Ignore The Signs
After college, I saw an ad for a sports marketing position. When I went in, I was told that the interview would actually be a full day of work. I was introduced to the sales team I’d be working with and we all got into someone’s car and started to drive to a strip mall in the suburbs. The job ended up consisting of trying to sell coupons for the local baseball team to workers in retail stores and restaurants. We were told to ignore “no solicitation” signs. Between stops at strip malls, I sat in the backseat of the car with the “sales trainer.” At one point, he asked if he could lean on me and put his head in my lap! After putting in a long degrading day, I was told that I had gotten the job. My parents begged me not to go back, but I did. The next day, we headed out and our trainer announced that he didn’t feel like selling that day and we were going to go to the movies instead. As if this wasn’t awkward enough, he whispered to me that he needed to go behind the movie theater and get high beforehand. Much to my parents’ happiness, that was my last day.
How old were you at the time?!? This has to be a teenager job.
I could have written this myself!! Except I did this in the middle of a snowstorm door to door and I didn’t have snowboots. The morning “training” session and pep talks were creepy. On the second day I was sick of getting no’s so the trainer and I told the people we were testing Columbia jackets (since we had almost matching jackets) and asked the people if they wanted to throw snowballs at us. They gave us sympathy when we gave the really story and bought our coupons. I left after day 2 also. I couldn’t survive working 12 hour days on commission only.
This story would be hilariously awesome if it was a guy who submitted it. Either way, it’s still a sucky experience.
I interviewed for a very similar job. Showed up for the interview in heels and a dress, as they weren’t up front that the second interview would consist of walking all over a neighborhood…I was mortified. I asked that they take me back before the interview was over as I knew it wasn’t right…
There is so much more to this story… the “trainer” made me (seriously like wouldn’t go further unless I complied) take off my suit jacket because he said it made customers uncomfortable if we were in stuffy suits. Yeah right. Note: I am a female. Also, the owner told me that all of our paychecks would go into a company account and when we needed any money we would just have to tell her so she could cut us a check. I think this is actually a pretty common thing though as I’ve met lots of people with similar stories!
Note: pretty much any ad for a “marketing” position is in fact for the lowest level of a pyramid scheme. Avoid.
Yes I’ve had this job too. Very common scam. Mine wasn’t coupons, it was selling people Verizon. Commission only, long hours, no pay until weeks later. I stayed one week and then begged for my old job back and got it.
DS-MAX….yeah i had this one first summer after freshman year of college. I gig was selling the credit card machines to stores in the hood. They also told me to quit college. This place was ridiculous
I knew eventually someone would write about that crooked company. I worked for the missing kid’s division, where we lured people in doing fingerprint cards and then tried to sell them useless junk, claiming that the money went to charity, when in fact only 5% did, and I wasn’t even sure about that.
….was this baseball team the Bridgeport Bluefish? If so, I had the misfortune of going through this as well and my story is just as funny.