Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2005 - 12:28 a.m.
It's rant time again.
Last week I got a call from this girl that I had talked to months ago. At the time we'd had a good discussion about how much of finding a job in today's market was about having the right connections or chance, and how disheartening this was. She knew what I wanted to do and took my phone number "in case she heard of anything."
I thought nothing of it, especially when I never heard from her. Until Tuesday.
She called and asked if I was still looking for a job, and told me her company was moving into the New York/New Jersey area and looking for people for the new location. So, if I wanted to come there was an orientation meeting the next night and she'd introduce me to her manager. When I asked what her company did she was very vague explaining that it was working with the internet and getting the word about themselves out. I thought maybe she just didn't know how to explain it.
I guess I was kind of guilible.
I also should have known when I did get there and kept being introduced to people that were just too happy to be meeting me, but also didn't really have any details for me about the jobs available. Only telling me that it was a great way to grow and that the meeting would explain everything.
Unfortunately, I didn't go with my gut reaction and leave. so, then I was in this room full of people. But at least half of them obviously worked for this company....because they knew too much about what was going and responded too loudly and excitedly about everything.
Not even ten minutes in, it was really obvious what was going on. They play right up to people's complaints and their desire for money.
Each speaker that came up started by saying that they'd grown up poor. Each speaker said that their parents had told them that if they went to school and got a degree they'd make it, but that they weren't seeing anyone making it.
They showed statistics about how much of the college grad population were wealthy, and, oh no! only 1% were millionares.
And pardon me, but the college propaganda wagon might promise you a better life, but nothing ever says you'll be a millionare automatically if you go to college.
Then they talk about how that 1% own their own companies and how everyone else is working for them. So they say they're going to help "those of us that have the right ambition" to learn how to start our own business.
They follow this, finally, with a description of what the damn company is. It's an internet provider company. Called IXP.net, boycott them please, on my behalf, for wasting my time.
Blah blah blah, they go on and on about how great the company is, never mentioning jobs or anything, but showing plenty of people that made money working there. Showing the guy that owns it and how he's a billionare. and on and on.
By then I'm getting annoyed and pretty certain what's coming next, but the girl that invited me, moved her chair next to mine (which was an aisle seat - on purpose in case I wanted to leave) so that I cannot get past her.
So then they say something about how they can't have promised to tell us how to start our own companies and just offer us jobs.....so here's how. And they start in with the pyramid scheme stuff.
That's right, pyramid scheme. And hey, it's called a "scheme" for a reason.
Pay this much to join. Pay this much for the first product. Pay this much more for the software you need to track your accounts. And you too will "own your own business."
First of all, that's not owning a business. That's sort of buying into someone else's, but it's not the same.
Then they explain. You get people to "work for you." And you get some percent of the sales you make and some percent of the sales they make and some percent of the people they "hire" and so on. So, basically, if you can scam enough of your friends into joining this as well, you might make a decent amount of money....if you can also sell the product.
They made it seem like everyone would make tons of money and I just wanted to smack people and explain, it can't work if everyone's making tons of money. The point of this is, someone has to be at the bottom of that pyramid.
In fact, this whole kind of "business" relies on gullible people. People who pay the $400 dollars to start and after a year realize, "hey I didn't make any money." The company already has that $400 and if you "quit" they don't care.
The really played into that peer pressure part of some people's brains that never goes away after high school too with the business equivalent of "all the cool kids are doing it" by trying to make it seem like anyone that didn't join right up just weren't hard workers or weren't smart enough to understand the benefits.
And when they paused so that we could all fill out our applications and anti up, and I tried to leave, the damn girl cornered me. When I said, I don't have that kind of money, she passed me on to another girl who wouldn't leave it alone.
When I tried "I don't have that kind of money," she asked if I was willing to "try and get it." When I told her that I would have no one to sell this shit to, she asked how I knew. I told her "because I know my friends and family," and she had the audacity to ask me "are you sure?"
So, I ranted shortly at her about the nature of this kind of thing and how you can only do well if you can pester enough people into buying your crap and that I wasn't willing to make my friends and family hate me in an attempt to make money and she finally let me go, telling me if I changed my mind I could call the other girl.
It also annoyed me because they knew I was there looking for a job and lured me there with the promise of job opportunity. And everyone assumed that a get rich quick scheme was an ok alternative. That the idea of making a bunch of money would make this "job" appealing. I wanted to shout at her, money is not everyone's sole motivation, some of us want a job. And not one we have to trick people into interacting with.
