Peter House wrote:
Always keep something at the door to sell them in exchange. Ill buy your paper if you buy this "authentic" Rolex......or you could really up the ante.....and sell them a membership to a porn site.

Genius!  I have to remember that one.

P I X I E wrote:
Then...don't work door-to-door jobs? Unless you absolutely can't find anything else, if you don't like it, don't work there.

udor wrote:
I think that this is the key about not finding another job.

I must say, there are situations in life where people might be forced to do a job that they really don't want, but are desperate trying to make a living and surviving.

no, sales people are always lured in by the promise of big bucks. door to door folks are the bottom feeders. rather than take some other remedial job, they think they can go out and make 1000.00 per day, selling (insert whatever ridiculous product you want here).

i had one door to door gig in hs, selling 'appointments' for central air conditioning units. mind you, all i was doing was trying to get the 'closer' in their door. after one week, where i had about 200 doors slammed in my face, and was bitten by one dog, i said "enough is enough."

GK photo wrote:
no, sales people are always lured in by the promise of big bucks. door to door folks are the bottom feeders. rather than take some other remedial job, they think they can go out and make 1000.00 per day, selling (insert whatever ridiculous product you want here).

i had one door to door gig in hs, selling 'appointments' for central air conditioning units. mind you, all i was doing was trying to get the 'closer' in their door. after one week, where i had about 200 doors slammed in my face, and was bitten by one dog, i said "enough is enough."

I was with a group at a festival over the 4th of July weekend.  There was a young man and woman working their way through the crowd selling a line of "all natural" body washes and shampoos.  I admit the stuff did smell good, but no one in our group purchased any.

What impressed us was how well the couple was presenting their products and what smooth and talented sales people they were.  One of the guys in our group is the GM of a large auto dealership.  He asked them if they had other full time jobs or if this was their job.  They said they had both just out of college and were having difficulty finding jobs with their business degrees.  He gave them his card and invited them to come see him at work, leaving them with the comment, "you two need to be selling a product that is worthy of your sales skills, come see me."

Amadea T wrote:
Like I said, I thought it was a harmless church person.

I don't live in a crazy neighborhood, dear.

The only guy you really gotta watch out for is the Jimmy John's delivery driver, he'll ride right over you!


What's a peep hole?

Eta: guy was lucky I WAS in my underwear.
Topless laws in Ohio are lax.

Dear, what exactly is your address?

GRMACK wrote:
Harmless church people?

I had four groups of them the past weekend.  The JW now travel with their kids in tow for the underwear people or ones who like to "Go off on them."  The Mormons leave their tell-tale bikes around the place and are easy to spot for their "Mormon approved clothing (i.e. Black pants. White shirts.)"

In Germany we are accustomed to two groups.

# Mormons who had been send from the US to make a mission trip to godless countries (which are godless not in the least...). You can spot them from a mile or two. The are always wearing inappropriate formal suits combined with trouser clips while driving shiny bicycles and using streamlined bike helmets which seem to be arisen from a weird sience fiction movie.

They behave extremely polite and well-bred - except a complete contempt of any traffic rules regarding to the use of bicycles in pedestrian areas so that old ladies and small kids often have to do last-second jumps into the flower tubs to avoid being massacred by god's own squadron.

When they catch you and are able to entangle you into a two hours discussion you may have a really sophisticated conversation about the world at large and religion in particular.

What tempers delight is that you need one and a half hour to illuminate their simplified conception of the world until they get it to their immeasurable surprise that not anyone who is an atheist is a communist, too. Or anyone who do not believe in god must be hating America, too. After they at least get it that you are a US-friendly, pro free enterprise, anti-communist, radical liberal atheistic agnostic who enjoys discussing the world at large and religion in particular and do not want to burn churches and forbid religion their say good bye heavily traumatized.

(That's the reason why I expose myself to those discussions again and again - to fulfill the holy task of casting doubt to believers...)

# Jehovas Witnesses are another challenge. They never can explain to me why the heck anybody who knows that only 144,000 people will be saved on doomsday comes up with the idea to try to gather additional followers instead of fending the others off... Silly altruism or poor arithmetic or a massive bout of discalculia?

In Germany they usually stand at the street corner silently displaying the "Watchtower". This is fine because you easily can ignore them. They are completely non-intrusive when on the street.

Sometimes they ring the door bell. And let off silly questions like "What's the sense of life to you?" without saying "Good Morning!" or "Good evening!" first. As a rule you can shoo away them with an answer like "Sin and gluttony!" or "Thanks, but we are satanists!"

# Newspaper subscription solicitors you often can lever out successfully by denying them a chance to speak and running them down with something like

"Hi! Great! Super! You're coming because of my small ad! Really - it's an outstanding hot deal! That car have just 1,900,000 miles on the odometer and it's in really fine condition. Okay - you have to repair the brakes and I must confess that the steering is a little bit desolate so you better avoid bends but if you drive on a straightforward road with not more than 30 miles per hour it's a really great car! But better avoid potholes for the dampers are a little bit worn so they might brake. And better do not remove the 'I'm 45 and still unmarried!'-sticker on the fender because it was put there to hide the rust hole so if you remove it the fender may fall off. I think 9,999 bucks is a really, really great bargain!"

A friend of mine - actor with an amateur theater group - once had his greatest performance ever shooing off an insurance solicitor this way... Really. Not kidding!

Now we have the "Church of the Roll-Up Door" people who open church in the empty car repair joints and mini-biz malls (Hence the proliferation of the "Roll-up door churches.").

Cool!

Seems every block has some sort of church on it around here.  Big business.  Knew a radio announcer who said, "If he ever owned a radio station, it would be a religious one since people will send loads of money in and no need to advertise."

Sounds like an interesting franchising idea...