Not Cool!

So we get a call yesterday from a friend of my wife's. I don't know her that well, but we've met and hung out maybe half a dozen times. She's pretty cool, a little dizty, but she's fun and seems like a pretty decent person. So she calls us up and says "Hey, I'm going to be in your area tomorrow visiting someone, could I maybe swing by to see you guys?" So we say, yeah, sure, come on over whenever we'll be there all day.

So today she shows up with some guy we've never met. She introduces him as her friend Dan or whatever his name was and we just start talking and hanging out. We show this guy around our place since he's never been there and talk for about twenty minutes or so. So then my wife asks her how her new job is going (she was recently laid off from a long-term position a few months ago) and she says "Oh, right, well I wanted to talk to you guys about that...Can we clear off the table?" and she start to spread out a couple folders, and the other guy gets some stuff out of his bag and they both sit down.

So they call me over there and when I sit down they both start making a pitch! Her new job is for some company that is offering financial advice and trying to get people financially educated and debt-free, but the company is also like some kind of chain of marketers who go around making these pitches part time. So they were asking me not only to sign up with them to go over my finances, but they were also trying to get me to work for them part time to do the same thing to other people.

It was a serious WTF moment. I was pissed off at her for just dropping that on us and not even warning us. And I felt extremely stupid for having spent the first half hour just chatting with this guy because I thought he was her friend and we were just hanging out. I listened to the pitch politley enough, but once they started asking personal questions I told them I felt like my finances were in great shape, thankyouverymuch, and that we were all done with that.

So then this dude has the balls to try to get names and contact info of my friends and family from me! It went like this:

Him: Well [Wife's Friend] here is really just starting, so if you know anyone else who might be interested?

Me: Yeah, um, maybe. I don't know. Maybe someone at work. I'll think about it.

Him: At your work? Okay, so, maybe like a coworker?

Me: Yes, maybe.

Him: Anyone else? Like friends, or.... friends you have?

Me: Yeah, I'll see if anyone's interested.

Him: Okay, yeah, I'd love to call them and see.

Me: No, I have your email. I'll talk to them and if they're interested and they can get a hold of you that way.

Him: Well could you maybe give me thier numbers? That way we don't put you in the middle.

Me: No. No they can email you if they want to.

Him: Okay, no, that's cool. It's just sometimes people forget, you know?

Me: Well, that's really up to them, isn't it? I'm not about to be the guy who gave some stranger the names and numbers of my friends and family.


Anyway, it just really caught me off guard and seems like a right crappy thing for our friend to do. She seems smarter than that. The kicker was if she'd just been straight up about it and said "Hey, I got this new job, it's like this, would you want to hear about that?" even though I'm not interested in the services, I'd have still done her the courtesy of listening to the pitch for her sake. Now, she'll be lucky if I don't throw her card out the window and never speak to her again.