Happy Black Friday, or "Stop Accosting Me When I Come Out of Whole Foods, You Hippie"

First of all, no—I did not go to Walmart, or Best Buy, or any of the other places offering huge deals for Black Friday.  Even though I do love saving money, the thought of getting up at 3:00 in the morning and standing in line for three hours in a huge crowd of people is so odious to me, I would rather pay full retail price than go out in that, frankly.  The “sleeping in after Thanksgiving” is so much more worth it to me, I am happy to look for deals at other times of the year.   Although, on a side note, it would be delightful if everyone else in America would go ahead and go out shopping, as this would be a positive indicator that the economy is rebounding, right?   I hope you are reading this right now after having gotten up early and purchased a large quantity of electronics at Walmart.  So there.

Speaking of shopping, I have been meaning to address this topic for awhile—I am tired of those Greenpeace types outside of Whole Foods and/ or every other big store, waiting for me with a clipboard to lay some guilt trip on me about “Do you want to help abused women?” or “Do you have a second to save the environment?”  Don’t get me wrong—it’s not that I object to them being there—they can do what they want and I respect that they’re out there working and trying to do something they believe in—I just really object to the way the questions themselves are posed, because the implication is that if I don’t stop and give them money, then in fact I AM A BAD PERSON, A PERSON WHO DOES NOT WANT TO HELP ABUSED WOMEN and/ or SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT.   I simply don’t like it when people force sales on me, and the end result of this is that when I say "No thanks," it makes me sound like Adolph Hitler, eating an endangered Bald Eagle for breakfast while I beat my wife, you know what I’m saying?

Here’s how that goes:

Hippie kid outside of Whole Foods:  “Hey, do you have a second to help stop human trafficking of innocent children?”

Me:  “No.”

See?  Now I am guilty.  It’s such a loaded question, because it’s actually a sales pitch/ guilt trip in two parts.  The answer is “no, I don’t have a second, because I don’t like strangers cold pitching me and asking me to sign up for things,” NOT “no, I don’t want to help this good cause,” because of course I am a good person and given a different set of circumstances, I totally would donate to whatever they’re representing. 

This makes me wonder why Greenpeace and these other organizations still employ what to me is a dying-out marketing and sales technique—the “person soliciting outside of stores” method.  I would love to see the statistics on how many people sign up and then STAY signed up, or simply quit because they don’t want to say no to the person on the spot, but don’t really want to make that monthly commitment.  It would be interesting to see the overall cost per conversion of that sales method so you could determine whether that strategy was still viable, is all I’m saying.  There must be a better way to get people to care about the environment without making them feel like a-holes when you put them on the spot, right?  

And with that, I go back to working on my Thanksgiving holiday freelance writing project, which launches next month and I will tell you all about when it is live.  Happy weekend! 

Comments

[Shannon]

No one does that kind of thing here. I think Minnesotans are way too reserved for public accosting, even in the name of charity. The worst it ever gets is the Salvation Army bell-ringers looking in your direction as you go into and out of the store. They also smile and say "Merry Christmas!" Then I feel bad about not throwing something in. But I NEVER CARRY CASH. Seriously, I always feel terrible because I very, very rarely have bills or even much in the way of loose change in my wallet. Yes, I live via debit card.

[Erica]

These people stand on the sidewalk in our neighborhood!!! I can't even walk home without telling half a dozen people how I must want the world to rot since I won't give them money.

[e step]

At least the usual cast of indigents that i see milling around the public restrooms and showers and listlessly hanging out at the wharf or along the beach have a raison d'etre for the next month. For this month Sally Ann leads them back to their true calling. Professional Ring-a-Dinger. Sitting listlessly on plastic chairs outside the local supermarkets, making eye contact with you as you, YES YOU! WITH MONEY TO BUY FOOD, stroll through the portals of Safeway and their ilk right on by their forlorn ringing and not full but not quite empty bucketOcash. They can go all day and night at the 24 hour places. And why not. Ringing at you for the next 3 weeks. Its a small good thing for them even if it seems like some of them are just ringing that bell from a stupor or to induce in you their own mania. Its not like I didn't have to work hard all year so that I could buy food. Sheesh.