I decided I wanted to stay close to where I lived, so I started walking until I found a spot that people walked by occasionally. I knew I did not want to talk to adults, so I focused on people closer to my age. The ones I chose were either on the phone, had headphones in, or were just walking. I planned to start each conversation with just asking if I could give them a dollar, and then continue the conversation with the "Pay it Forward" movement--I figured that was a decent reason to give someone a dollar randomly. If it was me, I would take the dollar, so I thought everyone would take the dollar and I would be five dollars poorer.
After completing this exercise, I confirmed my suspicions that this was a terrible idea. It took so much courage, and encouragement (plus a little irritation) from my boyfriend who filmed these, to actually interrupt people. I kept telling myself that the next person that turned the corner I would talk to and then it was either an older person or a group of girls, and I just couldn't do it. But I had to get to an event, so knew I had to actually try. I talked to the girl in the video first, and she seemed so leery when I first offered it and when I explained why and she took it still seemed a little confused. It felt so weird doing this...I really hope we don't have to again.
I actually only gave away $4! Lucky me, I saved a dollar! The guy that wouldn't take it, and basically ignored me was on the phone, but that's basically what I do to people in Turlington, so it figures that something like that would happen. The other two dollars I was able to give away went very similarly to the videos--they were all curious as to why I was doing it, but ultimately took my money. I guess my assumption was wrong because I figured everyone would be interested in a dollar, but maybe probably had more important things to discuss on his phone call.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting how you chose to try and give the money away! It's interesting that you thought everyone would take the money because I predicted the exact opposite! I also didn't like this assignment at all because many people ignored me or gave me such nasty looks when I approached them. Here is a link to my blog post in case you are interested! http://shannoncea.blogspot.com/2016/02/free-money.html
Hey Emily, lucky you that you saved a dollar, all of my participants took them. I had a hard time completing this assignment too and hot pretty frustrated. But by the end I think we learned something. You can check out my free money assignment at http://tristansentblog.blogspot.com/2016/02/free-money_21.html
ReplyDeleteEmily,
ReplyDeleteI like that you approached all of the people in the same way and used the "Pay it Forward" movement as your reasoning. I wasn't actually able to complete this assignment but I completely understand where you're coming from when you talked about how it was uncomfortable to approach people that were in groups or on their phone. Overall, it seems your were successful since only one person didn't accept the dollar. Great work!