The Fraud Rush (a personal anecdote)
This is a personal anecdote that people need to read as many evil organizations look to take advantage of the high unemployment situation as a time to acquire more manpower. While I can't mention the organization and the people involved, I can say that you can identify organizations like this after reading this post.
It was the Monday after my high school graduation when I first started working for them. With everyone wearing suits and ties, you'd think that everyone would be stuck at the office doing marketing work. The position I applied to was a business marketing internship, aimed for independent workers that are interesting in business and marketing. It's interesting to see that this organization was very different from other marketing companies that I know about.
This organization specialized in Direct to Consumer marketing, where the sales reps reach out and talk to people face-to-face. The pay structure, interestingly there was no "salary" but there was "commission" and that's it. Being in the division of handing out government phones, which happened to be the biggest division in the company, I got to be close with most of the people in the company.
Many of the "leaders" that I got to hang with and got trained by all came from different backgrounds but all have one common goal: to one day have their own office and make fortunes. It was interesting to see that many of them, young, were already conducting interviews and training people new to the company on the business. I remembered wondering if I were to ever be able to advance fast to where I too can conduct interviews. The company did tout that their promotions do come fast for people, so fast that people seem to have their own office after working for the company within a year or two.
Now, while management thinks that a 100% commission-based pay structure would motivate people to work really hard everyday, it didn't. Getting paid $9 per phone (and half-way through the summer, they raised the commission rate to $10 and months after my leave with a decrease in the commission rate months after my last day) wasn't a lot for the work we put in. The hours we are in the sun, stuck in traffic, exposed to second-hand smoke constantly, and go to dangerous areas just go give out these government phones.
While most jobs usually have workers work a max of five days a week, the office did operate for 6 days, with interns not being required to work on Saturday but are encouraged to. I've worked a few Saturdays and honestly, there were the only fun days at work. Once I stopped working on Saturdays, my colleagues would say that I'll be a stay-at home dad in the future. It's weird that they would call me that even though I usually talk about stocks with some of my colleagues, especially with one of the senior managers. Honestly, I was offended in the beginning, but I brushed it off by thinking about the luxurious lifestyle I'll have in the future where I can work from the comfort of my house.
In meetings, whenever the head of the office talked about promotions and the opportunity the company was "giving us," they always said,"there is no seniority and there's no politics in this organization." In the beginning, I believed them but, once I started noticing that certain territories were giving people more sales than others, I started noticing that only a select few people were always sent to those areas. Those people were people that have been in the company for a lot longer than many of the others were. Once I confronted my observation to one of my colleagues, who happens to be my best friend in the company and who happened to be one of the people that was always sent to the better territories, he confirmed my observations.
Was I mad about it? No. But it just shows that management was being hypocritical.
The business model of the company did require more manpower since the company needed more reps in order to generate more revenue (theoretically). Because of that, while they tried not to pressure people for not generate a high volume of sales, they do look down upon them and place them in territories that made it harder for them to make more money. Also, for those that want to pursue school and work at Legion at the same time, while management does say that it's impossible and that people have to choose between one another, on the side, they're persuading us to quit school and pursue this opportunity, which I found to be despicable, especially since the opportunity wasn't given equally because management would send us to lower traffic territories, making it harder for us to reach the quota needed to get accepted into the management training program.
For those of you that are being approached by people that say that they have an opportunity for you, especially if they know that you're unemployed, be careful about the opportunities you're given. They might look great but they might be another MLM or a Smart Circle scheme. The company I worked for was a Smart Circle scheme, where you have you work really hard for minimum wage, or even lower than minimum wage.
If you look on Glassdoor for the reviews of the company, the reviews are mostly negative and I can say that they're things that I've either seen or experienced.
Beware for in these times, criminal enterprises usually capitalize on hard times as times to grow their man power.
It was the Monday after my high school graduation when I first started working for them. With everyone wearing suits and ties, you'd think that everyone would be stuck at the office doing marketing work. The position I applied to was a business marketing internship, aimed for independent workers that are interesting in business and marketing. It's interesting to see that this organization was very different from other marketing companies that I know about.
This organization specialized in Direct to Consumer marketing, where the sales reps reach out and talk to people face-to-face. The pay structure, interestingly there was no "salary" but there was "commission" and that's it. Being in the division of handing out government phones, which happened to be the biggest division in the company, I got to be close with most of the people in the company.
Many of the "leaders" that I got to hang with and got trained by all came from different backgrounds but all have one common goal: to one day have their own office and make fortunes. It was interesting to see that many of them, young, were already conducting interviews and training people new to the company on the business. I remembered wondering if I were to ever be able to advance fast to where I too can conduct interviews. The company did tout that their promotions do come fast for people, so fast that people seem to have their own office after working for the company within a year or two.
Now, while management thinks that a 100% commission-based pay structure would motivate people to work really hard everyday, it didn't. Getting paid $9 per phone (and half-way through the summer, they raised the commission rate to $10 and months after my leave with a decrease in the commission rate months after my last day) wasn't a lot for the work we put in. The hours we are in the sun, stuck in traffic, exposed to second-hand smoke constantly, and go to dangerous areas just go give out these government phones.
While most jobs usually have workers work a max of five days a week, the office did operate for 6 days, with interns not being required to work on Saturday but are encouraged to. I've worked a few Saturdays and honestly, there were the only fun days at work. Once I stopped working on Saturdays, my colleagues would say that I'll be a stay-at home dad in the future. It's weird that they would call me that even though I usually talk about stocks with some of my colleagues, especially with one of the senior managers. Honestly, I was offended in the beginning, but I brushed it off by thinking about the luxurious lifestyle I'll have in the future where I can work from the comfort of my house.
In meetings, whenever the head of the office talked about promotions and the opportunity the company was "giving us," they always said,"there is no seniority and there's no politics in this organization." In the beginning, I believed them but, once I started noticing that certain territories were giving people more sales than others, I started noticing that only a select few people were always sent to those areas. Those people were people that have been in the company for a lot longer than many of the others were. Once I confronted my observation to one of my colleagues, who happens to be my best friend in the company and who happened to be one of the people that was always sent to the better territories, he confirmed my observations.
Was I mad about it? No. But it just shows that management was being hypocritical.
The business model of the company did require more manpower since the company needed more reps in order to generate more revenue (theoretically). Because of that, while they tried not to pressure people for not generate a high volume of sales, they do look down upon them and place them in territories that made it harder for them to make more money. Also, for those that want to pursue school and work at Legion at the same time, while management does say that it's impossible and that people have to choose between one another, on the side, they're persuading us to quit school and pursue this opportunity, which I found to be despicable, especially since the opportunity wasn't given equally because management would send us to lower traffic territories, making it harder for us to reach the quota needed to get accepted into the management training program.
For those of you that are being approached by people that say that they have an opportunity for you, especially if they know that you're unemployed, be careful about the opportunities you're given. They might look great but they might be another MLM or a Smart Circle scheme. The company I worked for was a Smart Circle scheme, where you have you work really hard for minimum wage, or even lower than minimum wage.
If you look on Glassdoor for the reviews of the company, the reviews are mostly negative and I can say that they're things that I've either seen or experienced.
Beware for in these times, criminal enterprises usually capitalize on hard times as times to grow their man power.
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