[holdenc]

There's another name for rejection therapy -- it's called sales work.

Typically it's the kind of sales work hackers dislike. But plenty of people have built good careers around a sunny tolerance for rejection. Real estate agents, insurance sales people, cold callers, door-to-door sales people -- all of them experience many rejections for each closed sale.

One successful sales person told me that "it's just a numbers game." I still think about this with every rejection I receive.

[JCThoughtscream]

I'm currently a salesguy doing door-to-door work for a telecom fiber optic campaign. I wouldn't quite call it a "sunny" attitude, but you definitely get used to it very, very fast.

It's vanishingly rare that rejections are actually personal in any real sense anyhow. At least when business is concerned. Heck, even when they know you, it's rarely personal - personal circumstances and biases are a far greater factor than any real animosity.

Except for a few comical asides, you never remember the no's anyhow.

[johnyzee]

Actually, when you're a developer trying to sell your own creation, you can easily take rejection personally. Maybe this is why hackers hate sales.

This leads me to an idea: What about if a bunch of hacker entrepreneurs got together and agreed to try to sell eachother's products? It could actually be fun to try to pitch something where you have no emotional investment in the product. Naturally you would do your best to succeed and agree to document all the responses from prospective clients.

[guylhem]

And maybe like, the hacker doing selling part could receive some financial incentive to overcome the wasted time. And that incentive would of course be given by the hacker whose product is sold, because he could make a profit on that experiment. And like, part of it would be fixed, and part of it would depend on the acceptance, which could be called conversion rate?

Congrats, you've just invented the salesman :-) Joke aside, it might be fun to try to do some sales time to time.

[percept]

"Crowdsell" (though not too different from affiliate marketing)

[djm]

Your comment got me thinking about how the rules of this game should perhaps be refined a little to make it more effective.

If the object of the game is to learn how to feel comfortable being rejected by people then perhaps it's better to not include rejections that result from policy in your score.

For example, if you ask for a discount in a store and the clerk rejects you, they are just acting on store policy, not giving a personal reaction.

If you sell door to door the person who tells you to get lost is most likely rejecting what you are selling or rejecting the idea of being harassed by a salesman, rather than rejecting you personally.

[eru]

I guess psychology doesn't work like this. People can get quite afraid of rejections, even if it's not personal.

[catch23]

did a small biz startup sometime ago. doing cold calling sales pitches to small restaurants will make you immune to rejection in a week.

[petercooper]

There's another name for rejection therapy

Or "marriage."

[loewenskind]

I still don't get why in America it's popular to say that ones marriage is sexless. A study came out a few years ago trying to prove that married people were happier, but only ended up proving that on average married people have more sex.

I don't get why the joke would be funny, I would find it sad if true and bizarre if made up.

[yummyfajitas]

I suspect it is a misinterpretation of another fact. Very often, a couple has less sex after marriage than before. This leads married people to believe that marriage reduces sex.

[hvs]

It's just playing off the old "ball-n-chain"-style of marriage humor often trotted out by stand-up comedians and sit-coms for a laugh. I wouldn't take it too seriously.

[gaius]

With each other?

[loewenskind]

Does it matter? Report findings: get married = have more sex, on average.

[eru]

Does the report find, that couples have more sex after marriage than before, or that married couples have more sex than unmarried couples?

[loewenskind]

married vs. unmarried. And keep in mind this is the average. I'm sure you can find Warren Beaty-style hounds that married couples literally wouldn't have enough waking hours to keep up with.

[joe_the_user]

Yes, it's a simple if not easy path.

I'm not a "sale type" but I've actually been doing some part-time canvasing lately just to have the 'getting over the rejection hump' experience.

It's easier and more pleasant for me since sales still isn't my job.