In general, I think I just HATE salespeople. I hate their pushiness. I hate their “chit chat.” I hate all of it. I could never be a salesperson because I don’t want to annoy people like these people annoy me on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, I work in a place where we get lots of sales phone calls and walk-ins. Normally, I don’t have to deal with the salespeople as our receptionist handles it. I try not to be rude when I do have to deal with these people. However, they all just want 30 minutes of your time. Or they want the owner’s schedule so they know when to drop it. I even hear them asking the receptionist personal questions about key people so they can pretend to be in the know the next time.

Let’s talk about the most recent one who has put a damper on my Monday….

There are these people that will sell advertising space for organizations. This guy, who we are going to call “Slick Rick,”  happened to be working for a law enforcement publication that is selling for our local sheriff’s department. Of course, we want to help our local organizations so our owner authorized an ad in the publication. But instead of billing you on a invoice and mailing in a check, these particular types need a check right now.

For personal reasons I work three days a week. I’m also paid accordingly. Apparently, this is über inconvenient for “Slick Rick.” Honestly, I don’t know his name but this seems to be fitting for him with the toothpick dangling from his mouth with the slicked back dark hair. Yes, a toothpick.

He comes in on a Monday and would like to pick up the check. I should have just said it is not ready and you can get it on Friday. However, to spare our receptionist from “Slick Rick” for a fifth visit, I decided I would write it right then. I should not have done this. She told him I don’t work on Fridays so she hadn’t got to that stack yet but she’s going to do it right now.

For the record, this invoice was just put in my bin on Friday. It was after lunch on Monday. I didn’t have a note that this guy would be here to pick it up today or I might have written it right away. Otherwise, stuff like this is not my priority. Getting billing out, paying vendor bills, dealing with customer issues, receiving checks, etc. are a priority.

I overhear “Slick Rick” discussing me. “Well, if she would have worked on Friday, she would have it done by now.” I want to scream at him at this point. He may have been trying to be funny. I was not amused. “I think Mondays and Fridays are the dumbest days off. If I was in charge, I wouldn’t allow my people to have those days off.” I had to walk out of my office into the warehouse at this point. I’m scared of a world where a “Slick Rick” would be in charge of people.

I decided to be professional and came back into my office and slammed a cabinet. Which apparently caused one of our owners to get in weapon ready mode. HAHA. I said, “Oops, I’m sorry” in a flat tone. “Slick Rick” was in the front office mouthing something. I didn’t even care at this point. I was the comic strip character with fumes coming out of my ears.

Well this is my schedule and thankfully he is NOT my boss. I also wanted to rip up my check and shove it in his face when I overheard him talking about me like this. However, I am not rude like that so I had our receptionist come and get it so I wasn’t tempted to tell this guy off as we do WANT to support our local law enforcement. After discussing with our owner, in the future we will be thinking twice before advertising with this organization.

Tell me about your annoying/rude salespeople stories!