What are the most annoying traits of a salesperson?

There was a time when we did not dread the salesman's knock. A visit from the salesman was a chance to stop housework or chores for a few minutes, sit and visit, share a beverage, and catch up on all the gossip or talk to someone new. It was a chance to sample new wares, to purchase a few needs and maybe a want or two, and to ask about items we were interested in. Most native peoples treated and feasted the traders that traveled from tribe to tribe carrying goods, trading shells from the seashore for gems from the mountains and bringing news and stories.

So what happened? When did the salesman, or salesperson, go from a welcome visitor to a dreaded nuisance?

In "The Story of Stuff", a YouTube video by Jessica Waters, Ms. Waters talks about a change in our society that occurred in the 1950s. The corporations and government decided we should become a consumerist society. We should produce and buy "lots of stuff".

The salesmans job changed from providing us things we needed or wanted that were not available locally - including the news and gossip of other places - to persuading us to buy things that we did not know we needed or wanted. Things we might not actually need or want. He was in a rush to sell more, so he could earn more, so he didn't have time to visit any more. Rather than being a generalist, with sewing supplies, cookware, beads and cloth, he became a specialist with just one brand of vacum cleaner that he claimed was the very best.

And thus, he became an annoyance. No longer did we welcome the knock at the door and interruption of our day. With the invention of the phone, the ability of sales people to annoy us grew exponentially. Sales became an end in themselves. Studies were done to discover what was the most annoying way to approach a customer, so they would buy just to get the sales person to go away. Sales pitches were worded by expert wordsmiths to make it almost impossible to say no and memorized by sales people so they always had an answer to any protest you could raise.

Most people don't really want to be pushy and annoying. So to encourage the ultimate effort, most sales people are paid on commission. If they don't get you to purchase that item, they do not earn any money. Since people are generally working to earn money to support themselves and their families, the salesperson is motivated beyond any normal inhibitions they may have about forcing or manipulating you.

The problem is that this entire concept has been taken to such an extreme, that now our automatic response to any sales pitch is either avoidance, or anger. We hang up on the phone solicitor, we slam the door in the face of the door-to-door salesman, we ignore the banners on webpages, and get up and go to the kitchen for a sandwich during commercials on TV. About the only place we give a favorable response to a sales person, is when we are in a store looking for something and they come up and say "Can I help you?". Then, finally, they are helping us find what we want or need again - rather than trying to force something on us.

So what is it that annoys us so much about sales people? Most of us prefer to make our own decisions. We do not like to feel pushed, forced, coerced, or manipulated. We might like to shop around, or ask some questions to get real information to base our buying decisions on. When the sales person is focused on making the sale no matter what - then they annoy us.