Hi All,
Long post, but I too fell for this and like many of you I've done a little digging after my experience. (I am also posting this wherever I can so apologies if you see this twice)
First of all, legally and technically these companies ARE NOT A SCAM. However annoyed you are at them, they never lied to you. But in the words of Buzz Lightyear, their skill is 'omitting certain truths'.
Legal loopholes and tight small print mean that these companies don't even need to tell you that the work is door to door until you actually start. In most cases, people wont have figured it out until the last few training days.
When you are employed, you are self employed, and you are put to work with a group of people bordering on delusional from the cult like atmosphere so rigorously kept up by the director. These people's social lives have eroded to nothing and their attitudes are warped to only care about money and work. The director has created robots, and despite the massive turnover having these few people is worth his while. If 1 in 1000 becomes a robot, interview 10,000 people to get yourself 10. And when the others finally leave they are either bitched about horribly or shut out from existence, i was told several times not to mention the names of people who had left.
The job itself is miserable, ridiculous hours and false promises. You will return home in pain at almost midnight, and on days where you sell nothing (far more common than they'll have you believe) the experience is a killer.
So who could be behind all this? Well for paramount force, the man is John Johnson.
While digging into my old workplace, finding John was a real needle in a haystack scenario. I sent letters, emails, phoned the company, but no interview. It was sheer luck that I tracked down an old email on my g mail giving his number.
Far from the fire spitting evil thugs the directors have been portrayed in this post, Johnson is eloquent, funny, softly spoken and very intelligent. He was always polite and very quick to answer during our interview. No matter what I asked, he never got riled up, but his answers always seemed prepared, like he has had to do this before?
I only stumped him once. I simply asked 'So is money the be all and end all of work?'
The answer for any person with a shred of ethical conscience is 'no of course not, its a journey and a life experience and money is second to those things'
But Johnson went quiet for a few seconds before muttering weakly, 'to some people, yes.'
Johnson is clearly intelligent, and clearly well educated, and therefore I have a seriously hard time believing he started at ground level. But what is more vile than the misleading information he gives is probably how calm he is. How little anything but money means to him. That includes you, potential worker! Why doesn't he worry about his colossal turnover? Because very simply, John Johnson doesn't care.
So before you go beyond interview stage, ask yourself. Is this the man I want to work for? Do I really want to abandon my friends and morals? Remeber John Johnson isnt the only one. He is Ali Mir, he is Brett Heyes, Alex Pinker and Adam Allen. As ever its your choice, and as ever he will continue to use his acumen not for an ethical business but as a weapon against desperate people. His company is a reflection of him. Does he sound like your ideal boss?
Think before you accept this role
