Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Last time we spoke, I concluded with a small tirade–or a pierade, as the case may be–and after some reflection, I arrived at why I respond so viscerally to situations like these. I don’t like being sold. Now, being oversold is bad enough in itself, but the base act of selling also grates to no end.

There are different types of salesmanship, of course. Take the checkout line, for instance, where extended protection plans and store credit cards are regularly pushed. I get it. Part of the job. And when reps admit they have to pitch, often with a sigh, I empathize. The hard sell, however, is where you lose me. Last week comes to mind–at a Marshalls, surprisingly, from the cashier. “Before you say ‘no,’ hear me out,” she said, unfurling the credit card brochure. “It’s an amazing deal.”

This was a Marshalls, for fuck’s sake! The only thing I find consistently amazing is the variety of almost-food strewn along the checkout lane. In the case of the insurance she-carney, it was the lack of candor, attempt at running the clock, and cheeseball lines likely conceived at a sales workshop in the nice banquet hall of a Hojo–“I just want to figure out where the objection is, so we can work through the ‘no.'”–that pressed all the wrong buttons.

There’s this sense, too, of time wasted from doing the dance. I see the subtext, clear as day, and the lines so carefully practiced have all the subtlety of a polar bear wielding a scalpel. When I finally extracted a refund, it wasn’t even about the money–I reveled more in the fact that she had lost a sale, which is pretty twisted. Tomorrow, I’ve got my first-ever meeting with a financial advisor, and if ever there were a time when alarm bells should stay silent, 10:30 AM would be it.