The summer of 2006, I was getting ready to move to Cleveland for graduate school. I had almost no money, and desperately needed a job.
No place hired only for the summer. Unless I wanted to work at a fast food joint. And I had enough of that in high school.
I found two options.
Through a temp agency, I could work at the state prison doing data entry for $9.25 an hour.
Or, I could answer the ad I found offering a gig that paid $500 a week.
I decided to see what $500 a week had to offer. They wouldn't tell me what it was over the phone; just that I had to show up and interview.
When I arrived dressed in my finest, I learned that the gig was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners. A miracle machine that made homeowners' dreams come true and practically sold itself.
They would train me. And best of all, I wouldn't have to do any cold calling or door-to-door stuff. They had a call team that arranged the in-home demos. Pay was by commission only, but with $500 guaranteed if you completed a certain number of demos.
Excited at the prospect of not being quite so broke, I accepted the job.
I spent a week going to unpaid training. About 40 hours altogether. Learning how to operate the machine, learning how to do the demos, and learning how to "sell" them (now known as "pressure selling").
I should have become concerned when they were spending more and more time talking about the vacations people could win if they sold a certain number of vacuums.
It was a phenomenal vacuum. The problem was, it retailed for $2,100. But, apparently if we sold it for anything more than $1,200, we got to keep the difference in commission.
Oh, and if you sold one, you also had to deliver it and teach the customer how to use it.
The "guaranteed $500" was only if you completed 13 demos in a week and didn't sell a single one. Complete 12 demos without selling one and you get zilch. Complete 13 demos and don't sell one, and it was clear the "boss" wasn't going to be very happy.
At the end of the training, we had to give "practice demos" for friends and family. And as part of the demo, we had to ask for referrals to do demos at other people's houses.
Needless to say, none of my friends or family wanted to send a salesman to their friends' houses.
The first day of the "real job" arrived. I showed up to the "morning meetup." This was when I learned the Kirby people had a "we are positive" theme song. Now, all I had to do was wait around and wait until the first "gig" came in.
Three hours later, I was still waiting. The others who lasted through the training were becoming concerned.
This was when we learned the fine print that made this the worst decision any of us could have made.
It was true that they had an in-house call center to schedule our demos. The fine print was that they worked off of the "family and friends" demo referrals. So, if your friends and family didn't give any referrals, you didn't have any demos, because they had no one to call.
Another girl who had been very excited during training week broke down in tears right there.
What a piece of fine print right there. Fine print I never would have thought to ask when I first talked to the Kirby manager.
You never know what the fine print could be, do you? Whatever the promises are.
Whether it's to make $500 a week, get ripped in 6 weeks, or learn to play the piano in 21 days.
I asked them to give me a call if a demo came in. Four hours later, I received a call, dropped everything, and drove an hour to get to a stranger's house to demo a Kirby vacuum cleaner.
They didn't buy it.I
I quit the next day.
I wasn't exactly lied to. But the fine print changed everything. This wasn't going to work.
And that, my friends, the story of how I spent a summer working in a prison.