So...yesterday, while my son and another baby I watch were napping, the doorbell rang. Then, not 10 seconds later (barely enough time for me to stop what I was doing and get to the other end of the house where our door was) there was loud obnoxious knocking that didn't stop until I started the process of unlocking the door. Turns out it was a political person out to get their message out. I stated sharply, "Excuse me, but I have two children sleeping in this house"...he looked sheepish and said, "Oh. Well, do you still want the information". I said "NO" and I closed (I did NOT slam) the door. I called the party office and complained and I also wrote an email, which I admit was not a nice email. Very snippy and just not nice. The person I talked to on the phone was calm and just took my complaint. I also got an email reply that was very calm and professional (unlike mine!) stating that Wisconsin is a swing state and it is important for their people to get out and it might be my best interest to put a sign on my door, etc. etc. blah blah blah.
Well, fast forward to this evening, my house is asleep so I have a chance to go on FB and I see that there is a new message and it is not in a "normal" message spot but in "other" messages (anyone else familiar with this? I didn't see it until now...but apparently it is for people you may/may not be "friends" with to send you a message. Well, from the looks of the message, it seems as though someone saw my email and took it upon themselves to look me up on FB and send me a reply about how ridiculous I was for suggesting that people don't go door to door on the chance that someone in the house may be sleeping (I made the point in my email that a few people in my neighborhood are nurses or firefighters that work shift work and might be sleeping during the day). He stated that my email gave him a good laugh for the day.
Okay - my email might have been a little obnoxious...but ringing the doorbell and knocking until someone answers is NOT okay in my opinion!! I was NOT happy that it woke my son up and I responded without taking a deep breath and calming down first. My bad. But to look someone up on FB to send them a message in response? Is that just weird?? UGH...I HATE politics and I really am frustrated with government and politics these days...It seems like the candidates are only out to get each other and that is not the type of person I like to trust.
Thanks for letting me blow my steam! :-) I feel better now!! :-D
Thank you for all of your responses. It has been about a week and I am completely over it. Still a good story to rave about with friends though - as we complain about all of the commercials and mailers we have been getting the past few weeks :-)
Did I overreact? YES! But I also think it is important for the people running campaigns to know how their volunteers are treating prospective voters.
I must add - I have been a door knocker too. However, unlike this knocker...a POLITE one. I NEVER rang the doorbell - I knocked, but if no one answered, I left my info and went on my way. This person knocked until their heard the click of me turning the lock...whether you love your country or not, that is just rude!! I love my country too - inlaws are veterans, brother is currently serving, I am a proud American - but I just don't think it is right to be as obnoxious as things seem to be getting these days. The idea of campaigning should be to get your message out there and with all of the negativity, positive, honest messages about candidates are few and far between. :-) This incident just added fuel to my fire in terms of politics :-)
Again - thank you for the opportunity to vent. :-)
How invasive! I would call the party office again and tell the person in charge that you were contacted on Facebook only to be harassed and mocked by their volunteer.
Unacceptable!
Going door to door is not obnoxious in and of itself.
But you ring ONCE and if there is no answer, you move on. Unless it's an emergency situation, you don't stand there and pound on the door.
I second Sara B's suggestion. I think you should go on that candidate's FB page and paste the harrassing e-mail (name as many names as possible) on his/her wall. How annoying!
If it were me, I would probably ask all of my FB friends to jump on the bandwagon and clog that candidate's FB wall with complaints too. But I can be pretty spiteful sometimes.
Should you have calmed down before writing your email? Eh, probably.
Should the guy at your door have waited to see if there was an answer before being obnoxious and banging on the door? Yep.
Should whoever decided to be an a$$ and send you a message on facebook get a life? ABSOLUTELY.
First you don't know if it was anyone officially with the campaign that contacted you through Facebook. It could have been the volunteer who came to your door. If they have your address, they have your name, they have your Facebook, ya know?
Second what he did really wan't unreasonable. A lot of people do not have functioning door bells. So if no one answers you knock. After all if no one is home who are they bothering? Everyone I know that works night shifts sleep right through anything during the day or they disable their door bell.
The poor guy believes in what he is doing enough to volunteer. How would you feel if you were going door to door about something you believe in and the woman who doesn't like your cause did everything you did?
You are asking the question but to look someone up on Facebook? What about calling and then feeling that isn't enough and emailing as well? Seems like two over the top responses to the situation.
I'd blast it on facebook and twitter to show how rude the dude was. People should know what the jerks looking for political office think of the people who vote for them. Even if it wasn't the actual candidate, it was someone who worked for him/her, and it was completely inappropriate.
Steam away! That's one of the great opportunities available on this site.
I think the canvasser learned a lesson about how to knock and that's great. Those of us who volunteer for a candidate and who try to respect voters know that when a volunteer gets too "enthusiastic" it's not good for anyone.
I also would encourage you to let the campaign office know about the FB posting. If it came from their office, you will be doing them a big favor. Really.
And now I have 10 minutes to read more and then I'm off to volunteer, making calls for my candidate! Because honestly, many of really do care about the future of our state and country, and your vote. All my best.
I haven't read all your responses, but you were frustrated and vented...their professional responses should have ended it. The personal message on fb prompts a creepy-overreaction vibe in my bones. If you have the name of the person who messaged you, you have every right to let the office of the party he represents know that he/she is reading confidential emails and making contact outside of his/her professional obligations. If you are indeed a "swing" vote, I would bet this situation didn't influence you positively!
Hah! I was just bitching about the telemarketers. In the middle of dinner, phone rings...What? You think interrupting my dinner with your pre recorded message is going to get you a vote!? Jerks. ;-)
It's good though, we've had to be more strict about not answering the phone during dinner which, in the long run, is going to be a wonderful house rule!
We're in a swing state, as well. I get on average 3-6 phone calls per day! I haven't had any door-to-door people here but then, we do have a "No Solicitors" sign by our doorbell. I understand your frustration and I think it's very unprofessional and rude for someone to look you up on FB to ridicule you. I'd be tempted to copy the message and send it to the headquarters and say that THIS is why they lost my vote (whether that's true or not). I'm bad that way! lol I like to make my point. :-/
When my brother was a baby, my mom used to put a sign on the door that said, "babies napping, do not disturb." I think that's a great idea. That said, I think the response that you received was ridiculous.
Wow! That is harrasment! What a creep!!! And I doubt he found the e-mail funny like he claims or he would have moved on with his life & not stooped to stalking & harrasing you on FB. It ticked him off. Again, what a creep! I wonder if it was the guy who came to your door.
As far as the No Soliciting sign suggestions. It works to a certain degree but some people do ignore it. When I was on maternity leave (the only time I was really home during the day) I couldn't believe how many sales people came to our door. And of course it was always right after I got my newborn to sleep! And of course, the door bell would wake her up each time! So I got a No Soliciting sign and stuck it right by our door bell. If you see the door bell you can't miss the sign! Some of them still ring the door bell & the pretend not to see the sign when I point it out. Now we don't even open the door if we see a sales person outside the peep hole. We also make plenty of noise and make it obvious we're ignoring the door bell. (We do this in case it's a bugular disguised as a sales person, we want them to know someone is home). They don't stand there long before they catch on and move along to the next house.
Way for that person NOT to get a vote. I get annoyed with these salespeople/political people that can't knock and if they don't get a response move on, but insist on knocking until someone comes to the door. If I don't come when you knock, I don't want to answer the darn door so go away. I would have told the person, "yes, I'll take the information, so I know who not to vote for." I get so annoyed with the constant phone calls too. It makes me not want to vote for that candidate. And most of it is lies anyway.
As for putting a sign on your door, it doesn't work. At our old house, we had large signs at the entrance of the community saying "no soliciting." They were also on several doors. Guess what, they still came. And when we would point to the signs, they would get an attitude with you.
I have a sign next to our front door that says
"Absolutely no solicitations"..
The few times people have knocked and started to preach, sell or solicit.. i have told them. I have the sign for a reason.. I do not want anything...
Usually I also cross stitch a door hanger for anyone expecting a baby that say, "Our baby is sleeping, please no solicitations."
I have a big sign on my door that says NO SOLICITATION VISITS. IF OUR BLINDS ARE SHUT, WE ARE SLEEPING. DO NOT KNOCK. IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION FOR US, LEAVE IT ON THE FRONT PORCH.
IT works well for us because we used to get people all the time knocking at the door early in the morning and at dinner time and even late at night. So I put this up and I KEEP MY BLINDS SHUT. ALL THE TIME. So I don't have problems.
I know its frustrating, but they are just doing their job. It wasn't intentional to wake your child up. Put a sign up and you will be fine. The FB post is weird. It sounds like your message really ruffled someone's feathers and they felt it was a personal attack on them---
I do think you kind of invited that reaction by contacting the office. The bottom line is polling and distributing is legal and unless you put a sign on your door, there is no way for them to know. If the person had been rude to you, then I would absolutely contact the office, but you said he looked sheepish and didn't say he caused a problem. The reaction was immature on their part, but again, that's why cyberbullying is so easy to do -- once you put yourself on facebook, you open yourself up to this kind of nonsense. It's wrong and you could contact their higher-ups, but it may or may not do anything.
And by the way, I have flipped out on door to door solicitors -- I absolutely detest them, so I empathize, and I've been attacked on the internet by strangers who have made cartoons and jokes lampooning my opinion on a very public, very popular humor site, all because I told them I felt they had taken something too far. For three days, people I didn't know lampooned me, using my whole, real name, to the point where I changed my name on facebook. It's probably still there, too, since I couldn't force them to take it down. It sucked, so I know how you're feeling on that, too.
Why don't you have a sign on your door asking people not to disturb, you have children napping? I often did that, usually just left it up until it fell down and needed to be replaced. And I have a no soliciting sign that works pretty well now.
Baby sleeping note on front door will end the problem.
M., I would write that person at the party office back and tell her that someone in their office looked you up on FB and sent you a message over this. You should tell her the person's name. He will probably get in trouble for this.
After you write the email, block him. He shouldn't have any access to your FB.
Dawn
Oh man, what a fantastic opportunity for their political opponents! If I were you, and I wasn't fundamentally opposed to this party's opposition, I would send it to them and let them use it as a campaign tool.
YOU GO GIRL!! I'm sure most would have done the same!! Including ME!!
I hate people knocking on my door! It's always some Christian wanting to lecture me, too. Bleh! How about.. I have sleeping kids? Or I'm busy? I don't necessarily find the act of door-to-door to be bad. But knocking after you rang the doorbell seems excessive, especially if the two actions took place within seconds of each other. But continuing to knock until the door opens is just plain rude! No one would send me a rude message on FB,though, because someone has to be on my friend's list to send me a message.
What they did is just ridiculous-you are entitled to treat anyone at your door in any way you so choose. One thing I did when the children were little-I did put a sign on the door that said, "Knock and die!"
I don't get why they had to look you up on FB. Why not just hit the "reply" button on your e-mail.
Sleeping or not, I would not have been happy to have someone knocking obnoxiously on my door until I got there. I probably would have taken the guy's head off.
I would have been mad, too! No need for aggressive knocking if the doorbell was rang!
For us, it's just calls. I've gotten to where I don't even bother to get up when the phone rings if I'm at all cozy. But at naptime, sometimes I want to pick up just so I can tell them what I think of them! If I thought it would do any good, I would:)
Wonder who these visits/calls are swaying? I'm undecided, but I'm more at the point where the next person who bothers me is the one I WON'T vote for! Just a few more weeks, though!
I can't believe I'm even taking the time to respond, but this hit a nerve for me. I was once this door-knocker. I was in college and I passionately cared about the candidate I was door-knocking for. Because I care about the state I door-knocked in and our country. I will never forget when I woke a kid up from a nap with a doorbell ring. The mom was irate with me. I had no perspective and I wanted to start crying when she yelled at me.
Guess what? When the doorbell rang at my house when my first of three kids was sleeping, it reminded me that I needed to put a little sign over the doorbell that said "baby sleeping." I did that and POOF problem solved.
In sum, get over it. First world problems.
Put a sign on your door.......they use to give them out at the hospital when you had a baby....it says:
SHUUUU BABY IS SLEEPING!
Or like the one's at the hotel
DO NOT DISTURB
If someone is rude enough to ring or knock anyway....feel free to have an UP CLOSE and PERSONAL talk with them and let them know NEVER to return to your home again.
I have had multiple calls on both my cell and home phone about political stuff. I will not say here which way we vote as I am not willing to have a political debate lol. But I have had multiple calls which ask are we democrat or republican. and then goes on to promote the republican party
YES, your email was absolutely ridiculous and laughable and YES, that person has some real issues if he put in the effort to look you up and message you. Just keep in mind that those going door to door are volunteers who do what they do because they really believe in the candidate and/or the issue. It doesn't sound like he was real pushy or rude. He just happened to unknowingly knock on the door of a woman with sleeping babies in the house. I like the suggestions of getting a sign.
I think you might want to invest a "No Soliciting" sign :-).
I put a sign on my door that read: Do Not Ring Doorbell Baby Sleeping and when my daughter was older I changed it to Child Sleeping. I also took the phone off the hook during that time too. I got super upset one time when the phone rang and woke her up and after that is when I made the sign and decided to take the phone off the hook. No more disturbances after that and the house was so quiet and peaceful.
I hate strangers calling my house or coming on my property! I feel like they are invading my personal space and time. The best is the CDC who keeps on calling me for a survey, I do not do surveys over the phone because I do not know if it is the CDC or not!
you can get a sign at the start of your driveway that says "No Soliciting" or "No trespassing" or some even say both and "no peddling". Our neigborhood seems to have those pairs of older teens/early twenties kids that do a very heavy sell to get your to buy magazines. Liberator Sales Inc. (also known as Imperial Sales both companies owned by Pacific Coast Clearing Services Inc.). We talked to one pair and they barely get any money themselves, the organization buses them to neighborhoods, drops them off and expects them to walk and sell all day long, puts them up in cheap motels, pays them a cheap hourly rate and expects them to pay for their own food. We did not buy magazines, gave them juice pouches and granola bars, and got ourselves a no trespassing sign.
The in your face campaigning is making me angry too.
It seems some companies are selling some no solicitation signs that are better at explaining we don't want to be bothered.
http://www.mysecuritysign.com/No-Soliciting-Sign/No-Excep...
http://www.mysecuritysign.com/No-Soliciting-Sign/No-Solic...
http://www.mysecuritysign.com/signs/private-residence-ple...
I came up with my own sign a few years ago:
NO Solicitation
NO Trespassing
Do Not try to sell me things or services.
Do Not talk to me about religion or politics.
I Do Not want any estimates.
I Do Not want to take any surveys.
Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
It was pry the same person who did the knocking. They pry got a talking to, even though they are a volunteer, about their overzealous knocking. They pry weren't happy that something they do because of their passion and for free got them bitched at.
Was it immature. Hell yeah! Absurdly immature. Were you? Pry... I think you already know that so who cares. But did they go to far... in my opinion absolutely. I would take that lovely facebook message and forward it to whoever replied to your email way back when. That isn't acceptable to harass someone via facebook. I'm certain the campaign manager would LOVE to know that someone working on their campaign is actually alienating voters. I know I sure as heck would.
Where my husband works he does alot of online work for a fortune 500 company. He deals with public relations stuff and gets insane emails frequently that he giggles about and even some of the other people in the department share around the department with each other. The company didn't like that so they aren't allowed to do that anymore unless they are getting a second opinion or something. But he gets insane emails that are far beyond an over reaction. Some he's told me about made me laugh my butt off I'll admit. Anyways, one of the workers was so offended by an email that he did exactly what this person did to you. Well he thought he did it all covert and covered his butt so he'd get away with it but not well enough. When the customer contacted corporate it got back down to his department and he was fired for his behavior. No one argued he shouldn't have been. That was absurd what he did! It's absurd that someone went to all that trouble to harass you. I'd forward it to the campaign. Not like the person who sent that message is representing the campaign well or even at all.
When my kids were little we bought a No Soliciting sign and disconnected the doorbell. In the very rare time someone ever ignored the sign I gave them hell! It has worked quite nicely.
