The Devos family is very big in Orlando. They own the Magic, and Og help me, the TD Waterhouse Arena is now the Amway Arena.
LOL! Oh no, they’re taking over! :eek:
I had some MLM drone (Herbalife instead of Amway but same tactics) actually try to recruit then insult me at work last year. I’m the lingerie dept. manager, the money ain’t great and it wasn’t what I wanted to do when I grow up, but it pays the bills, suits my ribald sense of humor, and I like my coworkers and gabbing with the customers. She was an unremarkable (at first) customer. So I help her find a suitable bra, ring her up, here you go, have a good day. Then the following exchange: (note: italics are what I wish I could get away with saying)
Herbalife drone: I just wanted to ask you…
me: the restroom’s one floor up in the housewares department.
HL drone: Are you satisfied with the direction your life is taking right now?
me: *Shit. Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshittyshitshit. * Pretty much, yeah.
HL drone: (sounding chirpy and/or brainwashed) Well, what if I told you you could earn at least 3 times your current salary in less than half the time you spend here, from the comfort of your own home?
me: *I’d say I wasn’t born yesterday, dipshit. * (cheerfully dismissive) Oh, I like this job and housework’s a pain. (to nearby customer) Ma’am, can I help you find anything?
customer: No hurry, you finish up there first.
me: DAMMIT!
HL drone: (whips out brochure, still chirpy) This contains some very inspiring success stories from people who made…
me: No thank you, I’m not interested.
HL hag: (less chirpy, still determined)…their dreams come true by sharing our weight loss products with…
me: * Don’t make me jam a girdle down your windpipe, hag. * No thank you, I’m not interested. Take a hint already!
HL jackass: (whips out sample packs, snidely) Well, I’ll give you some samples of our products too, you could use them…
(I’m admittedly overweight but sure as hell not morbidly obese or anything)
customer: (loud gasp)
me: (reaching for phone) Wait just a moment until I get store security up here, because I don’t have to stand for personal insults.
customer: Yeah, you apologize to that young lady right now!
HL shithead: (ducks and slinks away)
coworker: (who had been watching from a safe distance, the chicken-livered coward. she is also less than 5’ tall and probably 95 pounds after a big dinner) I can’t believe she called you fat! I’d have punched her!
She did leave the brochure, though, which was shown around the floor and snickered at for daysbut despite the amusement value I have a rather dim view of these types of companies…
Damn. What is it with these brainwashed ninnies? They must know something we don’t and we’re just too stubborn to see it. :rolleyes:
Is there a religious/Christian aspect to Amway as well?
Quite a few years ago, a friend of mine talked me into the Amway lifestyle. At the opening meeting, I was asked for cash. If I remember right, it was a hundred bucks or so. For this I was to receive my catalogs and paperwork and a “demo” kit. It was pointed out to me that the retail value of the products in my demo kit was almost twice my initial investment. I signed up.
The first thing I did was to sell most of the products in my demo kit. I was in the black! Over the next few months, I sold the soap. I never ordered a product from my distributer that I did not already have an order for. I was never able to bring myself to try and scam my friends into this, but there are a few products that are really good. The laundry soap and the LOC were my biggest sellers. I wasn’t making huge profits, but i did enough volume that the products I was using (the laundry soap and the LOC) were free.
Meanwhile, the guy who recruited me was buying all of the motivational stuff like “the tape of the week” and the “book of the month.” He was really not happy that I was not buying these, but I was still only ordering the stuff I already had sold.
One month, our “Diamond Direct” guy was going to come into town for a meeting. We met in his hotel room. He talked about how much money he made, and how much we could make if we would just recruit all of our friends into his downline. at the end of the meeting, the guy a couple of steps above me told me that I owed thirty bucks or so to offset the cost of the “Diamond Direct” guy’s hotel room. I told him that the guy had spent a couple of hours telling me how much money he made and he could damn well pay for his own room. I left.
I never turned in another order. I never used the soap or the LOC again. The guy who recruited me took out a second mortgage on his house to “invest it into his future” and spent it paying for trips to Amway motivational meetings and a truckload of product so he could deliver it instantly to his customers.
All in all, I spent six months in Amway. I made a couple of hundred bucks, and free soap. The guy who recruited me eventually ended up declaring bankruptcy.
A friend of mine got into Amway and tried to get me to buy some of the products. I bought one batch of cleaning stuff (washing up liquid, laundry detergent etc). I thought the products were vastly over-priced and not particularly effective. I’ve never bought any Amway products since.
I used to work for Amway corporate, YEARS ago, in their call center in Ada, Michigan.
No - not at the Corporate level. In the various families (mentioned upthread) and so forth, yes.
I’d like to point out that the families (Yaeger, et al) are the ones responsible for the hard sell, the tapes and seminars, etc. I’m sure the DeVos/Van Andel clan could stop them, but then…they sell most of their products, though.
Herbalife is Amway, or was where I worked there. It’s actually not a bad place to work although I will say that not one of the ladies I worked with was a distributor. And I do like some of their products, which we could buy at a company store are real prices. However, there was some mighty tight security as to who could shop there, since everything we bought potentially was a lost sale for a distributor. (And there’s a heap of’em in Ada, as you might imagine.) In later years I head there were some issues but when I worked there it was pretty good. I won a 1000 dollar vaccumm cleaner one Christmas in a raffle!
In all honesty, it was a pretty good way to sell a really good product back in the 50s when the founders started it. But they’ve lost control to the distributors, IMO. When the lawsuit happened there was a lot of back and forth at the corporate level trying to rein them in. But Amway (the company) doesn’t sell motivational books, or tapes, nor does it sponsor the seminars and trips, that’s all on your upline (and mostly Yeager’s group - that guy is creepy.)
Cheers,
G
DeVos made an attempt at running for Govenor here in MIchigan and while I wasn’t really happy with Granholm, the incumbent, I took particular delight in every time she dropped the bon mot of goodness regarding Amway into the debates.
If I had to choose between Amway or a Lawyer for Governor, I’d just shoot them both.
Voldemort '08
Like Hampshire, I was new in an area and looking to establish a social circle. I was really excited when an acquaintance invited me to a “party.” :rolleyes:
I was very timid in those days, so I took the sample case just to “try it out” - when the salesguy tried to get me to pay for it a few days later, I gave the whole thing back to him, untouched. I’m pretty sure he left me alone because I was so shy - no way was I a sales-type.
Some years later, my husband’s best friend/coworker got into it. I was afraid, but apparently Rob valued the friendship more than the potential downline, so he backed off after the initial invitation.
These days, I’m not nearly as timid. Just try to get me to come to a meeting - I dare ya! 
This is funny and sad. 
I think I’ve posted this before, but I once talked to an attorney about some divorce questions I had. I knew the guy was heavily into Amway, but when he tried to solicit me to join his downline at the same appointment, I didn’t hire him. I wasn’t going to pay for the privilege of being recruited. He gave bad advice, too. Thank God I didn’t listen to him.
Robin
I still think that DeVos’ plan to sign up 5 other states as Michigan distributors and getting them to each sign up 5 states would have eventually made Michigan into a Diamond State.
I’ve been wondering about that.
I think that Amway fits into the same space in peoples’ minds that religious cults fit into, especially the exclusionary ones. It provides a social structure and shared goals, which tend to gradually divide the participant from non-Amway society. The rah-rah-rah boosterism and the appeal to greed hook in the emotions, discourage logical criticism, and provide more reinforcement.
I don’t think it’s particularly Christian, except possibly in a superficial window-dressing kind of way. It just uses some of the same mechanisms that some religious cults use.
I remember reading a science fiction story back in the '80s (I think it was in one of the pocket-sized magazines such as IASFM or ANALOG). The setup for the story was a couple of sociology professors trying to justify the funding for their department. They needed to demonstrate that the “soft” science of sociology had practical applications. So they set up a social organization that included cash incentives for getting people to join the “club” and pay an initiation fee.
It resulted in the impending collapse of the economy, and subsequent downfall of civilization.
Can anyone remember what the story was?
Can’t breathe . . . Must stop laughing . . .
But, RJ, you left out the punchline. What did your report back to your father consist of? I’m picturing here two words.
Every time I hear about Amway I think about Glengarry, Glen Ross.
I’ve been lucky, apparently. I had a roommate who was courted by Amway briefly. He was such a slacker that even Amway cut him loose. But one day he came home with some 40-something guy who wanted to talk to me. Sure enough he started asking those questions about how’d I like to make lots o’ cash for nothing, etc… His first question was how much money did I make and I was very offended by his nosiness. But when the scammy questions followed, I politely made my way upstairs and left him standing there.
At least my roomie was embarassed and apologized.
When I was an undergrad, and involved in the theater department. The head of the technical program was seriously into scamway. While she was not SUPPOSED to recrute students, she found ways arround it. Mostly involving her non-faculty husband. My impression was that there are people worshiping nameless horrors from R’lyeh who are less involved in a cult.
They used to offer “Leadership Seminars” at their house. Students who showed up were treated to Amway seminars.
I witnessed a conversation between her and one of the other students (who had been convinced to become an initiate):
Her: Coming to the meeting this weekend?
Student: I don’t think so, I have two tests on monday I have to study for.
Her: You know, every meeting you miss sets your future back six months!
:dubious:
What does that even mean?
For those who wonder is they are really "selling soap" I once tried to buy some of the amway car wash (which is actually rather good) from another initiate. She kept trying to recrute me. She didn't want to just sell me the soap, she needed me to become an member of the cult. I never did convince this girl, who was "just selling soap" to actually SELL ME SOME SOAP!My closest call with Amway came at a Christmas party in the mid-90s. This couple showed up a little late carrying a portable white board and a box of something (brochures I guess). Immediately a hush fell over the party and whispered jokes quickly went around that they were going to try and sell Amway. Thankfully I was able to leave before any sales pitch was made, but I could think of no other reason why someone would bring a white board to a Christmas party
Great stuff, that L.O.C.
I only know because I was Amway for a short time in the '90s and it was part of my starter kit.
This happened in the late 90s when we lived in California, and were just getting started, and were pretty poor. We were at a bookstore and a fellow started chatting with us. It might seem odd to strike up a conversation with some random stranger, but we were out with our greyhound that day, and people often asked about him, as this man did - so we did not feel unusually accosted by a too-friendly person. The man was intrigued to learn that my husband designed websites for a living, and said he was quite interested in having one done to promote his business (he was a veterinarian). So, we chatted for a good while, cards were exchanged, and Mr. Toadbriar was pleased to have a potential freelance client.
The following week, the man called and asked if he could stop by and talk more about the website idea. Sure, that’d be fine! At the appointed time, he showed up with his wife in tow, dressed as if they were door-to-door missionaries. They launched into the vague spiel mentioned by previous posters, and before we could get them out the door they insisted on loaning us some of their tapes, and also part of a box of laundry soap to try out. This was maybe a Sunday, and they wanted to pick up the box of soap and tapes on Tuesday, which seemed awfully skinflint to me. I mean, at least give me some of the damn magical soap to keep, if you’re so in love with it and I had to sit through all this. I didn’t end up doing any wash before Tuesday, so we never had a chance to find out if the soap was truly fabulous. It seemed quite desperate to me, “here, try our half-used box of detergent but then give it back in two days cos we really need it back!” Yeah, such largesse is a great example of your Amway-derived prosperity.
As other folks have mentioned, it was the sneakiness and false pretenses which made the situation so revolting. Those were rather hard, down-and-out times for us, when even a little homepage project was a welcome income boost out of the blue. It was tacky and insulting, and the woman had a moue on her face the whole time (it was a shabby apartment, cluttered and mismatched in no charming fashion, but clean). I had the simultaneous displeasure of embarrassment and shame from feeling like a poor host, combined with the dissonance of feeling that these people were older than us, presumably at a higher station in life and more successful, but still stupid enough to not only fall prey to this Amway shit, but try to perpetuate it - on us, especially. We, who have no money and whose social circle can be numbered on a the fingers of a narcoleptic shop teacher! Talk about barking up the wrong tree.
To this day the mention of Amway makes Mr. Toadbriar narrow his eyes.