2009
Apologies for the previous post. Like the metaphorical broken record, I was going on and on and.. on.
So anyway, not wanting to spend New Year's Eve cooped up at home, I met up with Hamster and her cousin for a quick dinner. It wasn't long before I found myself getting buried in a sales pitch. It went something like:
'We just made a few hundred bucks today - it's like half of my salary back then.. It's not really MLM, it's a wholesale business.. My boss wears this $12k Rolex and invests in gold, and he has only been doing this for 3 years.'
Sigh.
Quite suddenly, I had lost my appetite. It's one thing to ignore random sales people compared to dinner with friends turning into quite something else.
'What are your aspirations? You want to open your own studio, right? Must be very expensive!
I had been through a couple of these MLM meetings before. They can insist that it's not MLM, but the premise and tactic is always the same: Look at us, they say, we're so happy. We don't have to slog away in our office cubicles all day, and yet we're making good money doing business. Join us, you just need to invest so-and-so amount for your initial batch of overpriced useless product.. after you've made your pile then you can start to realize your dreams.
I'm really tempted to try to convince them otherwise; that life is really not worth living and that you are a slave to money for years and then you die, you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake and you should really slit your wrists tonight and watch your bloo-
But then I stopped myself and instead focused on my pineapple seafood fried rice.
Sensing my reticence, dinner went on as normal and we decided to meet up with Jess at Starbucks. There, I ran into HG's friend. Her hair has grown longer and she's looking good. I observed her talking to her friend and I imagined how intelligent their conversion should be, thought of the law books she must be studying, the language of which must be unintelligible to ordinary human beings.
It made me wonder, and wonder.
P/S: Incidentally, the most interesting product I had seen being sold this way was a glass disc that's supposed to 'purify' water, leading to a drastic improvements to health. In a live demonstration, they even have a 'scientist' proving that it works - something like a modern version of street medicine peddlers. Imagine - a glass disc selling for almost a thousand bucks. Check it out here.
So anyway, not wanting to spend New Year's Eve cooped up at home, I met up with Hamster and her cousin for a quick dinner. It wasn't long before I found myself getting buried in a sales pitch. It went something like:
'We just made a few hundred bucks today - it's like half of my salary back then.. It's not really MLM, it's a wholesale business.. My boss wears this $12k Rolex and invests in gold, and he has only been doing this for 3 years.'
Sigh.
Quite suddenly, I had lost my appetite. It's one thing to ignore random sales people compared to dinner with friends turning into quite something else.
'What are your aspirations? You want to open your own studio, right? Must be very expensive!
I had been through a couple of these MLM meetings before. They can insist that it's not MLM, but the premise and tactic is always the same: Look at us, they say, we're so happy. We don't have to slog away in our office cubicles all day, and yet we're making good money doing business. Join us, you just need to invest so-and-so amount for your initial batch of overpriced useless product.. after you've made your pile then you can start to realize your dreams.
I'm really tempted to try to convince them otherwise; that life is really not worth living and that you are a slave to money for years and then you die, you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake and you should really slit your wrists tonight and watch your bloo-
But then I stopped myself and instead focused on my pineapple seafood fried rice.
Sensing my reticence, dinner went on as normal and we decided to meet up with Jess at Starbucks. There, I ran into HG's friend. Her hair has grown longer and she's looking good. I observed her talking to her friend and I imagined how intelligent their conversion should be, thought of the law books she must be studying, the language of which must be unintelligible to ordinary human beings.
It made me wonder, and wonder.
P/S: Incidentally, the most interesting product I had seen being sold this way was a glass disc that's supposed to 'purify' water, leading to a drastic improvements to health. In a live demonstration, they even have a 'scientist' proving that it works - something like a modern version of street medicine peddlers. Imagine - a glass disc selling for almost a thousand bucks. Check it out here.