| 6/29/01
• PYRAMID SCHEME
The guy in charge may be in denial, but this sure as hell feels
like a pyramid scheme.
When your fancy-pants-high-priced-college-degree doesn’t
seem to be helping you in your job quest, you find yourself
prone to doing silly things. For instance, talking to people
who have obviously cold-called you about something and letting
the conversation advance beyond the phrase, “Yes, this
is Mr. Rolnick.”
I was sitting in my living room, quite innocently, when the
phone rang and a young man on the other line asked me if I was
still searching for a new job. Without any real hesitation,
I said I was, and wondered out loud who he was and why he would
know such a thing. The polite gentleman informed me that his
name was “Matt” and that he was calling from a marketing
company called “Dynamics International.” I rolled
my eyes and slipped in the question, “is this in any way
a cold-call about me working for you in some sort of sales capacity?”
Matt insisted that he was on the level, and merely wanted me
to come on down to talk to them about open positions with their
company’s soon to be open office in downtown Chicago.
“Market management and customer care,” he swore,
“no sales.”
Like a sap with nothing better to do that week, I agreed to
come to their interview/information session and took down the
directions (noting to myself that this trek would take me out
to Schaumburg and near that nifty little Sports Authority that
just maybe would have shipped in some new hockey sticks). And
there it was. I had an appointment for an interview. I was being
proactive. I was taking the bull by the horns. I was magically
willing jobs out of thin air. I was the soon-to-be-employed-M-A-N.
So I woke up on the early side Thursday morning, and I showered
and shaved. I put on my fancy pants, and my shiny shoes, a cleanly
pressed shirt (with buttons down the front, a collar and everything!),
and even a crisp new tie. I drove around the corner to Kinko’s
and printed up some resumes on actual “resume paper.”
And then I got out on the highway, and pushed down very hard
on the gas pedal to get my sharp-looking ass there on time.
The appointment was at one o’clock and they asked me to
be there about ten minutes early. I rolled into the front door
of the Harris Bank Building at 12:49 p.m. You can’t really
get much better than that, right? Out of the elevator and in
their front door at 12:50. Remember now, at this point, I was
the M-A-N.
The building looked respectable and the outside of Suite 304
was standard issue, but definitely business like. Stepping through
the front door, however, was all it took to change my opinions
about my surroundings.
“When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see
things as they truly are.”
--William Blake
Oh yeah, baby, the minute I stepped through that front door,
my Bullshit Detector went wild and my hopes began sinking faster
than a certain iceberg-friendly cruise ship.
The big letters on the far well read, “Dynamics International,”
and the motley crew of applicants were both seated and standing
in the makeshift foyer. Most were dressed nicely in business
outfits, but a few were dressed down, and one impressive young
man had arrived in a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.
Add to that, two important “this just ain’t right”
giveaways: 1) the overly amplified sounds of adult contemporary
music being pumped over the office speaker system (nothing like
a little Celine Dion to say, “we’re a hip organization
with class and panache”), and 2) the incredibly tasteful
“motivational posters” aligned in neat little rows
along the office walls. You know, the ones with dolphins swimming
across airbrushed oceans, with the word “Determination”
carefully defined below. But I had driven many miles and paid
a forty-cent toll to get here, I wasn’t about to leave
without hearing the pitch. Besides, maybe, just maybe, there
really was a customer care job in downtown Chicago to be had
here.
Slowly, the overly friendly (and intriguingly young) staff ushered
us all into the next room to mix and mingle before the presentation.
I knew the company was being picky about prospective employees
when they informed someone’s friend (who was obviously
the one with the car) to come join in as well. “Bet they
don’t have fresh resumes on Glacier Mist paper,”
I smugly mused to myself.
Upon entering the second room, I got the feeling that this wasn’t
exactly a permanent office space. Small tables were setup facing
the far wall, which housed a large dry-erase board. There didn’t
seem to be any computers or phones, and the walls in this side
of the office were conspicuously bare. But that wasn’t
what got me.
What got me? Well, after I had made the acquaintance of two
other prospective employees, I noticed something over the one
woman’s shoulder. There, neatly arranged on two display
tables, lay an assortment of products, ranging from water filters
to shampoos bottles to liquid vitamin supplements. I shook my
head and heard young polite Matt’s voice echo in the blank
space between my ears (where my brain once retained a residence),
“absolutely no sales, Greg.”
But did I run? No way. I took my seat and listened to a pretty
young lady with nice legs tell me all about this wonderful company
called Trek Alliance. She told me how Trek Alliance manufactured
environmentally safe household products, and how by selling
these products directly to customers through word of mouth marketing
(or direct marketing as we in the business like to call it),
Trek Alliance reps made LOTS OF MONEY. Oh yeah, these employees
were rolling in money. How? Oh, easy! See, whenever you sold
something you made a healthy commission. But that wasn’t
the end of it! No, Sir. See, with Trek Alliance, you also got
other people involved in selling their glorious products. And
whenever someone you helped “train” sold something,
you got a piece of their action as well. But, wait, there’s
more! See, whenever someone you trained got someone else to
join the sales force, you could make a piece of whatever THOSE
people sold! Can’t you just see the dump trucks full of
cash rolling in? Imagine! Making money without really having
to do any work! Hell, as long as you had other people making
sales, you were still making money! And if YOU kept on selling
(and recruiting new folks to this fantastic capitalist endeavor)
then you could make more money than you ever DREAMED of! Wow.
Impressive. A gets 5 B’s who then get 25 C’s, and
so on, snowballing into a structure that seems to resemble,
well, a giant pyramid. Amazing.
So after our pretty young lady has given us her life affirming
story of how Trek Alliance saved her from dead-end jobs and
helped her on her way to wealth and luxury, the local owner/manager
took over. An ex-professional hockey player, our new speaker
was a looming presence in pin stripes. He boomed on about the
crippling effects of the regular corporate world and how one
could never really get ahead. He explained how Trek Alliance
wasn’t based on internal competition, but rather how the
company’s sales structure made money by encouraging EVERYONE
to bust some ass and sell some product, and thus make LOTS OF
MONEY. He told some amusing jokes and made some interesting
points. However, I was a bit soured on his performance due to
the overzealous appreciation of one of his employees.
The attractive young lady (see a trend here?) “uh-huh’d”
and “oh yeah’d” every point made and
laughed with milk-out-the-nose intensity at every pun, joke,
or innuendo proffered forth by our speaker. I meant to leave
a note in the suggestion box on my way out that one should tone
it down a bit, lest we begin to disbelieve their sincerity (or
whether or not this is the first time they’ve heard the
man speak).
But I digress…
Over the next twenty minutes he explained how by simply purchasing
a Trek Alliance starter kit for fifty dollars, and maybe by
attending a seminar or two for a mere two hundred dollars a
pop, one could be quickly on the way to the fast track. Hell,
he even showed us taped testimonials on the TV! Can’t
beat that with a stick.
Lest you think our host was being less than honest, he not only
offered to refund anyone who felt let down by the seminar their
full money back, but he also promised that if you could bring
five friends to the Saturday seminar, you would (ready for this?)
GET IN FOR FREE! It seemed fair to me. I mean, after all you
did manage to bring in five friends and help raise another thousand
dollars for the cause, right?
By the time the gentleman was finished I felt like I was being
courted by an economic cult. The big smiles, gleaming eyes,
and of course, the “pay first, make oodles of cash later”
philosophy had me keeping one hand on my wallet as if I was
back in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Speaking of back,
I was all set to back on out of there, but first I had a few
quick questions for my main man, Matt.
“So what do you think?” Matt inquired of me, with
a big smile on his money-making face.
“Um, Matt, buddy, didn’t you tell me on the phone
that this wasn’t a sales position?” I innocently
inquired.
“Well, sales is only a part of what we do, Greg.”
”Matt, my good friend, sales appears to be ALL you do.”
And sticking out his hand he said, “Well, thanks for coming
then.”
On my way out the door I wondered about two things: 1) whatever
happened to Dynamics International?, and 2) Do you think Sports
Authority is hiring?
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