So I'm in Home Depot...

I'm standing in the caulk aisle (put your puns away) and within about 4 minutes, I am interrupted by three different people, each of them trying to secretly hawk themselves to help with whatever caulk-project I'm working on. They don't say 'excuse me', they just start talking about how they can help me and forcibly try to give me their cards. Three. In a row. For an easily distracted person like me, this is like being hit on the head with a rubber squeaky hammer.

So I go to the paint desk and tell the 4 employees standing 20 feet away, simultaneously, 'there are at least three people here trying to sell services in your store to shoppers, can you do something about it?' They all shrug and say 'we can't really do anything.' Obviously, they don't care enough to suggest I talk to a manager, just that they've got other things to do and the fact that someone is using their store to solicit business is of no concern to them.

Nice. So I respond, 'you basically don't care is what you are saying' and turn away, only to hear someone say '... gotta call O'Reilly and get him in here...' I pause. I'm thinking, is that guy talking to me? And he continues 'you gotta get FoxNews and O'Reilly in here'.

I turn back to see the guy saying it - a large African American guy who keeps talking – 'it just happened to me too.' Oh good. Someone who understands my pain. So I engage with a little back and forth about how the workers obviously don't care. And he surprises me with 'Yup, FoxNews - they can take care of it – you gotta get them in here. It's all these illegals.' So he goes on, telling me how liberal California is, how 'these people stick together', and how 'Obamacare' is going to ruin this country.

Yes.

He went from being annoyed in Home Depot by someone soliciting their services to 'Obamacare' and liberal America. But that was only for starters. He then began to complain about 'these two Jews I work for, who are both gay', how they enable this kind of thing to happen, and went on and on about how liberal this state was, and how FoxNews is the only one who can do anything about it. He repeated 'Bill O'Reilly would do something - gotta get him in here.'

So, I realized after hearing his rant that we were both coming from different worlds.

For me, the fact that someone was trying to solicit to me within a Home Depot was a problem with the store and the manager... but to him, the problem was Obama, liberals and all the hispanics helping each other out behind the scenes. He even said that if 'Obamacare' gets through, all 'these people' without Social Security numbers will just tell the person behind the desk 'I don't have a card' and they'll say 'don't worry, I know how to fix this so you can get medical' and the rest of us will be paying for it. He had totally already decided how this was going to play out. Thanks to FoxNews.

I inserted mentions about the health care costs in the US vs the world currently being the highest and we still don't cover everyone, and insurance companies profits taking money from treatment, and the standard facts, but obviously this was falling on deaf ears. (Oh yes, he also managed to drop the term 'socialism' a few times -- the first time I have personally encountered this, but it happens just like you see it on TV!) Well, he started to suspect my own 'librul' leanings and figured out he had been complaining about libruls to a librul. He turned away - I must have been a lost cause now.

My take away was helpful though.

The thing FoxNews has figured out is that when the ill-informed people in this country (or as FoxNews knows them - 'their audience') get angry, they immediately can be trained and triggered to blame something unrelated to the problem. And further, they are conditioned to dig in and ramp it up. Make it big. Grow the story.

So his annoyance about someone accosting him in the store was somehow the result of liberal American government and a hispanic conspiracy (along with the Jews and the gays), all working together to cause him grief. It was, however, NOT related to Home Depot's store manager, a lack of training of supervisors, or a group of disinterested employees.

Definitely not about that.

So I share this only because it really struck me that no matter what happens... if Obama discovers a cure for cancer, or turns water into fuel, or drops a gold bar into everyone's lap, FoxNews will always be digging into the personal frustrations of their viewers to help them find a way to blame everything ELSE, no matter how small, on liberal Americans and 'the way this country is heading' under Obama.

My answer to the soliciting was to leave the store and take my business elsewhere. I bet his answer was to write an email to O'Reilly and then sit down for a full evening's worth of rants and attacks, hoping that one day soon, his little incident, emailed to the show, would appear on the TV screen for all to see. FoxNews and O'Reilly would make things right again. Meanwhile he'll be soaking deeper and deeper into his FoxNews-reinforced bath of blame, hate and anger.

Kinda makes you wonder why they even leave the house.

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I used the word accosted it was meant to describe how he was taking it - sorry to not make that clearer. I used the word soliciting when talking being approached personally - but thanks for your insight

It's Home Sleezepo's fault to allow that (unless the floor guys get a cut and allow it).


PS


I have not been in one in yeas, I shop locally and on rare occasion Lowe's.


Be well.

:eyes:


:hi:

That's a management problem and should not be allowed.

Kinda like the Frozen Shit Co. fuckhead salesman who pulled into my parking lot and accosted my customers who were on their way into one of my businesses.

I told him to get the hell off of my property (this was by no means the first time) and he asked me just what the fuck am I going to do about it.

Well, that was easy. I just locked his driver's door and shut it, leaving his keys in the ignition of his truck with engine running and cell phone lying on the seat.

We are five miles out of Sonoma with nothing within three miles.

Like I said, the OP was mostly about being accosted on private property which is being managed by incompetent people.

Oh, yeah, Frozen Shit Co. sued me for the toasted engine and I filed Trespassing charges against them and their employee.

Guess who won and guess who lost his fucking job.

Frozen Shit Co. has never ever again pulled into my parking lot.

Sonoman

That people are so desperate for work that they almost harass people in Home Depot to hire them to do odd jobs. That is pitiful, not necessarily annoying. I don't quite understand your attitude toward Home Depot for allowing people to give away their business cards.

On edit


Or one guy distracts you while the other picks your pocket or steals your pocketbook? Sure invite these guys into your home....

It's part of America becoming a third world country. The vast sea of have nots, looking for a have who needs some job done, so they can take some food back to their hovel.

Things to look forward to: people selling candy bars and other impulse items at long traffic lights; children bagging groceries in exchange for tips; even younger children selling gum on the street to passers-by; people sitting on a blanket with their household possessions that they would rather turn into cash; people walking the beaches or parks with a cooler full of cold drinks for sale -- or blankets, or jewelry; more door-to-door vendors in well-to-do neighborhoods; more improvised hot dog carts, pretzel carts, barbecues and hibachis in high traffic areas where passers-by will buy food-on-a-stick. You won't have to leave America to find these things, because they are coming to you soon.

these boxes.......

I think it's a crappy state of affairs that construction is so in the toilet (excuse the pun) that people are doing this kind of stuff in a big box place like HD to try to drum up biz.

I think the construction people are just desperate and trying to get work with that odd and annoying marketing technique, so for them I feel very bad... but I can also understand why a customer doesn't want to be subjected to a big BS marketing fest when they stop in to buy some caulk.

The management at HD -- or the paint counter person you spoke with, should have just sympathized with you and pretended to care. When we as customers bitch, that is all we are really looking for... AN EAR
that at least appears to share our concerns(IMO anyway)

The dude with the faux news delusions I think is more misguided than the guys trying to drum up biz.


What an all around mess these banks and corps have put us in! People should not be reduced to groveling for odd jobs in a store.

hardware store, too. Try the Ace or True Value store near you. And, if you need advice, someone there will actually know something about the products they sell.

Seriously.

or switch to Lowes. I am a female and shop at Lowes quite often, and you would think that I would be a perfect target, but I have never been accosted by the people you describe. I also ship at my local Ace Hardware because it is just down the road from me, and I don't have to jockey for a parking space as at Lowes. The prices are a little higher, but I like the convenience. Lowes is also close by, but parking can be a bitch.

Just saying.

i just take the card and say thanks or no thanks or whatever.

Sad. :(

I was in the plumbing aisle, wearing my workin' on the house clothes, and a gentleman asked me if I was a handyman. I said yes, thinking that I was a pretty handy guy, and he offered me a job putting in a sump pump for him. Had to turn him down since I'm not licensed.

Interesting.

just because someone is offering their services. A polite but firm "no thank you" should be sufficient.

compassion might have been in order, not being a stoolie. a polite 'no' would have sufficed, i'm sure. but that's just me.

ellen fl

“…So I go to the paint desk and tell the 4 employees standing 20 feet away…”

Why was the race/ethnicity of these four not important to the tale?

Or, why did the reader need to know that this guy was African American?

“…I turn back to see the guy saying it - a large African American guy who keeps talking…”

Why not simply “another customer?”

:popcorn:

FAUX news viewer isn't a chaw spitting White guy.



Hope you are well.

It was an amazingly ironic twist to the story..

Apologies. When he was saying 'all the hispanics helping each other out', he had said it in reference to the 4 employees and the 3 guys who had been soliciting. I didn't indicate that very well.

thus, I'll never be a writer.

within the past six years or so several people hand me their card looking for work. I always smile and thank them but if I could afford to hire someone to do the work, I wouldn't be in home depot. ;)

Ironically, the people who hang out there looking for work are self employed and actively trying to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. The type FOX news claims to champion. Why the fellow you spoke to would view them with contempt is beyond me. It's not like they're asking for money on the street corner, they're actively soliciting for work. And honestly I feel for them. Must be tough in this economy.

That's one of the more horrid stories from the tornado.

to Democratic candidates, and I'm there all the time and have NEVER been approached like that.

card. In the parking lots, people ask to assist with jobs. shrug

Sorry you got a dose of racism and bigotry with your home depot trip.

CEO is a wingnut.

Lowes is better - CEO not a wingnut, unless things have changed recently.

to customers. IMO it's to their credit that they are allowing people to try to get work. I know I wouldn't want to complain about someone who is looking for honest work. :shrug:

Just say NO to the hairy Coke-TM- cans!

Yes, you.

First, people are desperate to make a living. Instead of just being a normal person and saying something along the lines that you are not interested, you then take on another hard hit group of people trying to make a living by working at a Home Depot.

What do you want the store to do? Gag people at the door? Enclose you in a personal "do not disturb" bubble?

Then you describe the "African American" that described the problem as he sees it, and you are surprised. Why his race is important is mystifying.

You are surprised that a barely moderate Democratic President who presides over a wrecked economy, a shambles/jackpot HC system, openly adores republicans, shows distain for anything that resembles progressiveness, will soon be dismantling Medicare, and loves anything Wall Street is being described in such a way that disturbs you.

thank you

nt.

Most of us think of the Fox News crowd as being entirely white since Obama is so popular with blacks, this story shows that's not so.

you sound like a really nice, tolerant person.

perhaps, but more likely if it took 5 or 6 before I actually said something about it to the clerks instead of just 3 (smile) thanks

Now really, You could find an employee to talk to in a Home Depot?

Never ever happened to me. Hey may be just a New York thing?

Ok, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, haven't been in one in a couple of years, things may have changed.

You'd think I stumbled into the breakroom