Pan Left Productions

I hope you don't mind some hopefully not-to-pretentious Monday-morning quarterbacking on my part, but it was very interesting to observe the flow of dialog between Steev and the CBP agent. This is a classic case of two people who had absolutely the best of intentions but were perceiving entirely different realities. For maybe the first two-thirds of the conversation, the agent seemed not to know who the election monitors were or why they were talking to him, which made it difficult for the two sides to reach an agreement. I could just hear him thinking, "are these cops, no way, maybe poll workers, no I don't think so, maybe political types, who knows, what am I doing out here talking to them, what's that in his hand..." In my work as a sales professional I speak with military and corporate personnel like that agent all the time, and have found that it helps considerably to come up with some kine of opening statement or set of talking points ready in my head before I pick up the phone, so that they immediately know the context of my call; something like, "Hello, my name is ______ and I am with a nonprofit election monitoring group called ______. We just received a report that that a CPB vehicle was parked in front of a polling location. Given the recent ethnic tensions over immigration issues, we're investigating to see if this vehicle's presence might be perceived as intimidating to some US citizens who want to vote here. I can see now that it's parked here just because this is your residence, however would it be OK for you to move your vehicle down the street or into your driveway, just until the polls close? I'll be more than happy to give your our organization's contact information and if you or your supervisor have any questions later on, you can speak to me personally any time."