Am I That Approachable?

Currently Playing: Nothing. It's late at nite.

It all started with a YEP fren telling me he just came back from business. since he seemed eager to make conversation, to humour him, "what kind of business?" i casually asked.

BIG MISTAKE. he was in a cosmetic selling MLM. i am neither interested in the products nor sales method. yet he proceeded to rattle on over msn trying to recruit me into his fold and/or sell me cosmetics. i am unable to quote him becoz i ignored the msn and went out.

when i came back home, my hp was full of his SMS - asking me when wld be free to meet to discuss abt the business or even if i wasn't interested in the business his gf (also went YEP, also in the business) was looking for ppl to practise her demo (read: sales) talk on.

i replied that i wasn't interested and wld be too cynical to encourage his gf. anyway all the best.

since Plan A: Innocent Requests for Help failed, he put Plan B: Emotional Blackmail into action, by saying it's ok he understands but his gf wld be so disappointed to know that her good fren from YEP didn't want to help her out...

oh come on... i hardly spoke to her during the trip unless it was abt work or health. so i replied he was being pushy (he claimed he wldn't on msn earlier) and told him i was too cynical to be affected by emotional blackmail. gdnite.

so out comes Plan C: Guilt Trip! he smsed saying he did sms his gf abt it and she really got disappointed but he told her she had to respect my wishes as a fren and in seemingly no connection whatsoever, proceeded to thank me for a job well done during the trip and told me i am really a good fren to have.

i mean, no offence, but becoz he has MLM up his sleeve, i take all his words with a large dose of salt. i wldn't know if he was saying those things coz they were true and he meant it, or it was just a sales pitch. precisely y i dun like selling stuff to frens and dealing with salesppl who are frens... you don't know when they are using the friendship to earn extra cash.

i hv a good fren (since sec sch) who also came to tell me abt MLM... either with or without the guise of passing me lecture notes. i endured abt an hour of sales talk and he endured an hour of cynical questions, afterwhich neither convinced the other. but at least we kind of agreed to disagree, and we never mentioned abt it again. at least we're close enuff for me to be straight fwd and tell him no, but know our frenship would still be as strong. KB, i appreciate that. thank you.

my cousin and his sis are into MLM as well... 3 of us used to be very close when young. all it took was a happie birthdae sms from me to him for the sales talk to begin. my 2nd sms told him i wasn't interested, but thanx. last i heard, they're not doing too well, having a dearth of customers.

besides frens in MLM, strangers approach me as well... either churchy ppl or insurance agents/financial planners/life planners/whatever they are called now

used to give the religious ones a chance... thot they mean well. until this guy claiming to be a major in the air force approached me when i was a young naive recruit in BMT and talked to me from 11pm to 2am, robbing me of my precious bookout time. which recruit dares to tell a major to stop wasting his time? i never gave them a chance to do so again.

and now, i have lots of fun handling insurance agents. used to such say "no" to their questions and try to walk away... but i've learnt to identify them from far... those ppl wearing office wear (sometimes with a red lanyard) standing at busy bus interchanges with a clipboard while everyone else rushing ard has better things to do. (those with no clipboard are the religious ones) among my best rejections are:

(when the agent approaches expectantly)
- stick my hand out in front of her like a traffic police stopping a car and saying "no! not interested."

- agent: "would you like to help me do a simple survey?"
me: "about insurance rite?"
agent: "no, it's abt financial planning..."
me: "insurance lah!" (walks off)

- smile sweetly and ask "insurance? not interested" (just happened few hrs ago!)

- (agent walks alongside me at my speed, which was quite fast)
agent: (breathlessly) "hi."
me: (cheerfully) "hello!" (still walking moderately quickly)
agent: (still breathless) "would you like to stop for a while?"
me: (still cheerfully) "no, not really."

the short, sharp interactions thus end, saving me and the unfortunate agent time to pursue more rewarding encounters. it is a pity i never turn around to witness their reactions; but my main motivation is not malicious, it is not to damage their egos. although i admit it can be fun, i also do this so that i do not waste any of my valuable time on futile sales talk. i only have so many years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds... none to spare for salesppl i will nv see again... i feel no empathy for them - they chose their own career.

note to self: Never get a sales job!