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Nothing Says “Christmas” like AAA Emergency Road Side Service

At least, that is what I was told...

I received a call late Friday afternoon from a gentleman, Darrell, representing AAA Emergency Road Side Service.  Apparently his wife works in some sort of administrative capacity for one of the tenants here in the building that my firm does business with on occasion.  He went on to tell me that he and his wife were talking the other day and thought it would be great for all of the tenants in the building to have AAA Emergency Road Side Service.  He had tried to reach my secretary to make arrangements to setup a booth in my lobby so he could sell AAA Emergency Road Side Service to all my tenants right before Thanksgiving.  He was a little upset with my secretary because she had at first told him "No" and then proceeded not to return his phone calls anymore.  (my secretary is the best damn gatekeeper in the world by the way.. she can sniff out a salesperson a mile away..)  So, he thought he would talk to me about my secretary's rude behavior and try to find out how he could sell AAA Emergency Road Side Service to all of my tenants this Christmas.

Santa?

As politely as possible, I told him "No".   He asked why.  I told him that we only allow vendors in the building between Thanksgiving and Christmas, they are hand picked by us and only carry products or provide services to help our tenants with their holiday shopping.  Darrell proceeded to get a little snippity with me, sensing the end of the phone call was near.   He said that AAA Emergency Road Side Service is an excellent gift for the holidays and why would it not be better than the "trinkets" that the vendors were selling in the lobby now?  Smiling through the phone, I simply replied "because you can put a bow on the trinkets downstairs and put them under a Christmas Tree.  You can't do that with AAA Emergency Road Side Service."

I must have pushed a button because at that point his tone became very hostile as he demanded to speak to my supervisor.  I told him I was glad to share his name and number with him and I provided the information to him without skipping a beat.  I think this surprised him a bit as his tone settled down a bit.  I then went on to ask him if it was typical for his spouse to pass along the names of clients to him for his use to solicit AAA Emergency Road Side Service.  Darrell became very defensive as I mentioned I would have talk to our representative with his wife's firm to let them know that an officer of my firm was about to get a call from an AAA Emergency Road Side Service sales representative because I would not let him set up a booth in the lobby.  I politely ended the call repeating my answer of "No".

Funny, but my boss never got a call.

You're a nasty one, Mr. Grinch....

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