Am I a big meanie?

[elizilla]

Steve is not home and my doorbell rang. Repeatedly. Followed by knocking. I went to see what is so urgent. It was a guy in a safety orange vest, from Hansens. They are looking for home improvement jobs and he noticed I didn't have gutters.

"Yes, that's on purpose, the house is designed to not need them."
"But have you ever considered getting gutters?"
"Yes. We considered how to not need them."
"But your basement will get wet."
"No, we have no problem."

The guy kept trying, giving me the hard sell, until finally I convinced him to go away.

I have actually hired Hansens in the past and thinking back on how it went, I got more annoyed. How they damaged an ornamental tree with their ladder truck, and one of their guys fell off the roof and broke his arm, and the work they did was AWFUL.

And I remembered how city hall sends emails out saying that "Such and such company has a permit to go door to door during these hours." I didn't get an email about this guy.

And I thought about my nervous neighbor who gets so worried, how salespeople can scare her into buying ridiculous things.

So I called and talked to Brenda at city hall. She knew me right away. And she says they DON'T have a permit. She's going to get the sheriff out to chase the Hansens guy away.

Comments

[dagibbs]

No, you're not a big meanie.

[bikergeek]

You are not a big meanie. (1) you are telling a salesperson no, you are not interested in their product, and (2) you are making sure that said salesperson is operating within the bounds of the (reasonable-sounding) laws for doing so where you live.

[the_rigger]

Around here, the conversation would've been like this:

"Yes, that's on purpose, the house is designed to not need them."
"But have you ever considered getting gutters?"
"You have ten seconds to leave the property or you will be arrested for trespassing."

No; you aren't a big meanie. *I* am.


-R
(meanie)

I'm glad I know you

[thatguychuck]

After reading this post I realize, "Yep, I'm glad I know Elizilla."

Did you know I created this account just to post this and say hi? Hi! :-)

(If you reply I may not see it, but I can always be reached at FirstnameLastname@gmail.com.)

And a big wave to pi3832 as well! I don't know how to tag usernames, so hopefully some day he sees this. I think about you not-infrequently, Pi. If you ever make it to San Francisco, please look me up before you come. I'd love to get together.