In body or in spirit, a wrong decision could equal this.(channel.nationalgeographic.com)
If you know me or have seen some of my rants, I not a big fan with what's on TV. In fact, the last show I followed from beginning to end as it was happening was 'Boston Public', and even that got ridiculous after the second season. I would think that even my high school would have shut down with all that dysfunction. In some ways, it isn't necessarily about the shows. Sometimes, the fans of these shows take an elitist mentality, telling you that you will not get it in trying to follow it, only to tell you that your purchase of 5 seasons on DVD isn't worth it when the final episode comes along. I can only imagine how the 'Lost' fallout is gonna be like in a couple of months. Whether it's '24' or 'The Sopranos', the modern show has you so high with optimism, only to have you question everything about Hollywood after the third season due to some massive curveballs. Recently however, there has been this one show I have been magnetized to. There's this program on National Geographic, 'Locked Up Abroad', mostly detailing the accounts of real people who got caught smuggling some not-so-legal substances from foreign countries, and paid for it with their freedom. My YouTube history is just filled with clips from these intense mini documentaries. It's all predictable, but it has the most captivating re-enactments of any show with all the pauses and slow-downs, which makes me think that this show has better acting than about 75% of what's on TV currently. Recently though, I found that there is something about this show that hits on a personal level. Originally, I was quick to calling these smugglers the dumbest ducks on the pond, but an experience in my life made me realize something. You see, today marks the one year anniversary of me leaving that sketchy MLN (multi-line marketing, another clever euphemism for a pyramid scheme) sales job, which was a mess I should have never been in the first place. In many of these episodes, I find myself in the story of the interviewee, almost like I've been through that exact situation before, right down to virtually every segment of the episode. I learned through the show and through this particular experience in my life that when the tides turn your situation upside down, it's much easier to be a casualty of the system. You have no idea how long I've been waiting to write something on this crummy experience, and now I have the perfect lens to articulate this story. Listen up, ladies and gents! I know this seems like a long read, but there is a lesson to be learned through all of this.
Philly for the company party, 5 days before I left.(CEB II)
The "My Life Is Bland, I'm Broke And I Need To Improve It" Intro
In most of these episodes (especially the drug ones), the subject states that they were working some dead-end job or had no job while living in a bleak town (Shocker: A lot of these are from Britain). These people talk themselves into the fact that they have very few options if any and like any other young person, are intrigued by the advancement of his/her financial situation to access multiple opportunities and travel the world (eerily familiar). Enter me, who right before Christmas got laid off from his job in the middle of a bad economy, especially bad for my concentration (marketing), which was one of the sets of jobs that wasn't faring too well in the market fallout. Looking back, I was completely moronic in thinking I was in such a desperate situation. I mean, I had a ton of money in the bank (those were the days), for I had a Eurotrip to fund as well as unemployment insurance queued up for me for the next couple of months. It goes back to my New Year's entry on how the human mind can convince itself that anything is a good idea, even something with a ton of red flags, only because you have your eyes on a prize that really isn't attainable. Sorry folks, this story gets worse.
The "This Looks Slightly Off, But Seems Otherwise Legitimate" Moment
In the show (see: Venezuela, Mexico episodes among others), this moment usually occurs at some bar or club where they run into a guy who makes the convincing proposition, usually consisting of an all-expenses paid vacation and a significant sum of money in exchange for bringing back a small package. The subject(s) usually ask what the contents are, and get the chilling response of it being a white powder that isn't baby powder. The drug lord however will ease the worries of the future participants by saying it's only a kilo or two, that everyone is paid off and no one has ever been caught. I find this eerily similar to the three interviews that I had with this MLN company, two of which were in this less than average looking office building. The first buttered me up with a generic 15 minutes of what they do and which clients they serve, and then they said that they would call me for the 2nd interview (pretty close to right away), which was a walk-through of the door-to-door part of it. Mind you, my walk-through was on New Year's Eve during a hefty snowfall (huge red flag). During this "interview", they bring you to lunch and show you the pay scale, which is based on commissions, and formulate it so if you make a few leads a day ($50 a lead for gutters and windows, although I learned a few weeks later that door leads were actually $35), you can be making more money than you can even dream of, and in a year I could be running my own office. In my mind, I found it kind of weird that they had me wear a suit and tie for all of this outdoor roaming, or that my college degree in reality wasn't that useful for this profession, but it looked like an intriguing opportunity in a time where not many were present. Bad mistake Chucky, bad mistake.
The "Fate Changing Step Into The Quicksand of Hell" Moment
It's the all-dreaded moment in the show where the subject(s) make the fateful decision to oversee all the red flags and make the shady journey to doom. In many of the episodes (see: Lima, Cuzco, just about all the drug ones), there is hesitation and doubt, but in the end, the future drug mules end up willing to carry out the task either because they feel as if they have no choice, or they talk themselves into the fact that it's an opportunity too good to be missed. For myself, I felt a bit of both. The first two interviews presented me several warnings, like the hints that I would be working nights outside in some inclimate weather with no guarantee of getting consistent pay. All I saw unfortunately, was the office and loads of cash. I thought that I couldn't get this kind of chance with anyone else during this awful recession. So when my observer went in the manager's office to request a third interview (which I found out later is just to tell the manager I basically had a pulse and didn't revolt during the day), I felt like I was making the first step into the rest of my life. I told the manager I would start right away, which I later learned in training, were the magic words that would open up that box of fools' gold. My foot was firmly entrenched into the pathway to hell.
The Glaring "I Have To Get Out Of This" Moment
This part of the episode usually comes during or after the high of the paid vacation when the realization of what they are actually doing becomes all too real. The first example that comes to mind is in the Jamaica episode, where T.K. decides to whip out her bag of ganja she just bought at a newspaper stand, only to have her gangster accomplices freak out on her, and thus when she finds out that the sticky icky is illegal in Jamaica. It was then she realized that she was in a world of hurt, considering it was marijuana that she was going to be smuggling through Jamaican customs in a few days. That day for me was a couple weeks in. In the beginning I had some success, but the rigors of the lifestyle were killing me. The cold weather, an all-fast food diet, getting home late at night with my dinner in the microwave, and the questioning of whether I was passionate enough about this job. I mean, I was offering free estimates on certain home improvement repairs. Did I wanna risk frostbite for this? Especially when my manager kept dodging the question of health insurance, considering it is required by law in the state of Massachusetts (However, he was always annoyed when I wore my winter hat indoors when I walked into that cold office. Things that make you go, 'What?!?!'). Worst off, some days it felt like I was dodging the police, for there were many times in the beginning where I had an intuition we needed a license in some of these towns in order to canvass the area. But just when the job and the weather couldn't get any more dodgy, one Wednesday in January, it did. The philosophy for these MLN companies who do residential work is that the crappy days are the best because everyone is at home, regardless of the pneumonia risk. So an 'intensity day' is implemented, when an salesman gets a certain amount of leads that seems attainable (usually 2), to pick up a quick ticket home, Trust me, easier said than done in stormy weather.
The location was Arlington, MA on a day where the cold was accompanied by every form of precipitation. My jacket was covered by a layer of ice, all my sign-up gear was frozen and virtually every house had an uphill, icy climb to the doorstep. There must have been at least 6 instances where I almost cracked my skull from slipping on the ice as if an invisible Troy Polamalu up-ended me from behind. It was there where I met the most resistance from frosty people, probably influenced by the bleak conditions. There was one particular incident where I went to a house with a 'NO SOLICITING' sign on it, with the MLN philosophy usually being they will be nice to you because they rarely get visitors, or they had just moved in the house. What I got was an epic tongue lashing from a middle-aged man which almost got me a free ride in a cop car (getting kinda ironic). Not a moment soon after came a call from my manager, which felt like I was being watched from a sniper tower. He asked me how I was doing, followed by how it sounded like I didn't have a positive attitude, and that it needed to change. No s!@#, Sherlock! I'm a chocsicle, my papers are so frozen that I can't sign anybody up and I almost got arrested 30 seconds ago! Tough love in that situation obviously wasn't a good motivation technique. It was then and there in the middle of an Arlington neighborhood where I broke a cardinal rule. I used the phone to call back a couple of friends that had called me earlier in the day. It was then that my enthusiasm for this job officially started to wane. After that day in the field, the other four in the office started to treat me with kid gloves, almost training me from scratch. Looking back, it wasn't necessarily because I wasn't executing, I just didn't give a damn about trying anymore. That freeze-dried day in Arlington was the pivot point, the point of no return and the point of realizing how ludicrous this job was.
The "Arrival To The Slum That Makes The Moment All Too Real" Part
In many of the episodes, the drug mules get sent to this rough part of town, where they will have the drugs strategically packed in their bags, or have the contraband strapped to their own bodies. It is at this point where the participant(s) in this scheme are now roaming in the visual representation of how out-of-their-element they are truly in. In a way, it is an insight to their doomed future and the unpredictable environment they will face when they go in the slammer. Let's time travel to late January 2009, to Wayne, New Jersey, where me and two others were sent on a 'road trip' to train in one of the best ran MLN offices in the country. It was our manager who told us about a $40/night Ramada Inn, which existed in structure, but not in price. After a 4-hour drive and a little bit of disappointment, we end up staying at this sketchy motel near some old truck trailers with an chain smoking, 70-year old dude manning the front desk. Apparently, we find out the next day that in order to get a room at the Ramada for that cheap, we simply had to go on Priceline.com and enter it in. Kind of an important detail to leave out. Anyhoo, this New Jersey office primarily focused on Home Depot and estimates on cabinet resurfacing. It was an indoor operation, meaning it was 72 degrees and sunny everyday! It was there that I found out that even the best salespeople were implementing unethical practices, for example calling a contractor relative to give a name of one of their own customers, only to have them call it off under 24 hours before the scheduled appointment to secure the $35 dollar lead. Another pitfall was that the promotion was over saturated, meaning that people were starting to hear the same pitches everyday from different sales people. Even some of the sales pitches were so uncomfortable, that they felt like a purse snag away from resembling an all-out robbery. Most of the people in the store didn't even care to even think about repairs. Recession, remember? Did I have to be that much of a bad person to do this job? Probably just like the drug mules in the slum scenes, I realized I was stepping into one shady world.
The "Tropical Vacation" Part
Unlike in the show, the "tropical vacation" didn't come for me till after all of the other horrors. It was in the form of a company party in Philly, where all these Cydcor/Smart Circle based companies get together to get brainwashed by the top dogs, and then get drunk and crunk on the dance floor. The presence of Budweisers and babes made it feel like a Utopian oasis in a desert of fraudulence. Just when I was about to settle into my little paradise, my manager brought me and the rest of the crew to a club where his brother's friend was the drummer in the band playing that night. It was that camaraderie of twenty-somethings that can make any night a good night, including seeing a girl in that small venue, let's just say didn't need to learn how to swim. It was probably that camaraderie that kept me from leaving after that brutal day in Arlington a week before. It was like I owed them my allegiance and my success and that we were truly all in it for each other. Like the vacations in the episodes, the company party was just a quick escape from the reality that I was truly involved in. While I was relishing indulging in some European brews and melodic tunes, I won't lie, looking back, I definitely wished that I went back to the hip scene at the Marriott, especially knowing what happened 5 days later (Although still scarred by seeing the New Jersey manager drunk and shirtless after coming back from the club. Yup, you guessed it. Another red flag.).
The "Moment Of Truth" Moment
Well it was back to the grind outside in the teens and single-digit temperatures of southern New Hampshire, where before I dragged my feet through another New Hampshire town, I found out that my manager wouldn't cover the costs of the transmission breakdown that one of our associates had the day before the Philly excursion, and the even more bogus part that I would somehow owe money by the end of this, even though I would never know if I would get my check from my work in New Jersey in the first place. Give that a red flag for un-business like conduct. I mean, aren't businesses supposed to cover all travel costs? I thought of myself and my Jeep, which is always on the verge of creating smoke of its own and thought, "How could I afford to be in this circus?". After doing quite well in the indoor confines of Home Depot, I got right back into my funk. The whole job had started to wear me down completely. All the lack of ethics, the faux professionalism, the constant purchases of hand warmers, what and who I was working for, it was like a 5-ton boulder on my head and spirit. Bring the time machine to Thursday, February 5th in Merrimack, NH, during a 10-lead group intensity day. The monotony was the same, passionless romp through another New Hampshire neighborhood, thinking about future options and of course, avoiding all "NO SOLICITING" signs. It was 7:30 in the evening and pitch black when I approached this house that would eventually decide my fate.
When I began my 5-step sales pitch, she couldn't hear me due to the sound of her running faucet, prompting her to ask me to come in. When doing residential, it is always a treat when someone allows you in, not just for the warmth that the candy and hot chocolate provides, but it makes the pitch much more conversational. I found out that the man worked near my hometown. She had stated that she and her husband had saw me and felt empathy for me, and revealed that they were Jehovah's Witnesses, which helped me gain an almost painful insight on how people felt about me and my current profession. After a 30 minute time-killing convo with the compassionate couple, I walked outside so that I can be picked up by my crew. While I rolled another doughnut, the rest of the group got a combined 9 of 10 possible leads. The car ride home had that pink elephant in the room feel. Almost like in the Brazil episode where none of the drug-packed friends were talking to each other on the way to the airport, no one was talking to me. It was that feeling in the airport that each drug mule describes as if every one in that area knows what they are up to, and what their scheme was. Amidst the sounds of alternative rock on the radio, I felt no different.
The Aftermath
Getting back was almost a relief, considering the awkwardness of rolling another doughnut was paralyzing me. I was tempted to leave right way like I always did, but there was a Celtics-Lakers game on the TV in the office, and also some dude from another MLN company was in the building, who happened to grow up where my manager grew up in Pennsylvania, which proceeded into an hour long conversation where I felt would have been more awkward and impolite to just flee from. After what seemed like an eternity, the reminiscing finally ended and I rushed to my old Jeep, which takes 5 minutes and a black magic ritual to start in the cold. When the engine finally hummed, I drove off realizing I couldn't do this to myself anymore (Vividly remember the Pearl Jam song 'Release' play on my iPod on the ride home. Omen?). Of course, the decision was made easier when my mentor texted me and said to take Friday and Saturday off. Red flag for unprofessionalism. What happened to face-to-face assessment? That moment was the opening of the cage for me, where I could choose to run free. That's when I realized, like smuggling heroin in a girdle out of Bangladesh, this MLN crap was a joke, a crime and a waste of time (sorry for the rhyme...damn it!). Finally, I had stopped accepting the absurdities of this job that were previously being taught to me as necessary realities.
So how do I feel afterward? For one, I will not have ill will to another Jehovah's Witness after this. I will still make some jokes, because that's just how I am, but nothing evil out of this heart will be directed towards them, that's for sure. As for the job, I feel as if I was the one who actually listened to his instincts and flushed the drugs down the toilet like the people in the show should have. Amazingly enough, I lasted a month in that compnay, more time than a kid I met in my first days who had served our great country in the deserts of Iraq. Damn, I saw kids devise clever excuses to get out of the hell in their first day! However, like Daniel in the Ecuador episode, I still feel that greyness from the experience at the end of it all. Writing a mini-novel about this probably shows that I still may have not gotten over it. I'm free of the experience, but there is no joy that comes out of being free. It's not like I can put a company like this, who are linked to many others with poor reputations, on my resume, which makes it a wasted month of work experience. But in the end, what hurts the most is that I can't really blame those in the companies. In a way, they are victims too, especially the ones who had been in it for months and were a sniff way from that promised managerial spot. They had already spent too much time away from their families, friends and their significant others to get this close. Why stop now? Those are the ones I truly feel for. The hardest part is that I have to acknowledge that I made my own bed. The fact that I'm very conscious about cults and brainwashing makes me feel even worse about being duped. In the intro, I said that anyone can be vulnerable to seedy situations if they perceive themselves vulnerable, and even the very aware can be victims of trickery if the right buttons are pressed. Like these drug mules turned unsuspecting convicts, I ultimately convinced myself I needed this job when I truly didn't, and got what I asked for in not recognizing all the warning signs, setting up a huge mea culpa. Another thing, DON'T JOIN THOSE MLN COMPANIES! These will be the companies all over the job search sites that promise an entry level position with management training, and some even say they work in sports (knocking my head with a hammer that I didn't see this before). They make it seem like they are in it for your own interests when in reality, they are just using you as a step for their ladder of success, a deceitful system if you ask me. Especially if it's about money, always think whether the personal pros are worth the consequences of the personal cons before putting yourself in a venture. If they say anyone can do it, ask those people to give you an honest answer as to why there aren't a ton of millionaires doing this job. In the end, the only way to make myself happy about this situation is that luckily, I got out before I trapped myself in that scam, and got locked up in my own prison.
In most of these episodes (especially the drug ones), the subject states that they were working some dead-end job or had no job while living in a bleak town (Shocker: A lot of these are from Britain). These people talk themselves into the fact that they have very few options if any and like any other young person, are intrigued by the advancement of his/her financial situation to access multiple opportunities and travel the world (eerily familiar). Enter me, who right before Christmas got laid off from his job in the middle of a bad economy, especially bad for my concentration (marketing), which was one of the sets of jobs that wasn't faring too well in the market fallout. Looking back, I was completely moronic in thinking I was in such a desperate situation. I mean, I had a ton of money in the bank (those were the days), for I had a Eurotrip to fund as well as unemployment insurance queued up for me for the next couple of months. It goes back to my New Year's entry on how the human mind can convince itself that anything is a good idea, even something with a ton of red flags, only because you have your eyes on a prize that really isn't attainable. Sorry folks, this story gets worse.
The "This Looks Slightly Off, But Seems Otherwise Legitimate" Moment
In the show (see: Venezuela, Mexico episodes among others), this moment usually occurs at some bar or club where they run into a guy who makes the convincing proposition, usually consisting of an all-expenses paid vacation and a significant sum of money in exchange for bringing back a small package. The subject(s) usually ask what the contents are, and get the chilling response of it being a white powder that isn't baby powder. The drug lord however will ease the worries of the future participants by saying it's only a kilo or two, that everyone is paid off and no one has ever been caught. I find this eerily similar to the three interviews that I had with this MLN company, two of which were in this less than average looking office building. The first buttered me up with a generic 15 minutes of what they do and which clients they serve, and then they said that they would call me for the 2nd interview (pretty close to right away), which was a walk-through of the door-to-door part of it. Mind you, my walk-through was on New Year's Eve during a hefty snowfall (huge red flag). During this "interview", they bring you to lunch and show you the pay scale, which is based on commissions, and formulate it so if you make a few leads a day ($50 a lead for gutters and windows, although I learned a few weeks later that door leads were actually $35), you can be making more money than you can even dream of, and in a year I could be running my own office. In my mind, I found it kind of weird that they had me wear a suit and tie for all of this outdoor roaming, or that my college degree in reality wasn't that useful for this profession, but it looked like an intriguing opportunity in a time where not many were present. Bad mistake Chucky, bad mistake.
The "Fate Changing Step Into The Quicksand of Hell" Moment
It's the all-dreaded moment in the show where the subject(s) make the fateful decision to oversee all the red flags and make the shady journey to doom. In many of the episodes (see: Lima, Cuzco, just about all the drug ones), there is hesitation and doubt, but in the end, the future drug mules end up willing to carry out the task either because they feel as if they have no choice, or they talk themselves into the fact that it's an opportunity too good to be missed. For myself, I felt a bit of both. The first two interviews presented me several warnings, like the hints that I would be working nights outside in some inclimate weather with no guarantee of getting consistent pay. All I saw unfortunately, was the office and loads of cash. I thought that I couldn't get this kind of chance with anyone else during this awful recession. So when my observer went in the manager's office to request a third interview (which I found out later is just to tell the manager I basically had a pulse and didn't revolt during the day), I felt like I was making the first step into the rest of my life. I told the manager I would start right away, which I later learned in training, were the magic words that would open up that box of fools' gold. My foot was firmly entrenched into the pathway to hell.
The Glaring "I Have To Get Out Of This" Moment
This part of the episode usually comes during or after the high of the paid vacation when the realization of what they are actually doing becomes all too real. The first example that comes to mind is in the Jamaica episode, where T.K. decides to whip out her bag of ganja she just bought at a newspaper stand, only to have her gangster accomplices freak out on her, and thus when she finds out that the sticky icky is illegal in Jamaica. It was then she realized that she was in a world of hurt, considering it was marijuana that she was going to be smuggling through Jamaican customs in a few days. That day for me was a couple weeks in. In the beginning I had some success, but the rigors of the lifestyle were killing me. The cold weather, an all-fast food diet, getting home late at night with my dinner in the microwave, and the questioning of whether I was passionate enough about this job. I mean, I was offering free estimates on certain home improvement repairs. Did I wanna risk frostbite for this? Especially when my manager kept dodging the question of health insurance, considering it is required by law in the state of Massachusetts (However, he was always annoyed when I wore my winter hat indoors when I walked into that cold office. Things that make you go, 'What?!?!'). Worst off, some days it felt like I was dodging the police, for there were many times in the beginning where I had an intuition we needed a license in some of these towns in order to canvass the area. But just when the job and the weather couldn't get any more dodgy, one Wednesday in January, it did. The philosophy for these MLN companies who do residential work is that the crappy days are the best because everyone is at home, regardless of the pneumonia risk. So an 'intensity day' is implemented, when an salesman gets a certain amount of leads that seems attainable (usually 2), to pick up a quick ticket home, Trust me, easier said than done in stormy weather.
The location was Arlington, MA on a day where the cold was accompanied by every form of precipitation. My jacket was covered by a layer of ice, all my sign-up gear was frozen and virtually every house had an uphill, icy climb to the doorstep. There must have been at least 6 instances where I almost cracked my skull from slipping on the ice as if an invisible Troy Polamalu up-ended me from behind. It was there where I met the most resistance from frosty people, probably influenced by the bleak conditions. There was one particular incident where I went to a house with a 'NO SOLICITING' sign on it, with the MLN philosophy usually being they will be nice to you because they rarely get visitors, or they had just moved in the house. What I got was an epic tongue lashing from a middle-aged man which almost got me a free ride in a cop car (getting kinda ironic). Not a moment soon after came a call from my manager, which felt like I was being watched from a sniper tower. He asked me how I was doing, followed by how it sounded like I didn't have a positive attitude, and that it needed to change. No s!@#, Sherlock! I'm a chocsicle, my papers are so frozen that I can't sign anybody up and I almost got arrested 30 seconds ago! Tough love in that situation obviously wasn't a good motivation technique. It was then and there in the middle of an Arlington neighborhood where I broke a cardinal rule. I used the phone to call back a couple of friends that had called me earlier in the day. It was then that my enthusiasm for this job officially started to wane. After that day in the field, the other four in the office started to treat me with kid gloves, almost training me from scratch. Looking back, it wasn't necessarily because I wasn't executing, I just didn't give a damn about trying anymore. That freeze-dried day in Arlington was the pivot point, the point of no return and the point of realizing how ludicrous this job was.
The "Arrival To The Slum That Makes The Moment All Too Real" Part
In many of the episodes, the drug mules get sent to this rough part of town, where they will have the drugs strategically packed in their bags, or have the contraband strapped to their own bodies. It is at this point where the participant(s) in this scheme are now roaming in the visual representation of how out-of-their-element they are truly in. In a way, it is an insight to their doomed future and the unpredictable environment they will face when they go in the slammer. Let's time travel to late January 2009, to Wayne, New Jersey, where me and two others were sent on a 'road trip' to train in one of the best ran MLN offices in the country. It was our manager who told us about a $40/night Ramada Inn, which existed in structure, but not in price. After a 4-hour drive and a little bit of disappointment, we end up staying at this sketchy motel near some old truck trailers with an chain smoking, 70-year old dude manning the front desk. Apparently, we find out the next day that in order to get a room at the Ramada for that cheap, we simply had to go on Priceline.com and enter it in. Kind of an important detail to leave out. Anyhoo, this New Jersey office primarily focused on Home Depot and estimates on cabinet resurfacing. It was an indoor operation, meaning it was 72 degrees and sunny everyday! It was there that I found out that even the best salespeople were implementing unethical practices, for example calling a contractor relative to give a name of one of their own customers, only to have them call it off under 24 hours before the scheduled appointment to secure the $35 dollar lead. Another pitfall was that the promotion was over saturated, meaning that people were starting to hear the same pitches everyday from different sales people. Even some of the sales pitches were so uncomfortable, that they felt like a purse snag away from resembling an all-out robbery. Most of the people in the store didn't even care to even think about repairs. Recession, remember? Did I have to be that much of a bad person to do this job? Probably just like the drug mules in the slum scenes, I realized I was stepping into one shady world.
The "Tropical Vacation" Part
Unlike in the show, the "tropical vacation" didn't come for me till after all of the other horrors. It was in the form of a company party in Philly, where all these Cydcor/Smart Circle based companies get together to get brainwashed by the top dogs, and then get drunk and crunk on the dance floor. The presence of Budweisers and babes made it feel like a Utopian oasis in a desert of fraudulence. Just when I was about to settle into my little paradise, my manager brought me and the rest of the crew to a club where his brother's friend was the drummer in the band playing that night. It was that camaraderie of twenty-somethings that can make any night a good night, including seeing a girl in that small venue, let's just say didn't need to learn how to swim. It was probably that camaraderie that kept me from leaving after that brutal day in Arlington a week before. It was like I owed them my allegiance and my success and that we were truly all in it for each other. Like the vacations in the episodes, the company party was just a quick escape from the reality that I was truly involved in. While I was relishing indulging in some European brews and melodic tunes, I won't lie, looking back, I definitely wished that I went back to the hip scene at the Marriott, especially knowing what happened 5 days later (Although still scarred by seeing the New Jersey manager drunk and shirtless after coming back from the club. Yup, you guessed it. Another red flag.).
The "Moment Of Truth" Moment
Well it was back to the grind outside in the teens and single-digit temperatures of southern New Hampshire, where before I dragged my feet through another New Hampshire town, I found out that my manager wouldn't cover the costs of the transmission breakdown that one of our associates had the day before the Philly excursion, and the even more bogus part that I would somehow owe money by the end of this, even though I would never know if I would get my check from my work in New Jersey in the first place. Give that a red flag for un-business like conduct. I mean, aren't businesses supposed to cover all travel costs? I thought of myself and my Jeep, which is always on the verge of creating smoke of its own and thought, "How could I afford to be in this circus?". After doing quite well in the indoor confines of Home Depot, I got right back into my funk. The whole job had started to wear me down completely. All the lack of ethics, the faux professionalism, the constant purchases of hand warmers, what and who I was working for, it was like a 5-ton boulder on my head and spirit. Bring the time machine to Thursday, February 5th in Merrimack, NH, during a 10-lead group intensity day. The monotony was the same, passionless romp through another New Hampshire neighborhood, thinking about future options and of course, avoiding all "NO SOLICITING" signs. It was 7:30 in the evening and pitch black when I approached this house that would eventually decide my fate.
When I began my 5-step sales pitch, she couldn't hear me due to the sound of her running faucet, prompting her to ask me to come in. When doing residential, it is always a treat when someone allows you in, not just for the warmth that the candy and hot chocolate provides, but it makes the pitch much more conversational. I found out that the man worked near my hometown. She had stated that she and her husband had saw me and felt empathy for me, and revealed that they were Jehovah's Witnesses, which helped me gain an almost painful insight on how people felt about me and my current profession. After a 30 minute time-killing convo with the compassionate couple, I walked outside so that I can be picked up by my crew. While I rolled another doughnut, the rest of the group got a combined 9 of 10 possible leads. The car ride home had that pink elephant in the room feel. Almost like in the Brazil episode where none of the drug-packed friends were talking to each other on the way to the airport, no one was talking to me. It was that feeling in the airport that each drug mule describes as if every one in that area knows what they are up to, and what their scheme was. Amidst the sounds of alternative rock on the radio, I felt no different.
The Aftermath
Getting back was almost a relief, considering the awkwardness of rolling another doughnut was paralyzing me. I was tempted to leave right way like I always did, but there was a Celtics-Lakers game on the TV in the office, and also some dude from another MLN company was in the building, who happened to grow up where my manager grew up in Pennsylvania, which proceeded into an hour long conversation where I felt would have been more awkward and impolite to just flee from. After what seemed like an eternity, the reminiscing finally ended and I rushed to my old Jeep, which takes 5 minutes and a black magic ritual to start in the cold. When the engine finally hummed, I drove off realizing I couldn't do this to myself anymore (Vividly remember the Pearl Jam song 'Release' play on my iPod on the ride home. Omen?). Of course, the decision was made easier when my mentor texted me and said to take Friday and Saturday off. Red flag for unprofessionalism. What happened to face-to-face assessment? That moment was the opening of the cage for me, where I could choose to run free. That's when I realized, like smuggling heroin in a girdle out of Bangladesh, this MLN crap was a joke, a crime and a waste of time (sorry for the rhyme...damn it!). Finally, I had stopped accepting the absurdities of this job that were previously being taught to me as necessary realities.
So how do I feel afterward? For one, I will not have ill will to another Jehovah's Witness after this. I will still make some jokes, because that's just how I am, but nothing evil out of this heart will be directed towards them, that's for sure. As for the job, I feel as if I was the one who actually listened to his instincts and flushed the drugs down the toilet like the people in the show should have. Amazingly enough, I lasted a month in that compnay, more time than a kid I met in my first days who had served our great country in the deserts of Iraq. Damn, I saw kids devise clever excuses to get out of the hell in their first day! However, like Daniel in the Ecuador episode, I still feel that greyness from the experience at the end of it all. Writing a mini-novel about this probably shows that I still may have not gotten over it. I'm free of the experience, but there is no joy that comes out of being free. It's not like I can put a company like this, who are linked to many others with poor reputations, on my resume, which makes it a wasted month of work experience. But in the end, what hurts the most is that I can't really blame those in the companies. In a way, they are victims too, especially the ones who had been in it for months and were a sniff way from that promised managerial spot. They had already spent too much time away from their families, friends and their significant others to get this close. Why stop now? Those are the ones I truly feel for. The hardest part is that I have to acknowledge that I made my own bed. The fact that I'm very conscious about cults and brainwashing makes me feel even worse about being duped. In the intro, I said that anyone can be vulnerable to seedy situations if they perceive themselves vulnerable, and even the very aware can be victims of trickery if the right buttons are pressed. Like these drug mules turned unsuspecting convicts, I ultimately convinced myself I needed this job when I truly didn't, and got what I asked for in not recognizing all the warning signs, setting up a huge mea culpa. Another thing, DON'T JOIN THOSE MLN COMPANIES! These will be the companies all over the job search sites that promise an entry level position with management training, and some even say they work in sports (knocking my head with a hammer that I didn't see this before). They make it seem like they are in it for your own interests when in reality, they are just using you as a step for their ladder of success, a deceitful system if you ask me. Especially if it's about money, always think whether the personal pros are worth the consequences of the personal cons before putting yourself in a venture. If they say anyone can do it, ask those people to give you an honest answer as to why there aren't a ton of millionaires doing this job. In the end, the only way to make myself happy about this situation is that luckily, I got out before I trapped myself in that scam, and got locked up in my own prison.
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