Whine Du Jour

I am not a fan of people who need to talk to me to sell me stuff.  Send me a letter and I will consider it. 

My union (I am still new to the whole union thing as my previous academic outposts were not unionized) apparently has a deal with an insurance company that gives me a modest bit of benefits.  Well, if I sign up for them.  And there is the hitch: the insurance company needs to send someone to my house to sign me up for these benefits. 

What are these benefits? A very modest accidental death/disability insurance and discount on glasses.  It was the latter that interested me as I have AD/D via my employer (perhaps due to the hard bargaining of my union ... or not as I had such stuff in other places). 

So, I stupidly agreed to meet with the salesperson to sign up, knowing that there would be some sort of pitch for additional benefits that I would have to pay for.  And that is what we got.  I wanted to cut to the chase to find out what these "permanent" "benefits" would be, but that would require more dancing through the script than I wanted to hear.  The price turned out to be 5% of my yearly income for benefits that we never quite got to. 

Oh, and those benefits that I was supposed to get? Well, the glasses coupon is only good for 2015, and I would have to go through this needs analysis/salespitch every year to keep getting that benefit.  Turns out my time is sufficiently valuable and that I am sufficiently impatient that I am willing to forgo the savings on my glasses so that I do not have to hear this pitch.

Sorry, salesperson, but since I was coerced into hearing what you had to say (to get benefits, need to meet with person in person), I was cranky to begin with and the script you had must made me crankier.

Oh, and union, crappy deal.  Thanks.