I just had a salesperson ring my doorbell. I don’t appreciate when strangers interrupt me to see if I might just happen to be the one person out of a 1,000 randomly select people who might be interested in helping them get whatever they are after. Unless it is someone I know, I always answer my door (or the phone) the same way: I ask politely but clearly, “What can I do for you?” If the person who has interrupted me doesn’t answer the question, I interrupt them and ask more clearly, “What can I do for you?” I think it is a reasonable question. Afterall, I am not the one who wants their attention. I am not the one without an appointment. And in many cases (and this really creeps me out) I know nothing about them but they have a lot of information about me. Despite the honesty and brevity of my question it has never been answered honestly or briefly. It gets many different responses.
During the last federal election, our local Member of Parliament came by. I had no idea it was my M.P. To me it was just some elderly gentlemen with a clipboard. I figured he was selling religion or tax receipts (for charity donations) or something. He did not respond well to my question. Three times he tried to start a convoluted, scripted, greeting and I interrupted him with a re-statement of my question, “How can I help you today?” He finally responded with, “If your going to hide behind that door all day, you might as well close it.” And then he cut across my lawn running to my neighbor’s front door. You won’t be surprised to know that he is in the top 10 list of M.P.s who have not shown up for work this year.
The typical response is much like my M.P.s. They keep trying to restart their script. On the third try I usually say, “sorry, I’m not interested.” How is it that these people spend hours and hours interrupting people all day and they do not even know the answer to the question, “What can I do for you today?” How?!
The reason of course is because they are dishonest, trying to engage in a deceptive practice. They feel that the probability of me doing what they want me to do is low and feel they have to “disarm” me so I can be tricked. Otherwise, they wouldn’t need a few paragraphs of inane banter to warm up to their sales pitch. They could just say, “Do you need bottled water delivery?” or “Would you like to donate to a charity?” or “Please could you talk to us about God? It would really help us out.” If someone came to my door and said, “I’m in the mood to have a conversation about my religion with someone who isn’t a member already. Interested?” I might just sit down and talk with them.
Missionaries usually arrive in pairs, and this is very revealing of the intention to deceive. They out number you and can wear you down easier. The same technique is used in interrogations and interviews. If you engage one person in debate you might match them. But trying to engage two people is tough. You end up doubting your own words and identity becomes fluid very quickly. Of course, it hurts you more if you respond to their rude behavior politely. They ask questions they have no right to, and you believe you are expected not to respond directly.
Most of these interruptions are based on the idea that you will respond according to the standard social contract involving a normal polite script. Question: “How are you today?” Response: “I’m fine.” Instead of Question: “How are you today?” Response: “Why did you just ring my door bell?” or Response: “You just interrupted my dinner. Do I know you?”
People that interrupt you at home by phone or door-bell are usually trained in how to deflect your questions and get you back on script. That is, they don’t answer your questions, and offer statements known to get you back on track answering their questions. It’s rude. They KNOW they have had that training. And when they see you falling for their tricks they know their deceptive practice is working. It is so sad that so many people are willing to be that rude.
But I digress. I’m sorry to have interrupted my story.
So… somebody interrupts me by ringing the door-bell. I open the door and ask, “How can I help you today?” and he responds, “Hi, how are you today?” I think, “Wow, what is this guy thinking? He just rang MY doorbell and he responds to my simple question with another question.” That is what the police call a “non-responsive answer.” Its a sign of deception. So, I ask again. He responds with, “Oh, sorry! I’m here with an offer of 4 free bottles of delivered water.” Now I’m torn.
You see, I actually do want water delivery service. I have planning on phoning somebody for water delivery service this week! And it would be nice to get a little discount and all I have to do is listen to his little speech and sign his little form and it would be taken care of. I respond with, “Yeeaaahh?” I was clearly disarmed.
I don’t remember what he said exactly after that. He started his scripted speech. I quickly weight the convenience against the fact that a) Amazon Water asked this guy to interrupt everyone in my community in the hopes that one or two might sign up for their service; b) This guy responded to my honest question with a deceptive one (I asked, “What can I do for you today?” which is honestly what I wanted to know and he responded, “How are you today?” when he really wanted to know if I’d by his service). I interrupted him and said, “Sorry, not interested.”
His response was interesting and I believe honest. He said, “OK. Thank you for your… gentleness.” I don’t think I was gentle (nor rude either). I can only imagine what other people say to this guy. I also wonder if he is really cut out for this dishonest line of work when he perceives and values gentleness in others over his scripted response (probably “Thank you for your time.”
The gentleness thing bugs me a bit. I was calm and cool with this guy at the door but in the last few weeks I have torn a strip off of some telephone solicitors. My estimate is that we get between four and six marketing calls per day. The most frequent caller is TD Canada Trust, who holds my mortgage. I have asked six times to never receive marketing calls from them. I have “talk to the manager” and I have talked to people at my own branch. They always tell me that I have been removed from their soliciting list but I still get calls. The most recent guy who called told me, “oh, I know what probably happened. The file was probably deleted recently.” The worst thing is that I recently received a call from an company in the USA on behalf of TD Canada Trust. That is scary. The USA recently took steps to move in line with non-democratic nations with relation to access of information and privacy. TD Canada Trust might has well have emailed my file to the Russian mob. I might get more accountability out of the mob though. I asked the person from the US company what the phone number of their ombudsman was. She hadn’t heard of a Mr. Budsman. She could put me through to her manager but she couldn’t remove me from their call list and she didn’t think their company had a privacy officer. I was pretty mad and spoke quickly but the worst I said was, “No, I don’t want to talk to your manager. That sounds like a waste of my time.”
In a more recent call I was more rude. After asking, “What can I do for you?” a few times the caller kept responding with the same script (“Hi I am calling on behalf of CapitalOne with a special offer…”) and I finally asked, “Is this a marketing call?” and she said, “No.” I said, “I think think your lying. I think this is a marketing call. I think you just said it was a marketing call” and she argued. She responded, “This is a special offer.” I was dumb founded. So I asked, “So this isn’t a marketing call? You are NOT trying to sell me a product or service or the opportunity to take a survey?” and she responded, “I am calling from CapitalOne with a special offer. This is a special offer, it is not a marketing call.” I told her I still thought she was lying and that I wanted to make sure that CapitalOne never called me again. She said I would be removed from their list but not sooner than 30 days from now and that in the mean time I would likely receive additional calls. I don’t recall what I said but I imagine I accused her of something like lying or being deceptive (whenever I do that my wife puts on her best Ralph Wiggam voice and mocks me, “Your being deceptive.”) Hey, its what I do. Point out deceptive people… don’t mock me because I’m sensitive. 
You know, the people are Amazon could still get my business if they just had a website that let me fill out a form to order water delivery service. None of the do that I can find. I ordered water delivery service once about 10 years ago. It was a really lousy experience making the order. They actually had a salesperson talk to me. He had to explain all my choices, tried to sell me a lot of expensive junk. It is just water delivery… you don’t need to interrupt me at home… or have a salesperson speak at me for 20 minutes… its just not that important or complicated.
