That's The Reason Why They're Doing That Job

This refers to those people who stand on busy high streets trying to foist their International Phonecard cards on harassed shoppers, confused tourists and people who, like me, are just trying to get to Markses to buy a sandwich on their lunchbreak without getting trampled by the harassed shoppers/confused tourists. And as you can probably imagine, harassed shoppers and confused tourists trying to avoid the Phonecard Giver-Outers are even more annoyingly unpredictable than normal, thus making my work-to-shop lunchtime slalom infinitely more dangerous.

Some people just take anything they are proferred by people in the street, and these people are what briefly justifies the Phonecard Giver-Outers' existence. I say 'briefly' because as soon as they look at what they have just received they realise it is not really worth having, and they drop it. On the pavement. 2 metres away from where they have picked it up. I have never actually seen anyone put one of these cards in their pocket yet. Have you?

So what is the point of the Phonecard Giver-Outers? They must wonder themselves, I am sure, when they stand on the pavements in the cold and the wet and the wind, holding a great stack of cards in their weatherworn hands and looking at all the cards being trampled underfoot like a technicolour snowdrift around them.

Why bother? If I was them I would walk in a circle of no more than 10 metres radius oriented around my origin, scattering my cards sporadically as I went. Who would know the difference? Then I would go shopping, or get a PROPER JOB for the rest of the day. But the Phonecard Giver-Outers don't think of doing that, and that's the reason why they're doing that job.

Idiots.