The other night I went to the movies. I saw Unfaithful with my mother. It was a little awkward, but the movie was decent.
When we got back to the parking lot, there was a flier on my car for summer work for college students. 13.50-17.00 base pay, it said. I had no idea what kind of work it was, but I figure “Hell, I’ll be here for the summer, might as well look into it.”
So I called today and they told me I could come to an interview at 4:00. I went. Turns out the business is selling cutlery. Now, if this were door to door or telemarketing I would have walked my broke ass out of there in a second. I pray to never be that desperate. The business actually consists of setting up appointments to demonstrate the knives through referrals from current customers. The knives are pretty neat, and the presentation is about 45 minutes to an hour long. I get 14.75 for each demo I do, sale or not.
Of course, being the bright professional young man I am, I got a job. It seems like a pretty good deal so far. The only problem I see is finding people to demo it for. I get to start with friends and family (and still get paid!) and go on referrals from there. The one or two people I know that have worked here seemed to like it and made quite I bit of money.
So, am I fooling myself into thinking this is a good job? Will it actually be a complete pain the ass that I will fail at and end up as broke as I began? Or will I have a helluva time cutting pennies in half and making mucho moolah for the next 3 months?
Did they tell you that you have to buy a set to show? What you described is the same thing I was once “hired” for. I never worked for them though because I didn’t want to buy a set
It’s still basically going door to door. What they do is have other people cold call or have other clients refer their friends for a free show. The amount of money you make is directly related to how many you sell, no matter what they say. Do not trust them if they ask you to buy a “demo” set. In my opinion there are many more jobs and I would continue looking.
I can borrow a set to show. No purchase necessary.
Overall, these responses are pretty disheartening. I wanted to make some good money over the summer and the job seemed ok. I would never really expect to make money off commission (it’s either commission or base pay, whichever is more) and just figured it was a decent summer job. Shit.
I’ll still do training (only 3 half-days) and see what I think, but now I won’t be expecting it to be quite as good as I thought. Thanks for the comments and links, folks.
Also BEWARE! Some of these companies actually charge you for the training. If they say that you have to bring in 50 dollars or so (cash of course) to pay for the teacher and supplies, run! Run very fast. And think about calling your local AG’s office to report the scam.
Good luck on your search for a summer job. You may want to talk to a local temp agency. They sometimes can find summer employment for college students. The pay isn’t always great, but it’s usually legit.
I had a friend who did this for a while. From what I learned from him, it didn’t seem like a scam, just an pretty poor way to make money. You gotta know a lot of people, and you gotta know a lot of people who need knives. My friend sold a couple sets and then got stymied because he had exhausted all his potential sales.