Interview Techniques

[Smoke]

There has been a woman hanging around the Apartment complex I live in for the last week or so. I don’t know who she is or who she’s staying with or anything about her but I can tell she is bad news.

The woman is essentially a panhandler and watching her operate has been educational. She exhibits the same interview techniques that muggers do to get inside people’s boundaries. It’s pretty apparent that she views everyone she comes in contact with as at least a potential mark same as muggers (and Amway “distributors”) do.

The first words she ever spoke to me were “Do you have an extra cigarette?” My response, “I don’t smoke” and I kept right on moving. Last night I walk out of my building and she was sitting on the steps yelling at something and she got up and walked away when I walked out the door, then turned around and I watched her turn on the interview.

She came walking right up to me and asked if I knew how to get to Wal Mart (Wal Mart is less than 3 blocks from my home you can see it from the end of the parking lot.) Again my response was given while I kept right on moving “It’s right across the street.”

The point of this thread is I’m trying to get a discussion started about various interview techniques that muggers and panhandlers use and the similarity between the two (they’re both trying to get inside your bubble to take something from you) and what works for you when you find yourself in that type of situation.

For me depending on the circumstances I don’t stop moving and I don’t engage, sometimes I don’t even answer but that can be iffy too because it can just escalate things

 

[Bill_inBouse]

I can understand your point of view and can only tell of my experience. While up in Las Vegas doing some business the boss and I stopped at a Micky Ds for some breakfast.
As we were walking to the door a younger guy than I asked if I had a spare dollar two. Looked dirty and unkempt, you know the type. He said he was hungry.
I thought to myself if ya give him the money he'll just use it for booze. I said no not really, but if you're really hunger I'll buy ya breakfast, he came in with us and enjoyed breakfast.
I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes ya got to lend a helping hand. For some reason this guy was mine to help that day.
Guys and gals that stand on the street corner with the cardboard sign asking for $$$$, well those I don't help, proven fact is, they are doing their daily job LOL

In your case, I'd let management know about her and her activities.

 

[Rastoff]

I never really thought about it in the "interview" sense, but that is a good way to look at it. The idea for me is not to present yourself as a victim.

Make eye contact, but keep moving. I won't lie, but neither will I give them any knowledge about what I have. If they ask, "Do you have any spare change?" My answer is always an emphatic no. None of my money is "spare". If they simply ask, "Do you have a dollar or some change?" My answer is, "None to spare." It really doesn't matter what you say, keep moving.

If they try to follow, I'll be very direct. I'll stop in my tracks, turn, and get right in their face, "Stop following me." Then I'll move off.

It's a really difficult thing for me. I want to help people, but I don't want to be taken advantage of. How do you know the difference?

 

[shouldazagged]

Many years ago I was living in a small town downstate when a very scruffy guy, reeking of booze, came to my door and told me his sister was dying of cancer in a town thirty miles away. He wondered if I could "lend" him ten bucks for gas, because he had heard if he wanted to see his sister alive he would have to hurry.

All this time his breath was etching the plexiglass in my storm door.

I said, "I'll do better than that. Let me get my car out of the garage and I'll personally drive you right to the hospital."

He almost fell off the porch into the bushes in his hurry to get away.

He must have been in a blackout, because a month later he showed up again with the same story. I gave him the same answer, and this time he did have to pick himself up out of the shrubbery.

Nowadays I just figure that "No" is a complete sentence, and keep moving. It doesn't have to be in a hostile tone, but firm.

And yes, if the drunk's story had been true I would have driven him to the hospital. I was a great deal younger then, and not the cynical old man I have become.

 

[feralmerril]

I was about 16 years old and on a fishing trip in canada with my dad. He were walking down a street in some big town. A bum asked my dad for a handout and dad told him he was looking for the same thing. The bum let us get about 15 yards down the street and hollered, "Well I hope ya find it. Your both fat enough now! Dad just geave him a horse laugh. A little later we met him again on another street walking through a crowd of people. He growled, "I aint talking to you anymore!"

 

[Don 73]

I just give them "The Cop Look" and say I have nothing for them.

 

[adwjc]

I'm sure not all panhandlers are the same, but your faith in your fellow man can certainly be abused sometimes.

I lived and worked in a northern NJ city for many years and each day would see these same three guys panhandling along my route to work, one was at a traffic circle, the next was mile down the same road at a jug handle and the third was about 1/2 a mile further along, positioned near a shopping center parking lot. They were dressed in rags and two carried home made signs on a piece of cardboard begging for "money for food." The one at the jug handle had a sorrowful limp as he worked the stopped vehicles waiting to turn.

The trick for these guys was to beg but not interfere with the traffic or enter the roadway, sometimes they couldn't resist and approached the motorists, causing a backlog (liable for a summons).

Call me cynical, but one day I had enough of the delays caused by these guys and was in a position to have someone check them out.

The next day I was presented with a file containing pictures, of them in action, their records, mugshots etc.

The guy that worked the circle was the father of one and uncle to the other, he picked them up and dropped them off in a 1 year old car. They had multiple arrests for petty offenses going back ten or twelve years. The father was homeowner in a nearby suburb, he was in fact on disability, and made no less than $300 cash a day, as did the other two.

They told my guy how hard it was being out in the weather, the cops chasing them all the time and locking them up (released w/ a summons) once or twice a month.

The words of the guy at the jug handle" this is a tough way to make a buck!"

 

[islamoradamark]

like others say just keep on walking and pick up the pace there to lazy to keep up with you. you also want to keep a safe distance in case anything goes wrong

 

[Rangerpat]

The best line I heard from a female panhandler was, "Can you spare a buck, I need to buy a tampon." Yes, I gave her a dollar... and then she walked across the street into a bar.

 

[cmort666]

I'm generally polite to strangers, but in no way friendly, much less inviting of conversation.

My manner is a combination of Anton Chigurh and a Japanese businessman: coldly polite with a touch of "menacing".

There are some people who just like everybody and strike up a conversation with everyone they meet.

I'm not one of them.

I once had a panhandler approach me in the lounge of the Cleveland Amtrak station. He'd already tried his "living in the car with his kids" script on the [intimidated] women in the room with considerable success. When he got to me, I just looked up at him with the dead "doll's eyes" of a shark that Robert Shaw describes in "Jaws", and said in a monotone, "I've got nothing for you." He couldn't move to the next "customer" fast enough. I wonder if the fact that I was wearing an NRA Handgun Instructor cap, and reading Ayoob's "Combat Handgunnery" influenced his decision... A couple of minutes later an Amtrak cop collared him and threw him out of the station. Apparently that hadn't been his first "performance" there...

 

[RobzGuns]

Guys and gals that stand on the street corner with the cardboard sign asking for $$$$, well those I don't help, proven fact is, they are doing their daily job LOL

That reminded me of a Seasonal job I had when I was Full-Time RVing.
I was Asst Managing at an I-10 Off Ramp 'Tourist Trap' store and there was always a Man & Woman, dressed scruffy, with their sign, day in and day out for Weeks. I never bothered to mention them to anyone, as they were not on our property and in that area, there were no laws against panhandling.

All of a sudden, one week, they were gone, so I did ask a co-worker what happened, figuring that maybe they had finally moved on. To my surprise, I was told "They're on vacation in Hawaii for two weeks. They'll be back."

At first, I thought they were pulling my leg, but no... That was their 'job' and they made a VERY good living at it.

 

[Kanewpadle]

I'm rarely approached by panhandlers. I have found that not making eye contact is an effective way of discouraging them.

I was approached by a lady in the Walmart parking lot a few weeks ago. She was crying. She said her purse was stolen in the store and she did not have enough gas to get home. She seemed genuine but you never know. I gave her five bucks and told her that if she bought anything else but gas, she would have to live with the fact that she lied to me. She thanked me several times and tried to hug me. But I stopped her.

The "interview" process isn't only about spoken work. It's also about the unspoken word and body language.

Many years ago I got chewed out by a CHP officer because I stopped to help a lady with a flat tire. She flagged me down and was frantic and crying. Turned out she had a blow out at high speed and almost crashed. I looked at the tire and sure enough, it was shredded. As I prepared to change the tire the cop pulled up. He proceeded to chew me out because her boyfriend could be waiting in the bushes and attack me.

The lady was offended and I looked at him and said where I'm from we always stop to help someone. Especially a lady.

 

[amazingflapjack]

one non emergency call to LE of a "suspicious character-panhandler" should end the harassment. Folks like that have skin like a Rhino, and if that does not work, then you will know that there is real potential trouble ahead-let them know you called LE is what I would do. It is like an individual who violates the no trespassing signs on my locked and gated porch and house; if they do that, then it is time to prepare to "repel boarders" as the Marines say. FWIW.

 

[JJEH]

I'm rarely approached by panhandlers. I have found that not making eye contact is an effective way of discouraging them.

Not always true and can be very dangerous!

I was approached by one of those types while I was at the ATM. Now, when I'm at the ATM I always look left and right sporadically. So I saw him walking towards at me at 8 o'clock. His buddy kept going straight...

With a toothless smile he was asking for a dollar. Good for him that he kept a certain distance to me. I gave him a very firm "no" and he was not bothering any more. Not sure if he noticed my hand in my pocket...

 

[feralmerril]

Through the years I have been all over the map on how I handle panhandlers. I have ignored them, bawled them out, put them up in cheap motels, took them in restaurants with me, even took them home. Very rarely if ever, gave them money. I guess I am more unpredictable than they are. One thing I have knowingly never done is avoid eye contact out of fear. I have more storys than time to write on my experiences with them.
Except in very rare circumstances do I believe in giving them money.
When I was a kid in wisconsin in the 40s and 50s, I never once remember even seeing a panhandler. I think back then the cops must have rousted them out of the area when they showed up. Then when I first moved to california I started seeing them. I dont know if the laws actualy changed since I was a boy or if the cops back then were wrong but just never challenged on it.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

If she was where I lived, I would talk to her, a lot. I would find out who she was, where she lives and what her general story claims to be.
I would need this for the apt Manager when I made my report- complaint, and if I needed if I made my call to the police. I would want her to know that she is being observed, data is being collected. Actions are being noted.
I might make her unconfortable when she realizes that my casual conversation has turned into an interrogation. But that's the risk you run if you invade my space!

 

[eveled]

There is a guy around here that makes pretty good money with a sign that says, "Any spare change? I'm dying for a drink." I always see people laughing and giving him money.

I guess the honesty is refreshing in a way. Ed.

 

[feralmerril]

I dont think I would take her home without your wife's approval.
Actually, I do have a story on that one but I didn't have a wife at the time.
Not the story I was referring to, but once I was hosing my truck off at a do it yourself car wash. A black girl came up and wanted to help me. I had just finished and was leaving and declined her help. She said, damn, I am hungry! Then before I could answer that one she asked me was I married? I said no, she says, have you got a girl friend? I handed her five bucks and told her to go get something to eat.

 

[Rastoff]

There is a guy around here that makes pretty good money with a sign that says, "Any spare change? I'm dying for a drink." I always see people laughing and giving him money.

I guess the honesty is refreshing in a way. Ed.

It's a gimmick and it works. I think of some of these guys like street performers. They understand that if they can get a reaction, any reaction, their chances of getting money go up.

I was coming out of a grocery store once and was accosted by a young man. He said, "Hey, could you give me a few bucks for some weed?" It caught me off guard. He followed with, "I don't want to lie about it." Then, when I suggested that he get a job instead of smoking weed all the time, he got angry.

I didn't give him any money, but I did mention a few places that I knew were hiring. He just scoffed at me.

I have no problem helping those down on their luck. The ones who have no intention of even trying to help themselves I have no time for.

 

[RodGD]

Every situation is different but fall into two main groups for me. I'm either with my wife or I'm not. With wife I try to get us away as quickly as possible. She's too kind hearted and beggars soon pick up on this and then I have to come on stronger than I like to in order for us to break contact. By myself I just try to keep moving with a minimum of conversation. No is a good word to use. If they follow I do a quick scan for associates and then stop in an interview stance. Often this scares them away. Never let them within comfort distance. Ask them if it's ok to take their picture for future reference. Weak side hand pulls out the phone, strong side hand is where it belongs. Every time I've gone this far they leave quickly.