Keeping your options open?
Monday night was an interesting time. I decided to skip class and catch up on some reading for a paper due today. I ate slowly and tried not to get anything on my book and avoided the dirty/odd looks from the waitstaff.
No longer comfortable with the environment at Chilli's and unable to convince myself that they would indefinitely continue my unlimitted refills of diet coke, I packed up and moved to Panera. Once relocated, with super sugary coffee in hand, I found a comfortable spot to read. Until this guy... just kept talking to me. Admittedly the book I had in hand was rather... uncommon... Beauty and Sadness by Yusinaro Kawabata. It was kind of a conversation starter... I guess.
Eventually, he managed to overcame my reluctance to talk and suddenly became, a Cool Guy. He had a great philosophy on life and had some interesting stories. He had a meeting with somebody later, but for the hour or so until that guy arrived, we stood and talked.
And then things went sinister. Not sinister like a cartoon super villain arrived... but multilevel marketing (MLM) sinister. He asked if he could give me a call the next day, to set up a time to meet again. Only 15 minutes of my time.
The next day he called. And I agreed to meet with him today. What the hell, I'm a sucker for a good conversationalist.
Tuesday afternoon I searched online for the names related to the business card, and wasn't able to figure out the scam. None of the names came up as pure evil on a webpage.
This evening we got together at the same place we originally met. And he ran his spiel on me. It involved some pretty little pictures and diagrams of how they help people move from one category of crappy life to a much better category of non-crappy life. He told me about how he talked me up to his mentor and got approval to do an interview.
I was asked what I would do with $5,000 more income a month. My answers were deemed critical to the next step... People who gave crappy answers like 'drink more' were told to take a hike, but not me... I had potential. I was the type of person they were looking for.
Now, my worth no longer in question... If I were to be given the opportunity, could I move some things around to be able to attend a meeting at the local Holiday Inn on Tuesday? There were people I had to meet. Dress business casual, and be prepared to spend an hour or so with a large group. I begged off on the premise that I had class, and lacking a syllabus with me I couldn't judge whether that class was skip worthy. What if I had an exam?..
After the whole script was recited, which was in all honesty only about 15 minutes... My smooth pitchman turned back into the Cool Guy I had met earlier. And we talked another 45 minutes about absolutely unrelated stuff. I was able to pry a few hinky details from him, but no secrets were to be revealed prior to the big meet.
This time I was able to write down some of the 'big names' he was throwing at me. And sitting here at work I was unable to google up any bad news about anybody... Until I checked up on the email address on the business card. The domain name was bww.com. The main page is ubiquitous... just a login and no identifying features. On a hunch, I grabbed the corporation name (Britt World Wide) and googled up a whole heap of bad tastes.
(My personal favorite is here. Check out the entry from Wednesday August 14th, 2004.)
It's obvious to me, this isn't something I want to get involved with.
Anyway, keeping your options open is one of the tags he used to draw me into conversation... and now, i've managed to keep my options so open, I'm not going to be drawn into the MLM web.
Now the question is... Is this Cool Guy worth keeping as a contact despite his shady connections? We have quite a bit in common and he's very earnest about what he's doing. Or is The Cool Guy just how business is done?
No longer comfortable with the environment at Chilli's and unable to convince myself that they would indefinitely continue my unlimitted refills of diet coke, I packed up and moved to Panera. Once relocated, with super sugary coffee in hand, I found a comfortable spot to read. Until this guy... just kept talking to me. Admittedly the book I had in hand was rather... uncommon... Beauty and Sadness by Yusinaro Kawabata. It was kind of a conversation starter... I guess.
Eventually, he managed to overcame my reluctance to talk and suddenly became, a Cool Guy. He had a great philosophy on life and had some interesting stories. He had a meeting with somebody later, but for the hour or so until that guy arrived, we stood and talked.
And then things went sinister. Not sinister like a cartoon super villain arrived... but multilevel marketing (MLM) sinister. He asked if he could give me a call the next day, to set up a time to meet again. Only 15 minutes of my time.
The next day he called. And I agreed to meet with him today. What the hell, I'm a sucker for a good conversationalist.
Tuesday afternoon I searched online for the names related to the business card, and wasn't able to figure out the scam. None of the names came up as pure evil on a webpage.
This evening we got together at the same place we originally met. And he ran his spiel on me. It involved some pretty little pictures and diagrams of how they help people move from one category of crappy life to a much better category of non-crappy life. He told me about how he talked me up to his mentor and got approval to do an interview.
I was asked what I would do with $5,000 more income a month. My answers were deemed critical to the next step... People who gave crappy answers like 'drink more' were told to take a hike, but not me... I had potential. I was the type of person they were looking for.
Now, my worth no longer in question... If I were to be given the opportunity, could I move some things around to be able to attend a meeting at the local Holiday Inn on Tuesday? There were people I had to meet. Dress business casual, and be prepared to spend an hour or so with a large group. I begged off on the premise that I had class, and lacking a syllabus with me I couldn't judge whether that class was skip worthy. What if I had an exam?..
After the whole script was recited, which was in all honesty only about 15 minutes... My smooth pitchman turned back into the Cool Guy I had met earlier. And we talked another 45 minutes about absolutely unrelated stuff. I was able to pry a few hinky details from him, but no secrets were to be revealed prior to the big meet.
This time I was able to write down some of the 'big names' he was throwing at me. And sitting here at work I was unable to google up any bad news about anybody... Until I checked up on the email address on the business card. The domain name was bww.com. The main page is ubiquitous... just a login and no identifying features. On a hunch, I grabbed the corporation name (Britt World Wide) and googled up a whole heap of bad tastes.
(My personal favorite is here. Check out the entry from Wednesday August 14th, 2004.)
It's obvious to me, this isn't something I want to get involved with.
Anyway, keeping your options open is one of the tags he used to draw me into conversation... and now, i've managed to keep my options so open, I'm not going to be drawn into the MLM web.
Now the question is... Is this Cool Guy worth keeping as a contact despite his shady connections? We have quite a bit in common and he's very earnest about what he's doing. Or is The Cool Guy just how business is done?
posted by BG at 21:04
2 Comments:
Dude, nice research on your Panera experience. What I really want to know is 1) how much a recruiter earns (therefore I would stay in contact with him to try to find out if you don't know already) and 2) whether you got your paper done? ;-)
That happened to me once. I was working in college at a tux shop. This guy came in to get his measurements done, and after a while it was apparent he was not really getting a tux for a 'friend's wedding.' although I didn't let on that i knew he was BSing. I did take the bait to meet at a coffee shop, where I too was asked about what I would do wih all this money and success. Yea sounded all good and all but that's as far is it got. Interesting. There must be people that actually fall for this.
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