The other day I got a phone call, out of the blue. There was the nicest gentleman on the other end.
“Is this so-and-so?” (He correctly identified me).
First of all, no one ever calls me at work, except my kids, so I was a little confused.
“Uh…who’s calling please?” I’m a little nervous because like I said, I’m at work. And no one knows my work number.
“This is John; I work with Jessie. She mentioned you – ”
“Jessie? Jessie who?” I run backward in my mind, trying to think of any Jessie I have ever known who would have been discussing me with John (who I also don’t know). Zilch.
“O.k…”
“She talked to you about two weeks ago…”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Well she said she did. She mentioned that you were a quality person. Now, our company is expanding in the area and we’re looking for quality people just like you to help us expand. Would you be interested in making an additional two…say three thousand dollars a month?”
Fuck if those words didn’t ring a bell. It’s been the same opener since the birth of the most fucked up phenomena on the planet (aside from serial killers and religion): MLM’s. (MultiLevel Marketing Companies/Pyramid Schemes/Network Marketing Companies)
“No thank you.” Click. And then I spent the rest of the day quietly writhing in my head over memories I thought I’d put behind me. The result of all that writhing is a little MLM story that I’d like to share. This is actually a rant disguised as a story. As they say in the land of MLM’s: “facts tell, stories sell.”
So, once upon a girl-marries-hippy-who’s-way-too-old-for-her time on the West Coast (Seattle, to be specific), a girl married an old hippy (a real one from the sixties) who wanted to be a star (rock star to be precise). But just incase that plan fell through, he had a backup plan. He was going to be a famous artist and make millions on his cosmic paintings of the ethers.
After they got married, he quit his (really good) job. (That was my fault: I told him to follow his bliss.) They moved to a really cool artsy fartsy town 80 miles north of Seattle. Great place to party, hang out in the garage, and… you know. Do art.
They bought a beautiful house on the hill with the money they’d got from selling their Seattle home, and she had a baby while he hung out in the garage and, well…you know.
Naturally it didn’t take long for reality to strike. Bills started rolling in. But no money. While the mom was busy breastfeeding Baby and watching MTV (back when it was still good), Rock Star decided to be a chauffeur in his spare time. He had a friend who’d had his license revoked (yup, drinking) so his friend, being a well-paid attorney (yup, drinking), paid him ($7.00 an hour plus other stuff) to… whatever. I believe, in Minnesota, that “whatever” could be replaced with “drive car” or, “drive cab” depending on how you look at it. He decided to drive car.
(You know, they don’t talk like that on the West Coast. They’ll say something along the lines of “I cut hair” but you’ll never hear anyone say, “I drive car.” They’ll say, “I drive A car.” Or “I drive Cars,” even though it’s more grammatically correct to drive only one car at a time. But anyways.)
Driving car wasn’t filling in the blanks so the happy newlyweds decided they needed a vacation to think things over. They hightailed it to the Oregon Coast (yup, credit cards; on the West Coast that would be yep). While they were there, an amazing thing happened. They saw a restaurant for sale for almost a million dollars and decided to buy it. Why the hell not; it came with a house and it was right on the Nehalem River which overlooked an Island where Elks (the animals) gathered once a year to mate. I mean, who could resist a view like that – at any price.
The sellers were “Horse People.” They needed to get the hell out of Oregon so they could go ride horse in Kentucky or something. Their middle name was “Creative Financing” so, with the help of Creative Financing, Rock Star decided to be a restaurateur. That lasted two months. Before you could say “what the fuck just happened” they were back in Artsy Fartsy Town, yes, you guessed it, buying house. A different house; they had rented their house on the hill to their attorney friend who couldn’t drive car.
Now we have arrived at MLM Hell. And this part of the story will take them all the way down to California. Oh yes, home of the In-n-Out burger. Double double animal style, extra crispy fries and a chocolate shake. Hold on for one cottin’ pickin’ orgasmic moment while I reminisce.
O.k. done. So. On a whim, Rock Star asked the realtor if he knew anyone who happened to be hiring. Ask and ye shall fucking receive. As it turns out, the wife of the realtor who sold them their house (lease-option to be precise) was in this amazing company which just happened to be in need of quality people. She’d just gotten a check for a thousand dollars. Boom. Just like that. And she’d only been doing it a couple weeks.
The happy young couple decided to sign up. They could really use a thousand dollars right about now. And that’s when stuff really started happening for them. They sold their house, bought an RV. Traded their car in for two more cars – one to tow…the other one…actually, I don’t know what that one was for but it was a such sweet adorable little brand new white camaro with the cutest little kitten face, and, you know, since they were going to move to California to open an office for the new MLM company they’d just joined, they were definitely going to need that T-Top. And, as they say, fake it ‘til you make it. What better way of faking it than to have way more cars than you need? Talk about driving car. Oops; driving cars.
And that’s exactly what they did. Once upon a time the happy little couple and their lovely elfin daughter moved into their RV, hightailed it down to California, and with the help of an amazing profusion of credit cards that just kept flying at them out of the wild blue yonder (43 total, every single one of them maxed out when all was said and done), they opened that office. Everyone in the company said it was indeed the biggest, and most beautiful office. Desks filled up instantaneously. Of course, they were lousy at selling so they didn’t make any money (other than desk rent – even though you weren’t supposed to do that. Ssh; don’t tell anyone).
But, lo and behold, the horizon darkened. MLM’s work off the same set of principals that cults operate from. And MLM companies have their own set of rules. Or lack thereof.
One of the head honchos in the company decided that his britches weren’t big enough for him. He wanted Rockstar’s desk. No: he wanted Rock Star’s whole office. Head Honcho kicked Rock Star/Artist/Hippy/Chauffeur/Restaurateur/Entrepreneur/Really Lousy Salesman out of his own office. How could that possibly happen, you ask? Well, anyone who’s ever been sucked into a cult, and survived to tell about it, will understand. If you don’t know anything about cults, use your imagination, or do some research. People have been known to give away their children under the influence of cults.
What happened next is called The Dark Side. The happy young couple ran out of money, got evicted from their apartment (fortunately this didn’t happen until after they’d had their second child), faked their way (financially) into another apartment, got evicted from that, moved into their RV, lived from parking lot to parking lot, and lost hope. After much hell, they separated, got back together, separated, almost got back together, moved to two separate states and eventually got a divorce.
In conclusion, it is true that this happy young couple were undeniably (and almost unforgivably) stupid. They were asking for that MLM company to come knocking on their door. But the truth about MLM’s is this: they destroy more people than they help. For every one millionaire they create, there are countless people who lose everything. The people in those companies – the ones who know what they are doing – will make promises while sucking you dry. And those bastards are extremely good at what they do best: manipulate. They find out your hopes and dreams and exploit them. They figure out your fears and use them to their advantage. They study the art of group hypnosis and they work it. They’ll get you at your most vulnerable. This young couple was stupid, that is true, but you don’t have to be stupid to get suckered: everyone has a weakness – a button just waiting to be pushed by a clever greedy bastard.
In this crappy economy there are a lot of desperate people who may be willing to try just about anything. My advice is, unless you are capable of taking one long road trip through hell and seeing it as an adventure, stay the hell away from MLM’s. They’ll eat you alive, digest your life-savings and spit out the bones without remorse.
Now, if you just really, really have an uncontrollable urge to throw away all your money, then for Christ’s sake, throw it away on your dreams. You know, drive to California and get that In-n-Out burger. And then head to Paris, and Italy, and… (we could have taken a trip around the world with the money we put into that MLM, which really sucks because Paris has the best hot dogs in the world and I’d much rather have had 400,000 Parisian hotdogs than all those shitty water filters).
http://www.cultnews.com/archives/000689.html ß link to the piece-of-shit MLM Guru Bastard that got our money..and just about everything else. Watch out, looks like he’s back again.
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