Door to Door

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How do you feel about door to door sales people/religious presenters?

I had some mormons come by my door the other day. "Would you like to talk about our lord and savior?" "I.. uhh su.... nahhh nahh i'm good." "Can we give you this booklet instead then?" "No.... but thanks *slowly and awkwardly closes the door* have a good *clunk* day."

I'm not a fan of people coming to my home. It's my personal place, not a place for you to sell whatever at.

I also am not a fan. Not just sales people (never had a religious representative, although the mayor did come around around election times once) but anyone who doesn't call in advance and let me know I am not a fan of. I could be naked, I could be cooking, I could be sleeping, I could be busy, so unless its an emergency, call or text before you come over

Nope.

I've only had Mormons show up once. I invited them in and had a nice chance sit down and chat about some things. I learned one of them enjoyed high-fantasy novels, so I gave him some of R.A. Salvatore's work. It was most of the DemonWars saga. I was done reading it, so I just let him have the books. It was amusing because he was all excited, but you could see his friend was visibly a little weirded out to learn this guy read high fantasy stuff.

So they left on friendly terms, and I never took their book. He did take my book though.

Sharky:1
Mormons:0

I've always just said my parents aren't in at the moment, they'll be back later. Even when I've lived on my own. I'm 22 now though, it's getting a little silly...I might keep it going just for the humour.

I politely decline whatever their wares are, every time.

For the first time in ages we had some Jehovah's Witnesses round the door. Had an influx of people trying to get us to donate to charities or join their churches... Must be this nice weather, it's bringing them all out.

Okay soapbox time, as someone who grew up Mormon, all missionaries are basically just nerdy 19 year old guys who want to talk about video games. I'm not kidding. Most of them are just doing what they're doing cause they don't want to disappoint their dad or whatever. Invite them in and have a good geeky chat with them, they're really nice. Also you can get them to do pretty much anything you want them to do. They'll clean your house if you ask. I'm not making this up. TLDR please be nice to them, at least for my sake.

Salespeople can get out to heck, though. I had one guy try to sell me magazines and then go "HEY YOU'RE SINGLE, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR?" when I told him I didn't have the money. Asshole :colbert:

Mine were two ladies. The were nice enough but I had to put pants on to answer the door and blech.

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Originally Posted by Freya

Mine were two ladies. The were nice enough but I had to put pants on to answer the door and blech.

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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.

I love Mormon missionaries, they're friggin adorable. Never met one I didn't like. :jess: They'll play Halo and stuff with you too. Just full on bros.

Sometimes if Im in a good mood I'll try to politely reject them.
If im short on patience I'll put on a bad accent and say "no english"

I never let strangers in because Im worried they might be scouting my place for a burglary. What I want to do is rig up my door so a speaker plays dog barking noises every time I open it

Yeah when I had some Mormon missionaries show up and I accidentally answered the door (I was expecting someone at that exact time so I didn't actually check who it was) and mostly we talked about the game of Civ 4 I was playing at the time. They were full bro, which is basically the case with every Mormon I've ever met.

Salespeople seem pretty superfluous in this day and age though. I want to buy something? Well gee maybe I'll wait for some shlub to come around uninvited and try to sell me something from a catalog, or maybe I'll go online and make the purchase at 3am in my underwear.

e;

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Originally Posted by Freya

Mine were two ladies. The were nice enough but I had to put pants on to answer the door and blech.

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Wait, they demanded you put pants on? Rude.

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Originally Posted by Pike

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Originally Posted by Freya

Mine were two ladies. The were nice enough but I had to put pants on to answer the door and blech.

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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.

I love Mormon missionaries, they're friggin adorable. Never met one I didn't like. :jess: They'll play Halo and stuff with you too. Just full on bros.

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Now I want them to come visit so I can have friends :(





I'm so lonely ;__;

Ugh. I haven't had one come around in ages. But when I was younger, I'd tell them I was in a Satanic Cult.

My mom would get mad even though she couldn't stop laughing at me. Cuz she was all non-practicing Catholic and trout.

The most annoying thing on the planet is those college aged kids who sell magazines door to door every spring .. omfg. I did talk to one chick when I was in high school and she was like "Yeah it's so awesome. All we do is party." or something.

But like. I've worked in sales. And in sales, time is money. The more time you waste trying to sell something to someone who's already said no, the less you got to find someone who'll say yes.

This kid tried to pull that with me. He was like "You ain't gotta spend no money today" & all this other stuff. Which duh. You actually do. And I'd already said no, but he kept on, so I waited him out and listened. He totally smurfed his sales game up.Anyway, to make a long story short, at the end he was like "So how do you wanna pay?" ... And I laughed and told him I wasn't spending any money and he just wasted 30 minutes of his own time when he coulda knocked on 10 other doors and found someone else to order a magazine subscription from him. DUH.

lol be nice to them

I'm never rude, but I politely tell them I'm not interested and say goodbye.

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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:

You know, I have never seen so many salespeople as I did when I went to the UK. There were people walking around on the street trying to sell you stuff and we don't get that where I'm from!

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Originally Posted by Alive-Girl

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:

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I have adopted the opposite strategy now. I just stare them in the eyes as I walk right past whilst ignoring their questions.

I am never bothered by door-to-door sales people... mainly because I never answer my door. They even see me sat on my couch through the window when they come to the door. I still ignore them.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

I am never bothered by door-to-door sales people... mainly because I never answer my door. They even see me sat on my couch through the window when they come to the door. I still ignore them.

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When I did my own stint doing door to door sales, we called people like that "Ninjas" - we knew someone was inside, pretending not be home - although in your case it would be a little different - maybe like a "Bad Ninja" xD

I recently had a relatively older Jehovah's Witness come knocking on my day off. I decided to simply roll with my usual response to religion and see how it went. The conversation was pretty amazing really, it went a lot like this:

Me: "Hi"

Him: "Do you have a moment to discuss religion sir"

Me: "Mmm, actually yeah I do, I'm not working today so have all the time in the world to discuss the biggest cause of war since time began."

Him: "That's a pretty negative view point but perhaps it's a justified one. After all there are so many religions out there today, and many don't even know what their holy scriptures say."

Me: "I must say, that's a pretty bold opening gambit, because it seems to me that no one knows what their religious scriptures say, After all, most religions, be they Christian based, Judaic based or Islam based and dare I say Polytheistic based religions such as Hinduism and Sikhism all state one simple tenet: Peace and good will to all fellow men. Or rather, peace and goodwill to all fellow men so long as you worship what I worship otherwise I get to kill you."

Him: "Ah, but not all do"

Me: "Well I'll grant you Buddhism doesn't. But please don't try telling me that the Bible doesn't indicate that his is ok behaviour or that the Qu'ran doesn't because frankly, if there wasn't some way of interpreting these holy books in that sense then where have people for the past 2000 years been getting the idea that they do. I mean sure, we're talking about a minority in this day and age. Yet historically, we're looking at wars which if humanity wasn't dumb enough to ignore the past like it has in the past 150 years, we'd be on World War 8? Or so by now when you count the scope and scale of the crusades in modern terms."

Him: "Well perhaps you have a point there, but what about all the good religion has done for man. Look at circumcision, the bible says to do so on the 8th day, we now know that the bloods clotting factor is at it's highest on the 8th day so if you're going to do any snipping then would be the ideal time."

Me: "Really, we're going from global scale warfare, to genital mutilation and this is your point on how much religion has done for us? How many thousands of babies died because the Rabbi cutting their foreskins off weren't clean enough or used a dirty knife? How many caught diseases based on the practice that the Rabbi should suck on the penis to stop the bleeding? Science has proven that genital mutilation both on men and women is a pointless exercise. Furthermore, it's science what has made it safe for that barbaric practice to continue."

Him: "You bandy science around there like it is a mystical power. Do you not think science is itself a religion?"

Me: "As in the church of Scientology? Well frankly their beliefs are a little more wacko than that, they believe in an all powerful Alien known as Xenu but hey I'll buy in to it for a second: If Science is a religion, it's doing a better job of proving itself than Christianity."

Him: "But what gives science it's power? Surely God."

Me: "God said in the bible that the followers of him would not have to fear disease or starvation. Well I'm sure that there's been hundreds if not thousands or even millions of Christians world wide who have starved to death or died of disease. Surely God would have saved them. In contrast the Aesir God Odin promised there would be no more frost giants... I haven't seen any frost giants around lately have you?"

Him: "Surely that's just being silly though..."

Me: "So because I point out that a God claimed something around 2 - 3 thousand years ago and that in this day and age we can prove that he is right that there are no Frost Giants but it's not something your God stated I'm being silly now? What makes the idea of Odin being real and his status as a God any more ridiculous than the Christian idea of God? Is it science? Well if it's science that proves this how do you explain that the Old Testament claims the earth is 6000 years old and made in the space of a week. How can you defend that in the face of fossils that you can go and touch, go and view in Natural History Museums globally. Let's not even get me started on how the earth was magically made in a perfect 7 day week despite this being a man made construct to measure time and at the time of the bible events a week being longer and a year being 10 months according to the calendar of the time."

Him: "Well perhaps I could leave this book with you. Maybe help you re-evaluate your perspective on religion."

Me: "Well, if you do, you can find it in the recycling bin within the next 10 seconds. So how about you just hold on to that"

Him: "Ok, good day to you sir."

I saw him knocking on doors again about a fortnight later with members of his community, strangely there wasn't any knocks on my front door! :)

I did the charity door-to-door for like.. 3 days.

Guys, don't give them attention. This is an industry that needs to stop, the workers are exploited and so are the people who sign up. Basically, when someone signed up for $30 pm to the charity, our company got $200... that's like 6 months of their donation straight into our pocket. It was wrong, and these workers don't get an hourly wage most of the time... It's just wrong! If you want to give to charity do it online and not through the direct marketers.