Sunday, March 12, 2006

The survey says...

I went shopping yesterday afternoon to buy my nephew a birthday present as it is his first birthday party today. As I was walking through the town centre this chap asked me whether I would take part in a survey. I wasn’t very keen but asked what the survey was about and he just gave a vague answer and said it was about lots of things and it would become clear as the survey went on.

He started to ask me questions, which began with “How often do you buy household products?” I asked him what he meant by a household product e.g. did he mean a fridge-freezer or a bottle of bleach? He replied “Just anything for the household” and then he asked me a couple more questions but he wasn’t making a note of any of the answers.

It seems I got all the answers right as he then said “Now to continue with the survey follow me into this building” and I just looked at him and said “Why would I want to follow you into a building?” He looked surprised by this and said “well the survey is on my laptop and so we have to go inside to fill it out”. I looked at him kind of incredulously and told him I wasn’t following him anywhere. Again he seemed surprised, at which I point I decided that was the end of the conversation and walked off. Is it just me or was that all totally weird?

Anyway, it is my nephew’s birthday party today (it isn’t actually his birthday until later in the week), so I stayed at my sister’s last night. We watched The Island on DVD, which was quite a good film, but I have never seen a film that has so many product placements in it. Close ups on Puma trainers, bottles of beer, MSN products and so on. Really, really blatant stuff and we spent a lot of the film watching for the next product placement rather than following the plot. Interesting film though, despite the distraction.

I’ve got to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight as I am off to Madrid first thing tomorrow morning. I’ve got to dig out my passport and have now realised that I have done nothing about getting any foreign currency etc, so am perhaps not the best organised for this trip. The people running the conference I am speaking at are paying for my flights and originally they said I had to fly economy *blood runs cold*. However, I managed to convince them that I should fly business class - one has a certain standard to maintain. I have to be at the airport just gone 7 tomorrow morning so at least I will have a slightly more comfortable seat to fall asleep in while I am waiting for the flight. Then a busy afternoon in meetings, speaking at 7pm, some more meetings on Tuesday morning and then I fly back to the UK at lunchtime. At which point I will go home to collapse- and may get round to posting something new here.

On other matters, tomorrow (Monday) the results to the Bloggies are due out, so you may wish to take a wander over to see who the winners are.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Survey guy was almost certainly a Scientologist: they usher people into upstairs rooms in Edinburgh (without ever actually announcing that they are Scientologists, of course...)having asked people the most singularly mundane questions from a scrappy, badly photocopied list. That being said, he may also have been a freelance weirdo or another kind of creep entirely.

My money is on scientology, however...

Random Reflections said...

Darn, I might have got free stuff AND found the meaning of life. How short sighted of me...

30-Something said...

I once had a survey bloke ask me to follow him round the corner and into a building. I did and got £4 for completing the survey in full. Unknown danger versus £4? Well I thought it was worth it..

Random Reflections said...

Some bloke asks you to follow him into a building in return for £4 - what kind of 'survey' was this??

I would also say that you sound remarkably cheap...

30-Something said...

I am.