Know something I hate?
Multi-level marketing.
I know it's genius in theory. You get other people to sell overpriced crap to their acquaintances and friends, taking a nice percentage of their sales for yourself and your cohorts.
I really feel bad for those people who are suckered into it. It's usually honest people trying to scrape by. They need some spare money, and these stupid MLM schemes usually have them invest in large amounts of inventory. This, of course, puts money into the executives' pockets while taking it from the person trying to scrape by and who is trying to build her business.
Then person who is trying to scrape by pesters everyone she knows about hosting one of these stupid parties to sell her overpriced wares. All of these parties are the same: Mary Kay, purse parties, passion parties, Pampered Chef, Partylite, Scentsy, etc. It's all overpriced crap that you don't need or can get a far less expensive version of at Target or the dollar store.
Mary Kay - let's goop on the overpriced makeup to catch a man...
Purse parties - let's buy cute overpriced purses to impress our friends in our social circle
Passion parties - let's snicker as we fondle overpriced sex toys to keep our man pleased
Pampered Chef - let's show off our impressive cooking skills with overpriced kitchen gadgets
Partylite - let's smell up our house with overpriced candles
Scentsy - candles are dangerous with kids around, let's ooh and aaah over fancy versions of Glade plug ins
Not only are these parties estrogen fests combined with high pressure sales tactics, they are completely discriminatory.
Why can't men be the targets of MLM strategies? WHY WHY WHY WHY??? Why don't they want to get together in groups of 10-20 and ooh & aaah over overpriced crap and sales pitches? Oh yeah, because they'd rather DO something - something like watch a sports game or play a sports game or watch paint dry. For some reason, they don't want to get makeovers, fondle sex toys around other men, or smell candles. Duuuuude, if they knew how much they were missing out on....
So because I was born this way, I have to be the lucky recipient of dozens of evites to these hideous parties while my husband looks at me in a perplexed way as I explain that the "party" I was invited to isn't really a party.
I say all this as a Pampered Chef party is starting in 30 minutes. I don't want to go. I'm tired. I hate MLM. I'm already going to be in a group of 4 women tomorrow all day, so my estrogen tolerance is extremely low.
4 comments:
I guess the advantage of being picky and brand loyal is that you don't get targeted for these MLM schemes.
I buy my kitchen gadgets from William Sonoma, Le Creuset or Sur La Table (can spend a day at their outlets)
Makeup is from Sephora
Will only buy Henri Bendel candles
No Scentsy, prefer Anthousa reed diffusers
Purses are Kate Spade (outlet, but still...)
And because I have a touch of OCD, people leave me and my peculiarities alone. :)
Feel fortunate. The less you have to deal with it, the better. And if you ever buy one thing, you can never get off the list.
I have surprisingly few material possessions, largely because of my peculiarities. After a while, people don't bother asking me to go shopping because I'm just a little too odd. Works for me!
I've noticed that a lot who get involved in MLM are deeply religious. Not all, of course, but a lot. If you don't hang out around that crowd, I suspect you wouldn't get hit up a lot. Plus, having peculiarities always helps!
Post a Comment