When I was a recently married 22 year old, my groom and I moved hundreds of miles away to a small town in Virginia. We were fresh out of college and didn't know anyone. I had a hard time adjusting to life out of college....I didn't have a friend in the town and I was frantically searching for a job. Both things didn't do wonders for my happiness.
One Sunday, Brian and I decided to visit the local Presbyterian Church. It felt good to be around other people and during the part of the service where you "Greet your neighbor", we met a very friendly couple. I briefly talked about how we recently moved to the area and how I was searching for a job. Later that week, we received a phone call from the couple. (I can't remember their names....let's call them Deirdra and Darren.) Deirdra asked if they could come visit us. She mentioned that she had a job prospect for me.
I hung up the phone and was on cloud nine. Visitors! Job?! I scrubbed our apartment from top to bottom. I got out our recently received china. I filled the sugar and cream bowls. I baked brownies. Mountain Dew and Diet Coke were the extent of my caffeine experience so I sent Brian to the grocery store for coffee. We broke out our new coffee pot. I followed the instructions to a T. Everything had to be perfect.
I lit candles. I turned on classical music. I waited for our visitors to arrive.
They arrived. I poured coffee and sliced brownies and made pleasant small talk.
Then Deirdra asked me if I'd heard of Amway? I hadn't. "Oh it's this wonderful company that sells amazing products. You would be a wonderful addition to our sales team." She opened her bag and brought out detergent and cleaning samples.
Even my naive 22 year old self could see through this load of crap. My hopes crashed. I spent how much time and energy preparing for their visit? And now they are asking me to be part of their pyramid scheme?
We curtly ended our visit and ushered them to the door. I was fuming. What right did they have? They must have gotten our contact information off of the "Friendship Registry" at the church. The nerve.
I often think about this story and every time my heart sinks at the blatant deception. But was it deception? Deirdra was very excited to share the "Good News" of Amway to me...she just picked the wrong person to share it with.
3 comments:
I think it is deceitful to lure someone. We had this same thing happen to us about 8 years ago and were so excited until we met with the people. They had made it sound like Shane could have a dream job.
Then about 45 minutes into it...it came out that it was Amway, even though I was asking the whole time if it was. What a waste of time!!
It's not the Amway part of the business that caused their poor reputation, it's the Amway tool scam that did it. See the details on my blog, I suggest you start here: http://tiny.cc/D5oJh and forward it to everyone you know so they don't get scammed.
A few years after college my roommate called to say that he and his wife would be coming to St. Louis. He wanted me to meet his wife and so we invited them to dinner and to spend the evening catching up. He had gone big time into farming and I was looking forward to hearing all about that. Following dinner, Stan went to his car returning with a flip chart and a whole lot of Amway materials. I was pretty blunt about my lack of interest, but it still took awhile to get them out of my house.
Post a Comment