Increasing My H-List

Hate is very strong word and I hardly use in my day to day life and rarely bring it into practice.

My Hate List (H-List) is not at all very big. Till now there was only one entry and that was encompassing all the direct marketing people from companies like m-way, QuickStar or PoleStar and so on. The hate their money making strategy and eventually them who deploy that to milk some money. These direct marketers will accost you anywhere for example Safeway, Walmart, Fry's and so on and ask you some stupid questions like (I think I have seen you before were you in Stanford, USC, UCLA, Berkeley, Which shampoo should I buy, ohh that earring looks really great on you ...) and me and friends look at them and just grin and say "Thanks but no thanks". So their strategy is to initiate some talk and get your number and then harass you by luring you to make money and they talk all BS like they are doing great business and every week they get a paycheck of $ 3K and so on. Once they get your number they will harass you for many days till the time you warn them. They are top on my H-List and its shame on them to use such a tactic to get customers for their so called business. Further in bay area most of these are Indians and I hate to see them doing this when I know all of them are well educated and have a good job.

So till now these guys were in my H-List but last weekend when I went to hang out with my friend to one of the school pub in Palo Alto. I was eating something and my friends were drinking. My friends finished one pitcher and then they order two more glasses of beer. So all of a sudden one big American guy came and sat beside me and asked me "Can I have that french fry?" I grinned and looked at him and told him "NO". I shook my head again and said "NO" again and then I thought lets give him a fry who cares. Then he started introducing himself and talking about some BS and I gauged that he is trying to sell something to me, so I asked instantly to him "Now pay for my friends beer" and this guy tells bartender to get 2 more beers for my friends and I got up and told him charge all these beers to him (the one which my friends ordered previously). That guy was all okay with it and then I started showing interest in what he was trying to sell to me. This dude was Stanford graduate (double economic major) and was joining Ameriprise from Nov, 7 2007 and he was about to start their as financial consultant.

I asked this guy few questions that I invest in ETF, MF and Stocks and this guy was not knowing what does ETF stands for and then I thought I did nothing wrong in fetching some beers from him for my friends. Finally after few minutes of goals in life and how to achieve that and all that BS, he asked me my number and I gave him wrong number and pseudo name. So in my H-List i have entered one more entry i.e. Financial Consultants like him who don't have any ethics of business and go down to such an extent to make money.

Previously i was sorry to see only Indians (IITians and well educated with good job in hand) doing this but now seeing Americans are in the same boat, I concluded that its a genre of people who have no ethics how to earn money, not civilized enough to enter into anyone's privacy in public and pushing their business model onto them.

I hate to increase my H-List but can't help when I encounter people like these.But this time may be it was a bummer for that guy as I gauged his intentions and fooled (my friend had a good time though) him for few beers. Sometime people like to learn it hard way.