Interview with Josh, 5/7

I’m trying to remember some basic mistakes I made on that first day – like, turning around to talk to people coming from behind me, or turning around to follow people as they pass by. What are some other common mistakes that people do canvassing?
I made fifteen dollars my first day.

Really?!
Knocking on the door in Portland and having someone after thirty seconds come to the door, and you’re just like hey how you doing, I want to talk to you about something, ‘oh alright,’ versus you have three seconds to stop somebody because you’re in the busiest city in the world. How do you stop somebody and stress that it’s important.

What were you doing wrong?
I was terrible at getting people to stop. I was like ‘hey how you doin,’ almost apologetic – you know. ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ {wimpy voice} There was a general feeling of getting [my] ass kicked. The other people I went out with all did very well. We were in a good location, with a Whole Foods on the west side, so like a perfect spot. Everyone else did well, and I was just like ‘whoa I’m gonna really have to work at this.’
…
I remember having people coming, get the interview and come in for their observation day. How many people really knew what observation day was all about? Wear comfortable shoes, bring a thing of water. People show up they walk up two flights of dingy stairs, we’d yell at them for forty minutes, we’d put our hands in the middle say something, then walk back down the stairs get in a subway going to some place, and then get out on the street and BOOM. There you go. Hope you learned all that!

I immediately think of the woman who sat down on the steps of a building and tried to canvass sitting down. She was overweight and shouldn’t have been canvassing at all, so she just sat down, kinda sad, and called from the steps –

do you want to beat george bush?

I think people figure out pretty quickly if they’re going to be any good at it…