had two women in their 30's/40's show up a couple of months ago.

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This makes no sense to me. Mormon missionaries are either 25 max, or super elderly.

Like, this is how it works. xD

Obviously there are differences between US and UK door-to-door religioners. My Jehovah's were middle aged too.

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Originally Posted by Shauna

Obviously there are differences between US and UK door-to-door religioners. My Jehovah's were middle aged too.

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Oh no, the mormon missionary program is the same the entire world around. Kids go on missions at 19. You're supposed to be married by your mid-20s.

Oh. Well. I will read between the lines (actually read your post) next time, as I am talking about a completely different sort of people. xD

I don't think I've ever had Mormons come round. Don't think they're too prevalent in my neck of the woods.

We don't get many sells men or missionaries out here. I don't think we ever had people trying to sell us something at our door. Over the phone, yes, but never at our door. We had some Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses come out here before, but they are also rare. They never bothered me much. I told one girl I wasn't interested and she just left me be. I'm nicer to them than my dad. My dad slammed the door on one set of Jehovah's Witnesses and kind of got one pair of Mormons mad because he used to be a member of the Mormon church in the 70's and was familiar with some things they probably didn't like him being familiar with. I'm not sure about that last part. I wasn't there to hear the conversation.

I LOVE THEM!!! :kaoclove:

I always role-play different characters when I talk to them!! There was once I decided to be Darth Sidious and talked dark side trout to them till their mind was totally smurfed. :bigsmile:

The one I like most is when I decided to be Quina and attempts to lick them. They were troutting straight out in their pants and buzzed off. :quina:

I have noticed a new "thing" that happens to me when I walk past ppl trying to sell me stuff. I am nice enough to acknowledge their existence and I will smile and say no thanks, which seems to be inviting them in and they don't follow up with "have a nice day" any more, they are like "can I ask you a question?".

The first time they pulled this one out of their bag of tricks I didn't even register that is what they said until it hit me moments later after I kept walking "are they talking to me?" - I thought that maybe they had a serious question! LOL Then the same thing happened somewhere else and I realised: That is the new "thing". But for real... NO YOU CANNOT ASK ME A QUESTION - I ALREADY GAVE YOU AN ANSWER - I SAID NO THANKS!

My friend told me to reply with 'You already have' and watch their brains self implode xD

Well you know what's coming next, don't you? "Can I ask you two questions?" Need a good defence against that!

I worked as a door to door salesperson for about 3 months while I was studying. It was fun, but only because we were selling a pretty good phone+broadband deal. It also came at about a time when the main competitor was copping a lot of flak for bad customer service in the media, so a lot of people were quite happy to jump ship.

By a lot of people, I mean like 5 out of the 80-100 houses I'd knock on every day, so I still had to get used to a fair bit of doorslamming and cursing. It was worth it though. I got $100 commission for every sale so I was usually pretty happy to work hard for 1 or 2 days and then spend the rest of the week doing nothing. If the location we were going out to was close to home, I'd just go home for a few hours and go back to the office later to process the sales. If it wasn't, I'd find the local library, sign up for a card, borrow something and just read in a park all afternoon.

Anyway, I'm pretty nice to any doorknockers or street sales people as a result. It can be pretty depressing work. I just tell them that I'm sorry and that I'm not interested. Sometimes the pushier ones do get annoying though. I never used to try and push people into a sale. I thought of it more as a numbers game - approach enough people and eventually someone will say yes because they'll genuinely want it. You're just making your job harder if you try and convince every other person who doesn't want it in the first place.

I was a commission-based salesperson once. Not door-to-door, but my job was to push for sales. And I was terrible at it, I just couldn't do it. I hate pushing people into things. As a result the customers and my co-workers (who saw a chance to leech off of me for commission) walked all over me. It was one of the worst jobs I've ever had, and I was so relieved to get out of there. The only reason I had it in the first place was because I'd been unemployed for a while and I was desperate.

I feel like you have to be really cutthroat to be a good salesperson, and I am not. :redface:

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

Well you know what's coming next, don't you? "Can I ask you two questions?" Need a good defence against that!

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You may ask me one point fifth of two questions. While you're busy trying to figure out how much that is, I'll be in my car driving away.

When walking down through my town centre basically you just have to make sure you don't make eye contact with any of this salespeople! Just look at the floor or a nice bird in the sky :greenie: