To the flyer people on the concourse: leave me alone

It is a fact sadly acknowledged that a student can longer walk through the concourse without a barricade of leaflet and flyer distributors heckling for attention. Long gone are the days when you can casually stroll to John’s Van without an interruption from RAG, and don’t even dream of getting a Grill and Go without a grilling from Mr. Big Issue in the foyer.

It has reached such a level that walking to the SU is enough to warrant real anxiety. What with the recent SU elections ramping up the fight for attention, the flyer-mites of the concourse seem to have developed a new strain of persistence. So much as having your eyes open is apparently enough for distributors to leap into your vision and try to bury you alive in comic sans handouts. Unless it’s dominoes vouchers, I don’t want to know.

I don’t want to Bummit to India, I just want a Revs

We understand that you must like it there, you’re right next to the amenities of the SU and sometimes there’s bake sales under the bridge – who doesn’t like cake? But whilst getting the most traffic of students is clearly an aim, are you aware that you’re literally in everybody’s way? To any students running late to a lecture in Hicks, it’s honestly just worth stopping at Weston Park and cutting your losses.

The major issue of the flyer-mites is a new-found stubbornness and refusal to let you walk by without taking what scrap of promotion they have to offer. In the current climate, it really begs reminding that no means no. If I politely say ‘no thank you’, don’t debase me to an angry mood by insisting or dancing in front of me to try change my mind. After all the fuss at freshers, it seems the main audience that would benefit from a consent class is the flyer distributors themselves. I don’t deserve rolled eyes or sarcy comments just because I don’t want your flyer about a career in teaching – I get enough of that from the English department.

Let’s be frank: faux-happiness has never suited the English; especially when you’re standing in the Sheffield drizzle, you’re really not fooling anyone with that plastered-on smile. In fact, maintaining a veneer of happiness in the full wrath of Doris will only convince me further of your strangeness, making me even more reluctant to approach you. Frankly, there’s a certain level of irony when all the leaflets given by GreenPeace are going straight in the bin – don’t kill the trees you say? It’s becoming a waste of the paper its printed on.

If it’s the case where flyer distributing is your actual job – talking primarily to the club promoters here – it’s time to get a real vocation. Imagine the possibilities: there’s a whole world of work out there where someone will actually appreciate what you’re doing. Flyering is dismal, disappointing and energy-draining, and you’re better than that.