There's an old adage that says "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me". Well I've been fooled once last week, by the place that I came to the conclusion by now was simply a multi-level marketing scam. My feelings have changed after some thought. I'm no longer going to withhold the name. The place I interviewed for and almost became an employee of is Vector Marketing, selling Cutco knives.
So my job search continues. I have my resume posted on several job sites here for the Salt Lake area, so wasn't too surprised when I got a call today from a company. The guy said he wanted to interview me for possibility of entering their manager training classes. I thought this was a little strange, because I'm not qualified for any sort of management position, but entertained the offer. He also asked if I was 18, which was a strange question that should have been easily answered from my resume, but understandable due to labor laws. Since I am just barely 18 I could say I was, and we continued the conversation..
Now the man never told me the name of the company, just the address of the company and a phone number in case I couldn't make it to the meeting. The address is in the Woods Cross/Bountiful area, which is some distance away and not easy to get to from here, especially since I'd have to bus there. He originally wanted to set it up for tomorrow, but I needed more time, so I changed it to two days from now. This would give me sufficient time to research, both what UTA routes would get me to that area and also what this company actually was.
A quick Google search of the phone number gave me the company name: Primerica. My neighbor happened to be over borrowing some things from my kitchen when I was researching this, and he told me he heard of them as an MLM. A little further search led me to some pages on RipOffReports, confirming this. Nothing more then an MLM scam, bordering on cult-like following to people that actually get sucked in. Even worse then the things I saw on Vector Marketing.
It seems that at times like this they come out of the woodwork. Companies that prey on young people starting to move into the workforce, claiming they could gain grandeur wealth with these schemes. All the while not truly giving them anythign they could use. They claim "useful" titles: Vector's commisions system was level based and the third one was called "Advisor" making them think they could write "Advisor to Cutco" on their resume's, and apparently Primerica's base level is "Manager." But these are nothing more then something to lift the spirits of the kid, or in reality to just suck them in. They are worthless companies, promising great money but in reality most of them will not do well, making almost nothing at all. Those that do do well are few and far between. All the while they're roped into it, overlooking their inability to do well with reasons like "they'll hit their big sale soon" or that it's something "with their methods." Well it does have to do with their methods. Their methods are working in an MLM and are trapped and not realizing that they can't do anything there.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Sorry Primerica, I am no fool.
Until next time, J. Millen out.

Saturday, February 8, 2003 8:04 P.M.

Well it's Satruday today, so taking a break from the job searching to do a little cleaning around here.
It didn't get quite cold enough for snow today, it decided to rain. Been raining most of the morning. It's been pretty nice. Though it has been doing it a lot, I wonder if the sewer systems are working properly, or whether we'll start seeing minor flooding in some areas. Has happened here before. But that's a side note.
My friend's sister seems to be getting worse. Her additude has been getting more and more rotten, and she was caught shoplifting yesterday. She will be going in to court next week.But thats still a side note, I don't feel like writing about that today.
I had to close down one of my main e-mail boxes this morning... It's just been too much, I've been overloaded with SPAM. It seems they've finally figured out a way to get past SpamAssasin (the spam filtering software my server uses), because I'm getting it in tons of amounts, in the amounts I was getting before I turned on SpamAssasin (which had originally nearly filtered everything). And it's the same freaking peices of spam OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! With ever more creative titles to try to avert my spam filters, and endlessly bugging me. So, rather than try to filter it more, I figured it would be best to completely kill that address.
I'd been using that e-mail address for probably four years or more, and it had just gone everywhere. Any plain Google search would show the e-mail address. That being that, I've tried several times at contacting the sites that did show it in a plain Google search - since they are old outdated sites - to no avail. So it was time to move on.
My new address I'll be a little more careful with. Won't be publishing it in text files and other things like that. Always will be hiding behind something, even HTML tag will protect it.
Well, back to cleaning.

Friday, February 7, 2003 11:31 P.M.

Here's an interesting question for you all to ponder today. If a Credit Card, or rather a Debit Card, when an attempt to charge it is made, comes up Declined, what is the logic behind trying it again a few hours later? Ponder that for a little while.
Anyway I had an interesting little online conversation today while logged into my MSN Messenger. I was playing surrogate litigator because my friend wasn't online. You see, this girl, whom I know but not very well, thought that her boyfriend (I dunno if that's what he is or not), whom I also know but not very well, was mad at her. She got online, looking for a friend of mine, who knows the boy very well to ask him for advice, but he wasn't online and hadn't been all day. So she spoke to me.She explained to me a bit of what was going on (which I won't repeat here), and then from there asked for my advice. So I gave her my advice, advice that was warmly received. And just so I can rest easily I hope my advice had a sound basis.
It's interesting, actually, the amount of people that come to me for advice or other information. Mostly it's about certain things that they know I know a lot about, but sometmes theres other subjects. But the most interesting thing is that it's any range of people that do it. Fellow classmates of all grades, teachers, neighbors, and so on and so forth. They come to me for advice because they know it will be sound, and they come to me for information because they know it will be accurate. And oddly enough, it's not something I go around advertising, or rather I don't go around telling people I know things. They look to me and naturally know that I will be able to help them; they look to me as a natural leader. And I will admit that I am, because I simply am able to think that way.
For example, at my school, the Computer Science classroom got a bunch of new computers. The teacher had to go off to attend to something else, and I was just in the room at the time, and the students, who were told to set the new computers up but not how or where, asked me where I thought they should go. I looked around the room, and started pointing out places that I thougt the computers should go in. After they started unpacking, they turned back to me to furth inquire how to set them up, and I was able to tell them. And when the teacher got back, he was surprised because he wasn't expecting them to be set up in such a way (which happened to be the way he wanted them) because of the way electrical outlet wiring was in the room, a problem which we had already circumvented.
In any case, that's the way things are. My eyes are beginning to hurt for some reason, so I'm going to get off for the night. Until tomorrow, this is J. Millen logging off.

Thursday, February 6, 2003 10:23 P.M.

Wednesday, February 5, 2003 11:04 P.M.

J. Millen here, running the night shift as a Moderator on a message board for one of my friends as he deals with family problems. His sister is throwing a fit that could cause Antarctica to boil. And it all spawns from that evil music.
Amiel said “Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.�EAmiel was lucky never to be subject to the forms of anti-music known as Rap and Punk Rock. Those two forms of “music�Etear a person apart. They can go from a good person to a person swearing their head off, sleeping around, and doing every other bad thing imaginable. I have seen it happen to many people. And I am seeing it happen to my friend’s sister.
She claims that it is not the music doing this to here, but that’s exactly what it is. Ever since she started listening to Punk Rock, ESPECIALLY Good Charolette, she had been mean, nasty, unwilling to listen, unwilling to surrender, and LOUD!!! It has been proved by psychologists to cause that sort of behavior. Whenever my friend or I try to present that to here, she shuts us out and says “It’s not doing that to me!�E when in fact it is. She as I sit here typing this is spouting off that every body hates her, and she should go kill herself, and that she is absolutely right in EVERY SINGLE respect. She is completely unwilling to listen to her parents, claiming that “things are different now, and you have no idea what I’m going through.�EA classic, nearly clichéical statement says “the more things change, the more they stay the same.�EHenry David Thoreau said “Things do not change, we do.�EYet she refuses to accept the reason she’s changed as the reason. And that causes all the problems.
All she ever talks about, when she’s not yelling at her family about EVERYTHING, is Good Charolette. All she listens to is Good Charolette. Her wall is literally wallpapered with pictures of them. She plans on being one of their members for Haloween. Yet they don’t affect her? I’m sorry, but a human brain doesn’t work that way.
She claims that she likes the music because she “relates to it.�EShe claims that it’s telling real emotions. Not hardly. Music is written to sell. Mack Jagger once said in regards to his band that “we write our music to cause teenagers to have sex.�EOnce it becomes the source of income, a person will write music so it will sell. And let me just share a couple of messages in these songs.
The Anthem talks about not doing what every one else does in their adult life, a choice which leaves crime as the alternative. It also discusses masturbation. Most of this music is listened to by young teenagers, many of which (including my friend’s sister when we showed it to her) don’t know what that is. Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous says high profile theft is perfectly allowed. It also says that murder and drug abuse is completely legal. More songs of theirs claim other stuff, but I prefer not dwelling in such filthy sounds for too long.
Depending on how much of a tantrum my friends sister throws tomorrow, I may return to continue this discussion tomorrow. But mark my word, I will return to this discussion at a later date, with a large amount of psychological research to back me up. J. Millen out.

Tuesday, February 4, 2003 9:30 P.M.

Wanna hear something funny? I told you yesterday about the job I had to quit. Well, I went back to job searching afterwards and got an interview lined up for today. My interviewer (an manager) at the job I quit was named Jeremy, and the guy that interviewed me today was also named Jeremy. Is there some ethereal meaning to that? Hmm...
That's not my topic for the day, though. My topic is public transit. Since I don't drive, I had to use Salt Lake City's bus system to get to where I needed to go (which was quite a ways away from my house, mind you). It was okay, my only problem came up when I couldn't tell how far east I was and ended up missing the stop I needed (causing me to have to cross a bridge over I-15 and then find my way - through back roads since I didn't remember the road maps - to where I was going). I had planned my trip to arrive fifteen minutes early, and I ended up walking in the building ten minutes late. Luckily it wasn't anything to be concerned about, and I was fine.
Anyway, my real problem came up when I was finished with the interview. I wasn't sure when I'd be finished with the interview (the lady on the phone when I set up an appointment said two hours!), and so I didn't get myself a copy of the times for the bus I needed to go back. I ended up sitting for just shy of an hour(!) waiting for this bus to come, with no idea when it was going to be there. (Then, because I didn't know there was a stop right next to where I got off, I had to flag down the transfer bus after he left a stop later down the road that I needed to take to finish my trip. The driver said "Don't you know there's a stop right around the corner." So I said, "Uhh... no.")
Anyway, as I sat thinking about it, I came up with my own ideas about how mass transit should be run here in Salt Lake City. Ideas that would make it far more convenient, and so would get more people riding it than in their own private cars, thus cutting down on pollution.
My idea is to increase the number of buses. From the bus routes I've taken in the past couple of weeks, it seems that routes with a high number of passengers have a bus come around once every half hour, and ones with less people have a bus once every hour. In my version, I would have buses coming every fifteen minutes - every ten minutes with high-load routes - thus making the route times far more predictable and therefore convenient. The routes are set well, they cover a considerable distance, minimizing the number of transfers needed, but the wait time is sometimes very long. And I'm not a very patient person.
Think about it. With buses coming so frequently, you don't need to worry much about missing one, because the next one is quickly on it's way. Since people have different travel distances, they can save time by taking a bus that is earlier or later than what they are currently taking. For example, say two people have to be at a place at exactly 12:50. And say the bus comes around at 12:24. Also say the first person has to travel twice as far as the second person, both people stop right in front of where they need to be, and the first person's stop will let him off at 12:42. With a bus every ten minutes, the first person can't alter their schedule, but the second person, who's stop would normally let him off at 12:33, can catch a bus that's ten minutes later, allowing him to get off at 12:43, and thereby give him a little extra time to acomplish things before he leaves. Also, that gives both of them the option of minimizing their losses if they miss there bus, causing the people to only be two and three minutes late rather than 22 minutes and 13 minutes late respectively.
Now this would cost money for more buses of course, which is why it isn't done that way. But if I had the money to spend and were in charge of mass transit, I would set it up that way. Oh well, until then I'm just a rider. Until tomorrow, this is J. Millen, signing off.

Monday, February 3, 2003 10:54 A.M.

Well, it’s started. The groundhog predicted that there would be more winter, and the storm has come in response to that. It’s been snowing since about 1 A.M. last night, and now there’s about three inches outside. That’s good. We need it here. What I don’t understand is why the Eastern States have been hit so hard with weather this year. Oh well. Weather is weird.

Monday, February 3, 2003 8:41 P.M.

You’d be surprised how much a person can focus on their work on a computer when they have a good chair to sit in. I just today got a new chair to sit on in place of the stool I had been using since I broke the last chair, and it’s a lot more comfortable to sit in now. And since I’m more comfortable, I don’t need to use up as much energy shifting my weight so I don’t cramp. But that’s not my purpose for writing today.
I had to deal with something particularly annoying today. Last week I applied for a job at a certain place (to protect the company I won’t name it) that involved selling stuff to people. The advertisement in the Classified section in the newspaper reads quote- “No telemarketing or door to door sales.” However, after two days of training last week, I realized that is exactly what the job involved. Telemarketing and door to door sales. Though it wouldn’t seem like it from the description given in the newspaper and in the interview, the job involves calling people to set appointments and giving demonstrations at their house, tasks which fall into the categories of Telemarketing and Door-to-door sales respectively. And so I quit.
Now don’t get me wrong, the company is a well respected company with a great product. I would have stayed with the company if I had the ability to go around to different people’s houses and demonstrate - which I do not at this time - or I had the patience to wait around on public transportation. But those are things which I do not have, so I had to quit.
Anyway, I went in this morning before the final training session to tell my manager I had to quit, and was deliberately weaving my reasons to hide the fact that I didn’t want to work there. Then he had the gall to tell me I was twisting around my reasons, and then to tell me I was wasting his time during time since he trained me, and now I was going to waste more of his time for him to hire a new person. AND he had the gall to tell me I wasn’t being truthful (which I wasn’t, but there was a reason for that). I didn’t want to confront him at that time (partially because I didn’t think about it until a couple hours after I walked out), so I just left. However, if I see that same ad in the paper again, I think I’m going to grab a law book from the public library (to back up my facts), and go chew him out about it.
He told me I lied to him when I said in the interview that I had transportation. I did not; in fact he didn’t even ask me about transportation. The most that was asked was on the application where it said “Do you own a car?” and I put “yes, but it isn’t currently operational.” He told me I had committed to going around to people’s houses during the interview, when in fact I wasn’t completely sure what at all my job involved (namely calling people up and going to their houses), until the second training session. No time before that had it been explained to me in plain black and white that was the task, but more like 55% grey and 45% grey. I lied? No, it was his hiring strategy that was the one that lied.
In closing, once again I stand by their company. I just think they did a horrible job at the business of getting people to apply. I think they, a very successful company, could become more successful if they would clearly spell out what was involved in the job. Until tomorrow, this is J. Millen, signing off.