Im struggling financially, Im homeless living in my car trying as hard as I can to make a paycheck. So in my desperation for a job I find myself in the office of a Scentura Creations peddling bunch of liars. I try as hard as I can to make it through the first 2 interviews thing Im going to get a "management job" making $415 a week, which would turn my life around, give me a place to live and make me look like Ive got it together in front of my friends and family. Sounds nice, huh? heres an example of the ad I responded to:
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***ENTRY LEVEL***
Date: 2011-10-14, 8:22AM CST
Reply to: see below [Errors when replying to ads?]
Our business has EXPANDED into Palos!!! We are looking for FUN GUYS & GIRLS to TRAIN for ADVANCEMENT in OUR COMPANY to HELP with OUR EXPANSION!!
***BE TRAINED for newly created BRANCH MANAGEMENT or ASSISTANT MANAGER POSITIONS!***
No previous experience necessary. Earn up to $415/week during training!
REQUIREMENTS:
Must show a POSITIVE ATTITUDE
Must display a STRONG WORK ETHIC
Must be RELIABLE
AND READY TO WORK IN A FUN ENERGETIC ENVIRONMENT!
***Call A***** @ *** (708)448-7760 ***
Be prepared to come in and fill out an application immediately!
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These ads run on an almost daily basis, wow...these guys must need alot of managers...lol
So, as a “manger in training” you need to know the business from the ground up to be able to motivate and mentor your team of door to door cologne sales men. Yes you guessed it, manager training equals selling cologne door to door until you are so expert at it that you can train other people to do it and run your own team of cologne selling fools, even the office manager goes out into the "field" to sell cologne. So here’s how it goes, you go in to the first day of orientation psyched that you made it through the initial interviews and and your on your way to a great management career. Hell, your stoked because your getting paid up to $415 a week for training. You come in dressed sharp notebook in hand ready to impress the boss with your skills and abilities. You play some games and to break the ice and get people psyched but then you start to notice that almost everything they do has some catch phrase or almost kindergardenesqe game to it. I’m sure out of the entire office building we were the only ones that yell and scream so much we get noise complaints, one example…the “attitude check”…this one is very important to door to door cologne sales men because its important to keep a positive attitude as you go through you day getting rejected dozens of times as you pitch cologne to people. So you responded to an ad for management with paid training and you end up playing kindergardener games and selling cologne door to door. And of course their is no pay, unless you consider commission only sales to be paid training. So you make 2 bucks off of every bottle you sell, so in order to receive the projected $415 that was advertised you only need to sell 207 bottles of cologne in one week. Maybe I’m not that good of a sales man or maybe I just met the wrong people in every area I went to but I was only able to make 6 sales in my first week of management training/door to door cologne sales, netting a whopping $12 which was probably enough money to cover my gas for my first trip to my first screening interview. Now allot of people quit within the first few days because they realized that door to door sales really sucks ass, even some of the good salesmen quit early on but not me, I’m not a quitter so I blasted forward at full speed, pitching 50-100 people per day and getting rejected time after time after time. We went in grocery stores, gas stations, fast food restaurants, sub shops, hair salons, nail salons, insurance agencies, mattress stores, furniture stores, bars, tobacco shops, liquor stores, clothing stores, dollar stores, mechanic shops, truck stops(you know life is good when you walk up to every trucker in a truckstop at 9pm to pitch cheap cologne), car dealerships, medical offices and of course all of the above only ghetto version. Now I though I been to the ghetto before in my life but that was not the case, because today…I truly went to the ghetto. So here is how it went. I start off the day kind of bummed out because I’m completely broke, not one dollar in my bank account not one dollar in my pocket, wait no I did have a dollar for my morning coffee but that was it, for real…no food money, no gas money, no money for my mounting bills, certainly no 415 dollars for my “paid” training of walking all around town for 8+ hours per day pitching cologne to people. So after a long weekend in Detroit pitching cologne to the ghetto folks of Detroit and making no money we come back to the office Monday morning to get psyched up about pitching cologne to people for what amounts to about 50 cents an hour. I inform the office manager Ryan and also my sales team that I am broke and need to make money immediately for food and gas. As usual they assure me that everything is going to work out and that I just need to go out into the field and drop bottles to get some quick cash. So we get our sales team together, which consists of me a 19yo kid named J**** who kicks my ass at sales and a young black girl named S*****, we grab our merchandise hop in my van and hit the road(gas is on me of course). The kid tells me that he knows a grest spot where he always goes to to get his sales numbers on the upside. Im like great cause I definitely need to make money fast. Being that I don't know the area too well I just take his word for it and begin driving towards downtown Chicago. So were driving and driving and the scenery is getting more and more ghetto. Run down looking shops, abandoned buildings and of course the absence of white people. Pretty soon we reach a busy area that I can describe only as the most ghetto place Ive ever been in my life. Then the kid says says, “this is it, pull over!”… Having worked the ghetto areas of Detroit all weekend I’m well aware of the fact that nerdy looking white guys do not fare well in the hustle of the ghetto and I tell the kid “hey this is a crap area were not gonna make any sales” He responds with “I make so much money here whenever I come here, just come on”. Quickly I become aware that this is a tough crowd, the shop owners are tough sales and the people on the streets are even tougher, most of them are looking at me like I’m crazy for just even being there. Just to give you an idea of how ghetto this area is its basically surrounded by nothing but section 8 housing projects, block after block of brick buildings that all look the same. Many blocks have armed security guards on patrol. And the folks you see…well lets just put it this way, Ive seen big thug looking black dudes in gang regalia before, but Ive never seen a black dude in a turban before this day, or how about the black dudes in the big tall Shriner hats. Yeah, like bizarre and scary. So as were walking down the street I become aware that Im not likely to make any sales, I’m a little scared and I definitely feel out of place, one thuggish black guy is looking at me as if he’s interested in what I’m doing so I pitch him, “hey man Ive got cologne 80% off” his response is “dude you need to get the f*** up outta here” not your standard no, but more a a warning. I take it to heart and tell the kid Im outta here Ill meet him back at the car. So after sitting in the car for about 15 minutes I decide to go gather up my team and get to a better area. I find the black girl right away and we begin driving around looking for the kid. We drive and drive around the area we were supposed to stay in but hes nowhere to be found. After awhile we start to think the worst has happened. hes been pulled into an abandoned building and beaten and robbed or worse. We begin informing the security personal that are friend has gone missing and start to canvas the area looking for him. After an hour of searching we begin to assume that the worst has happened. That poor skinny white dude is tied up in an abandoned building getting prison style raped by a gang of heartless thugs. But low and behold we find his stupid ass way out of the area we were supposed to stay in, which is a little weird, he looks high and is acting strange too. But whatever, that was as much as I could take of this crap ass job. I drove my team back to the office and informed the boss that I was no longer able to perform my tasks as a door to door cologne sales man/slave/manager in training. I was brok(er) tired and very stressed. After jumping through hoops for a week and a half and being promised at least 150-250 (which was a lie) in my first week I was let go because I was not maintaining the right attitude while being broke and starving and not having enough free gas to drive my team around.
