As you've probably figured out from reading my blog, the most effective way to stroke my ego is to target intelligence. The people I was working with while buying my condo, being experienced professionals who work with people making major life decisions every day, were savvy enough to spot this. So they tried to flatter my intelligence by telling me, at various points during the course of our two hours together, that I was asking all the right questions and that I was really good and together compared with other clients they have and that the fact that I know exactly what I want is impressive.
But I know full well that I wasn't being especially smart or together or impressive, I was just muddling through and asking every stupid question that popped into my head (thank you Entitlement!). They were also laughing at every quasi-humorous statement I made as though it were laugh-worthy, which I know full well it isn't.
I hate it when people do that!
It's irritating because I know that they're faking, but I can't call them out on it ("Stop laughing at my jokes!") and pretty much have to go along because they're using it as a social lubricant and I want the interpersonal aspect of the situation to go smoothly too. But after I'm exposed to this enough, even with my awareness of what they're doing, it starts working on me and I become increasingly manipulable.
It wasn't terribly relevant for this condo purchase because I already knew exactly what I wanted and just needed to be walked through the process and have my questions answered, but normally in nervous major purchase/major life decision situations, there's some room for salesmanship, so I need to avoid being manipulated but still keep the interpersonal aspect of the situation working smoothly.
5 comments:
I can't stand salescrittership in general, which is why I invented anagorism.
Speaking of which, is it just my imagination, or is your blog attracting a copious amount of comment spam?
Yeah, both comment spam and gmail spam. I think the spammers have recently surpassed Google's spam filters.
Long ago, I went for a facial, and the person doing it guessed my age, based on my skin, as about 7 years younger than I was. I felt great about this, was proud of it, although I did nothing to earn it.
Sometime later I was friends with someone who did skin care professionally (don't know what they're called). She looked at my skin and guessed my exact age.
I told her about that other experience, and she said, "We always do that. We knock off 5-10 years to make people feel good, and hopefully spend more money." She also said, "Skin doesn't lie."
I was amazed that I fell for such blatant salesperson bullshit.
I just had it done twice during my recent glasses shopping adventures.
I mention to a saleslady in one of the stores that I really like my current frames, and she says "Oh, are those [major designer brand]?" I say, "No, I don't know what they are, but they aren't any sort of big-name brand." Then I take them off to read the label and tell her what brand they are, and she's all "That's totally a big-name brand!" It totally isn't!
Then when I was with the eye doctor, at one point I felt the need to small talk him by commenting on the baby pictures on his desk. So he asks if I have kids and I say no, but before I can mention I'm CF, he says "Oh, you're too young to worry about that." I had already mentioned because it was medically relevant that I'm 31. Not quite menopausal, but certainly not too young to worry about childbearing if I were worried about such things!
Both awful assumptions at work there. Yuck.
Post a Comment