It's Raining Salesmen



Bob walks into a store. He's a man on a mission. He knows what he wants, and may the good Lord help anyone who stands in his way. But lo and behold, a mob of overly-helpful salespeople lay right into him the moment he has his foot in the doorway.

Compare with Stop Helping Me!.

Advertising

 * Happens in the television commercials for Australian electrical goods retail chain The Good Guys. The customers are swamped by sales staff, all of whom are singing.

Anime and Manga

 * Anime Tenchou and his employees in Lucky Star do this to Konata, with an extra dose of Hot-Blooded.

Live-Action TV

 * A Saturday Night Live sketch involves a man in a restaurant trying to propose to his girlfriend, only for their server to come by the table constantly and interrupt with unnecessary "Anything you need"-type questions. He finally shouts out his proposal over the waitress's talking; his girlfriend accepts, and at last they're ready to order. However, when he tries to get the server's attention, she snaps at him: "I've only got two hands, jeez!"
 * Happened once in Chuck when the sales staff was trying to make sure manager Big Mike didn't get fired. It backfired, though — the Assistant Manager who talked them into doing it claimed it was because of his leadership that the sales were going so well, so the Powers That Be fired Mike and promoted the AM to manager.

Newspaper Comics
"I hate shopping. There's never a salesperson when you want to buy something. But when you're just looking..."
 * In a story arc of Pearls Before Swine, Rat deters a swarm of salespeople by asking to get a product repaired under warranty. (See also: Truth in Television)
 * Dilbert offers this reflection as four salespeople cling to him:

Web Comics

 * In Ctrl+Alt+Del, Lucas is annoyed to the point he refuses to go back into the store after encountering this trope while buying some spare RAM for his PC.

Western Animation

 * In Pixar's Cars, the locals of Radiator Springs refer to anyone they notice about to pass through town as "a customer" to whom everyone tries to sell their products and services.
 * In Daria #105, "Malled", Daria gets her picture taken with a crowd of eager salespeople because she's the 10,000th customer. Never mind the fact that she just wanted to redeem her coupon and get out of there as efficiently as possible.