Rejected!

About a week ago in my Hospitality Sales and Meeting Management class we had to do a sales blitz. For those who haven't been subjected to such a thing, it involves cold calling businesses in person and trying to sell them things (or, in our case, give things away).

We were partnered up with a local restaurant chain called BeauJo's Pizza (I'd avoid the buffet if I were you, but ordering from the menu seems to be okay) and had to attack office buildings in the Greenwood Village Tech Center (some of the priciest business real-estate in Colorado) with flyers and coupons and little gift bags.

The first bad omen was the two police SUV's (apparently Greenwood Village doesn't believe in police cars) parked in front of our first attack point. Not heeding this sign, we snuck around back. Using clandestine insertion techniques, we made it to the elevators undetected by the security guard. Although, of course, once inside the elevators we made faces and rude gestures at the security cameras.

So, we were in. We blitzed the 6th floor (which was full of very nice people who like pizza, apparently), and then decided that to continue on with our stealthy mission it would be best to take the stairs down to the 5th. Little did we know that 5th floor was highly secured and required little ID badges to enter. Little did we also know that being an emergency stairwell, none of the doors from the stairwell opened, except in the basement.

We feared the element of surprise was lost to us. But apparently they don't review their security tapes very carefully because using our previously practiced techniques, we were once again able to get around the security guard and into the elevator. We blitzed the 4th floor. We blitzed the 3rd floor. And then we ran out of things with which to blitz anyone.

So, we headed for the door. Blocking our escape was an angry head-of-security guard. He demanded to know what we were doing. Fearing torture in a small back room, we whimpered that it was merely a school assignment and that if he wanted to torture someone he should go find our instructor. He then asked for some coupons. Shaking, we handed him what we had left (which included 2 discount buffet cards and a #2 pencil). He then growled that we had to get the hell out and escorted us from the property.

Now I can add "escorted by security guard from fancy business offices" to my resume. Life is so much fun.

Needless to say, aside from the darting around and being in places I wasn't supposed to be, the entire experience left much to be desired. But, I always knew I wasn't interested in sales, so no big loss.

In other news, the SPAMmers apparently think I need/want/use diapers because I have recently been inundated with offers for diaper surveys, diaper coupons, and the like. I'm not sure if I should be offended or taking a pregnancy test.