Pryamid Scheme Sales: Liars and Cheats

Below is a letter written to one of my college professors about some recent job-search woes. I needed to vent my furor over these job predators and help the people who are fooled into working for them, making less money for harder work than the average person in retail. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Dear Dr. XXXXX,

It's been a while since graduation now and finding a job has been harder than I thought it would be. Even getting businesses to sit down and talk with me has been near impossible. I don't know whether to blame the current state of the economy or my own ineptitude, though I've been hearing that XXXXX is having similar problems.

In any case my job woes aren't the main reason I'm contacting you, but rather something I stumbled on during my search. The pyramid scheme. It's something I wanted to bring up because I think discussing this job-trap would be a good addition to the professional seminar. It's something that a lot of writers, especially those interested in PR, are likely to run into.

Most of these jobs pose as lucrative PR or Marketing firms. To name a few by name I found EFG Marketing, PURE Marketing, and Vizion Management (Though there are many, many more). These companies start by saying they're selective firms that only want the most dedicated and driven individuals. They'll contact you the same day or the day after you apply congratulating you and giving you some arbitrary reason why you're exactly what they're looking for. Their websites look professional enough, though they always seriously lack any real information.

They bring you in for an interview, which happens to be with maybe twenty other people (But I thought I was special!) then they proceed to sell you the job through their brainwashing techniques, for lack of a better term. You don't need to sell yourself for the job, you're already perfect, they try to sell you into a commission-based sales job that you don't want so they can promise you the world and abuse you like the replaceable sap you are.

Basically they prey on recent graduates who are new to the job market, don't know any better and have been having a difficult time starting their career. It makes me furious because it's wasted my time and almost my money. They post hundreds of job openings on sites like Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, and Yahoo Hotjobs. Let this be a lesson to me that entry level writing and PR jobs aren't easy to come by and when you see them in droves because some strange company you've never heard of is “opening a new office” you should approach cautiously.

The website Ripoffreport.com has user submitted experiences with pyramid-scheme companies and every job searcher should check it out before applying for a job that may not be what they think it is. Nobody let me know that the job market isn't all sunshine and roses, there are predators out there looking to use struggling, wide-eyed college grads.

Anyway, I hope you've been having a better semester than my last few months. I just wanted to share my mistakes with you with the hope that none of your future students will have to make them.

Sincerely,
XXXXX

Barack Obama: Yes We Did

It's finally over. Perhaps I can actually stop talking about politics for a while. The polls were accurate, and at around 11 pm last night Senator Obama became President Elect Obama in an electoral landslide. A political shift has occurred in this country and our new president is going to be facing challenges that we haven't seen since FDR took office. For better or worse, the United States of America is entering a period of change and after this historic event, we've gone from living in depressing times to exciting ones.

So what's going to happen? Will the race issue get better or worse? Will President Obama get our flailing economy back on track? Will the war in Iraq finally come to a close? I don't know the answer to any of these things. Right now I feel a combination of relief and pride and I believe that last night was something that I'll never forget. It doesn't feel like the Democratic party won last night, it feels like America won last night.

Election Day 2008: It's Time

Go out and vote. Double check which candidate you checked off especially if you're using computerized voting machines. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't vote. Make sure you fill out a real ballot and not a provisional one. Make this election end differently. It's your civic duty.