How many of you have been accosted in your own homes by an earnest teen (or adult even!) who lies to you?
I get them all the time. Today for example.
Young 18ish kid comes to my door. "Hi M'am, how are you doing this fine day?" Holds out hand to indicate I should open the door and shake his hand.
I leave the door shut. "Are you selling something?"
"No, no M'am not at all! Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?"
(What? Give you my name AND address? do you think I'm crazy?) "What are you doing then?" *Note, I'm still polite)
BIG SMILE "I um, work, well, um I want to work in this program that um, takes troubled youth ages 18-34 out of troubled situations and um, puts them in a um, classroom. YOU wouldn't have a problem with me doin' that now would ya?"
"nope."
"So I need to get 2000 certification points to get into the program and then I can talk to these, um, youth and um, help them." As he speaking, he flips open a little holder to show signatures.
At this point i"m thinking he needs practice with public speaking and maybe he just needs me to sign to verify the spoke to me....if so I'd tell him to stand straight and quit uming at me. "so what do you need me to do?"
But no, he flips the page and starts showing me a list of magazines....I stop him after only a few words. "Do I have to buy a magazine to help you get your points? Yes? Well, then you are selling something and you LIED to me."
"No, no m'am, I have Bibles avalible if you like that."
"No, YOU LIED to me. I am not going to buy anything from you because you LIED. If you had been upfront from the begining, you may have gotten me to at least look at the list of magazines, but now...sorry kid. I am not buying because you LIED. Do you understand that?"
Apparently not because he is standing there with a hurt look of confusion on his face. "But I'm not doing this to SELL the magazines, it's just so I can teach other...."
I cut him off, he just doesn't get it. "I'm sorry, but I am not buying anything. Goodbye."
Now, you may think I'm harsh, but I have solicitors at my door at least once a week. I'm not going to listen to a 15 min shpeel from someone who starts off with a lie. Sorry, but that just bugs me.
And lets just look at this program. It sounds good, right? Take underprivledge kids and get them in a classroom. But wait! He said 18-34 years old. That's not kids anymore. Strike one. (lie) He wants to be in this program as a mentor and to do that he has to go door to door selling stuff? How does that prepare him to mentor others? What will he teach them? How to lie and use phony techniques to gain someones trust and sympathy and ultimately, money?
Who mentored him? Who taught him the obviously memorized tricks? THe only parts he didnt' "um" on were the phoney wanna-be carsalesman techniques! Hand out to gain physical contact (build intimacy and trust) Learn my name so he could act like my buddy. Play the sympathy, "kids in need" "you don't have a problem with THAT now do you?" lines.
So yeah, I have a problem with people who run programs to teach kids to lie and act like shady car salesmen. i have my suspicions about this "program" and I only wish I remembered the name he mentioned.
Sigh. Don't they know they won't get anywhere doing this?
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