In which she unsays yes

[zeborah]

I don't like unsaying yes. It makes me annoyed at the vendors-of-awesome-thus-expensive-products who think it's a good idea to phone up a rank-and-file librarian while she's got her head in the land of "How many books can I throw out from *this* shelf?" and offer/ask to visit when they're in town next Wednesday -- rather than someone at her organisation whose responsibility this stuff is -- merely on the grounds that she oohed and aahed over your product at conference.

It's an awesome product, of course I oohed and aahed. And I'm a librarian, so of course I said "Uh, Wednesday? I don't seem to have anything on then.... You *do* know we're not actually in the market right now plus I'm just a lowly peon, right? You do? Um, okay...."

And then hung up the phone and started thinking, in that way that ideas grow on you, that actually this makes no sense and moreover is likely to be, well, politically incorrect.

So I've just had to send off a "Terribly sorry, but uh, how about I give your email address to the appropriate peoples instead" email, so now I feel rude and out-of-sorts.

Budding librarians! This should in no way discourage you from attending conferences and oohing and aahing over awesome-thus-expensive technologies! Just maybe prepare a few "Let me pass that on to the person who'd be miffed if I took you up on it," lines first in order to avoid awkward moments.

Also, while learning valuable life lessons is all very exciting, I personally find it more pleasant to learn other people's valuable life lessons, so please feel free to share in the comments.

I'm now going to go and be vicariously vicious to some of my characters.

Comments

[tauira.livejournal.com]

On a not-entirely-unrelated note, I was perusing the intarwebs and I noted that there is a Hollaback NYC and a Hollaback Boston and a Hollaback Many Other Places (TM) up to and including a Hollaback Australia, and I thought to myself: self, we should have a Hollaback Aotearoa.

[zeborah]

...That seems fairly unrelated to me(1), but yes, I concur!

(1) Unless you were thinking about being vicariously vicious? Coz I'm down with that.

[tauira.livejournal.com]

I was drawing a parallel between mis-targeted sales attempts and street harassment.

"Ooh, libraribaby, you like my product? Oh yeah you do! Let me show it to you allllll day long."
"Uhhhhh, no."


(Not that the vendor has necessarily done anything wrong - I'm unsure of the exact situation - but that you are in the position of having to put hir off.)

[zeborah]

Ah yes. They didn't really do anything *wrong*; it's just that I smiled and was polite to them so *obviously* I wanted to go up and look at their art collection. (You know, this analogy isn't the reason I didn't post about this on my non-pseudonymous blog, but it's nevertheless a valid one!) Don't they realise I only gave them my business card because they had some kind of prize draw going on?

Anyway they've replied saying thanks for letting them know that they should be talking to someone else. This sounded less snarky when they said it. But they wrote to me, so they can't be *too* miffed. The Appropriate Peoples haven't written to me so I'm not sure if they're miffed or just haven't checked their email. I don't care, in an hour and a quarter it'll be the weekend!

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Sympathies. I fairly often say yes, and then regret it, and it's not a fun feeling.

[zeborah]

I keep doing this at work. "Yes, sure I'll do that! <several hours later> Uh, that's one of those things I should actually run by my boss, isn't it? Um, boss...?"

Then my face turns scarlet like a scarlet thing.

I would like to learn how to not blush now. Autonomous physiological reactions for-the-lose.

[hildebabble.livejournal.com]

Hi there. As someone generally intolerant of the methods of salespeople, it seems to me that if they're still poking at you even after you told them you're not the playcaller, that puts the onus on them to ease off. So, e-mail away! :)