Road coffee – Chapter 2 – Lubed with snake oil.

I have been in this moment before, several times; buying our first car, first house, second car and house- all had high financial and emotional stakes.

Moments like this change the physics of life as we know it. Time speeds up and down. Space loses familiarity, memory escapes.

We came into this process faculties intact. There was a lightness and airiness to our reasoning. Go to the meeting, listen to the spiel, get our money back, and continue with our day.

It was somewhere around the third earnest ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ that I started to wonder where’s the exit?

The space itself was large enough to staff probably 30-40 sales people. Each rep hosted 2-4 people. It was almost like every time I started to gaze around the room another staffer would appear and interrupt my exit planning with some cheery greeting. And the more cajoling and coffee we recieved, the deeper we crawled into this lobster trap.

As I write this, I keep looking up different high pressure sales techniques. This triggered a thought about interrogation techniques. Google for yourself ‘Reid Technique of Investigative Interviewing and Positive Persuasion’. It is no wonder that we were reasonably enthralled.

Our good sense was being left behind. It was an obstacle to our future happiness. ‘Of course,’ they prompted, ‘exciting moments like this can be stressful. We understand.’ They were on our side, except ‘our side’ wasn’t actually ours anymore. In two hours we had imperceptibly slid, like standing still on an airport people mover, to their side.

…to be continued.