I have a question for the group with regard to ethics, businesses, and
advocacy that I encountered in the last week.

This photographer was a vendor at our annual WBW event last year, and he
came into my clinic by himself unannounced last week to talk with me about
'breastfeeding stuff.'  [History: This guy and his wife own the biz, but he
has habitually only used her FB page to try to get hold of me (weird) and
supposedly moved to our state abruptly when their church disagreed with
them doing BF advocacy--or so the story goes.  I have colleagues who
blocked him out of their events because they feel he's a bit of a creeper.)
 SO anyway, he's here without his wife, brings me a dessert from a local
bakery, a $25 gift certificate to said bakery, then starts asking me about
advocacy in the area.  The further along we get, the more I feel like he's
trying to worm into my personal information and make pitches about his bu
gives me some of his photography brochures, asking me about my due date, if
I'm getting maternity pictures taken.  I had to make him leave because I
had a client (and he wasn't taking the hint that I was leaving--he would
have waited until I came back if I hadn't said I would talk with him some
other time outside of work) and took the 'gifts' back to my desk just so I
could get the heck out of there.  To make is short, the whole visit struck
me as a ploy to get in the door, try and worm info out of me about why our
local task force blocked him from the vendor list, and to promote his
business rather than breastfeeding.  Afterward, he made some remark on FB
about seeing "our favorite cutie preggo" without permission, and I just
felt a little violated by it.

My question to you all is this:  I ditched the dessert, and I'm going to
send the gift card and a letter (as well as his promotional materials) back
to him and tell him how uncomfortable the whole visit felt.  Any tactful
way let this guy know that I think he needs to employ better tactics if he
and his wife really are interested in breastfeeding advocacy, as well as
tell him that I'm personally uncomfortable with him?  Whole thing just left
me with a really creeped out feeling afterward.

-BJH, IBCLC

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