Day 4

Simple enough, the challenge today was to initiate a conversation that lasts more than 7 minutes.

For me, it was an easy challenge, especially because today is one of the two days a week I work at Cabelas as a firearms outfitter. As firearm outfitters, we are expected to educate customers and help them make informed decisions on firearms and shooting related equipment. These conversations tend to get personal and last up to and hour, depending on the topics at hand.

Today, I spoke to many people but two encounters with customers really stood out.
the first one was with an enthusiastic, mid-aged couple who were looking to purchase their first firearm. They came to me, hoping I would knew anything about skeet and surprise! I shoot quite a bit of skeet. From that conversation, we were able to talk about our past experience on skeet shooting and that was when I found out that the nice lady was doing her Ph.D. at U Ottawa. We talked about school and mentioned how Carleton has a firearms association (which I am an exec on) and a skeet team (which I am trying out for). We then moved on to talking about beginners firearms, relating them to stories of how their parents started shooting and what they shot. It was really a throwback to the past for them and a great story for me to hear. From then the gentleman wanted to take a look at the expensive toys, quoting the price it costs for him to fly. At that point, me and the gentleman talked for what seemed to be an eternity about our flying experiences, where we got our licenses, bad pilots and exchanged funny stories. I ended up staying with the couple for about an hour, chatting it out with them until I had to leave to help a customer who wanted to talk to me, someone who I helped in the past. The two didn't want to hold me back from doing my job and insisted that they will come back again to continue where the conversation left off, and to purchase the firearm I suggested them. there was no more than a 30-second period that a joke was not shared amongst the three of us.

The second notable encounter was with a gentlemen I sold a very expensive rifle to last week. I sold it to him based on my past long range shooting experience from when I shot in the DCRA, and as it turns out, we have very similar goals and tastes when it comes to precision shooting, only he's mid-aged and as a lot more time and money than me! The funny guy came back to me to tell me about how the gun shoots, joking that it couldn't hit a broadside of the barn and that it was safer in front of the rifle than behind it. Very sarcastic guy that really knows how to keep the conversation going. We talked more about high-end firearms and shooting accessories, items not even available in store because of their high costs. we ended up looking at the most expensive scope in the store($3.3K) which he bought out of impulse... because of its my "closest recommendation" to something I'd use on my precision rifle in store. The gentlemen left telling me he would be back if he hits something with the damn rifle! really, the rifle can hit a loonie at 500 ish meters. I don't think he will have any issues.

I've noticed that the best conversations with individuals are always on the funny side or sad side. The funny ones usually pick up easily as soon as the joke train starts moving, while the sad ones are bounded by emotion. Always end a conversation on a good note, and sad ones usually work their way there.