Wednesday 21st March (Day 20)
Today was my
street fund raising training day where I apparently get trained in the art of
street fund raising. I was still in 2
minds about getting up this morning to go to the training day.
I was running
late, there was always something to do before leaving the house. Probably because part of me still didn’t want
to go today. I thought I gave myself
enough time but the place always felt like it was another few minutes away,
always past the next block, always around the next corner.
I arrived 10
minutes late and I was tired and quite sweaty.
It was a hot day and I was walking as fast as I could to get there. Arriving 10 minutes late and feeling uncomfortably
sweaty was not the first impression I wanted to give. The guy who was doing the training was unhappy
with me to say the least. “What, no
phone call or anything?” he said in an angry and disapproving voice like I had
deeply offended him by showing up 10 minutes late.
In fairness
being made to wait for over an hour for my interview gave me the impression that
they didn’t stick to a tight clock in this organisation, but clearly I was
mistaken.
He reluctantly
led me into the training room where 4 none sweaty people were sat around a big
U shaped table. Two of the people I recognised
from the interview day. The training guy
said that I had 3 minutes to complete all the paperwork before they began
training. After scribbling down my
details onto some forms that should normally take 10 minutes to do properly I
had to hand them in. He wasn’t happy
that I missed some sections that I thought I didn’t need to do. “You and I are going to have fun today aren’t
we?” he said in that disapproving tone of voice that he only spoke to me
in. After a brief introduction we began
going through a large workbook that discussed:
- Communication (talking to people)
- Stopping (recommended techniques for stopping a stranger)
- Building rapport (making it look like you are interested in the stranger you are talking to)
- Pitch (the script we had to follow)
- Concern handling (how to turn that no into a reluctant yes)
- Anchoring (make the stranger feel good that they have just given some weird person on the street their bank details)
Overall the
training day wasn’t bad, the training guy even began to warm up to me a bit. Although he did take 15 minutes off everyone’s
lunch because of me being late at the start of the day. (A girl in the group was also 5 minutes late
and he added her 5 minutes to my 10 minutes to take 15 minutes off our lunch).
One thing
that did annoy me about the training day was the guy kept saying how quickly we
were getting through all the stuff and that we would at this rate be leaving
early at around 3 o’clock. What time did
we actually leave? It was closer to 6 o’clock.
I left the
training day feeling very tired and a bit overwhelmed. I was starting on the streets tomorrow and I
had so much to remember. So much
information was hurled at us today and I’m not sure if any of it has actually sunk
in.
I guess I
will find out what I remember tomorrow when I hit the streets of Sydney and to
be honest, I am dreading it.
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