Complaint Review: Cambridge Communications Peters Marketing Concepts Cydcor Limited DS Maxx - Melville New York

So imagine being a college graduate with a new Marketing degree and no experience in the summer of 2001. Before 9/11, but after the Internet bubble burst and all the jobs that existed the year before were gone. You go on interview after interview to no avail, and then one day, someone sees something in you- you have what it takes to work hard, become a manager, own your very own communications office anywhere in the world, and become a millionaire all within the year! I could do this! Sign me up for my very first job in the real business world!

Let me describe the first day: I arrive in my nice professional suit to 535 Broadhollow Road (aka Rt. 110) in Melville, NY at the office of Cory Slipakoff, the 24-year-old bagel boss turned millionaire through this wonderful company! I got to stand in a gigantic circle with about 50 other early twentysomethings (oh don't forget the 18-year-old mother named Steve) clap my hands, chant, and listen to "motivational speeches" (there was a name for them but I can't remember it because its been almost 4 years) that ended with everyone screaming JUICE at the top of their lungs. Wait, I think I remember the chant that brought our fearless leader Cory into the "atmosphere meeting"- "We want a meeting! We want a meeting! We all want a meeting so give us a meeting Cory...Slipakoff!" And then the jack*** came flying in a scooter! Perfect. And then before I knew it, we were going out into "the field".

Imagine the disgusting, humid, muggy August weather in New York City. Yes, New York City, Jamaica Queens, to be exact, because that was where our "territory" was that day. So I head off in the car of a total stranger, but by the end of the day my new leader and "friend" and learned how to knock on doors (for 10 hours!!!) and trick innocent Con Edison and Keyspan customers into signing their life away on the dotted line (and giving us their Social Security number- don't people THINK??!?) to have Econergy supply their electric and gas. At a wonderful discounted rate. And I got 20 bucks every time I duped someone into doing this! It was great! I could do this!

Nevermind the fact that I could drink seventeen water bottles a day and never have to go to the bathroom because I sweat it out by pounding the pavement all day and wearing out the soles of my shoes. Nevermind that my only break was when I ran into the bodega at the end of the block to get the water. And this continued for months, working six days a week at 14 hours a day, getting yelled at, lying to people, everyone hooking up with each other, getting yelled at for it (despite the fact that the wonderful manager Cory was sleeping with Amy Kraemer, his assistant manager from Elizabethtown, PA).

One day I was in the office and suddenly one of my fellow "distributers" came running into the office saying that a plane had just hit one of the twin towers. Hmmm. I don't have time to think about it because Chad is yelling at me to come find out where my territory is. Yes, Chad Peters, my future manager in Cherry Hill, NJ at Peters Markering Concepts. Did I mention they tried to send us out into the field that day? While the whole of New York City was in mass chaos, they still expected us to get people to fill out apps, to work a full day, and to come back and ring that **** bell! Flash forward to me now driving a carload of people to Brooklyn everyday, with no compensation for gas (I would get screamed at if I didn't come with a full tank every day) getting doors slammed in my face by crazy rastafarian socialists, getting called "snowflake" from a mysterious voice in an alley in Bedford-Stuyvesant (have you heard the Billy Joel song??)getting yelled at by old ladies who guessed I was trying to swindle them, still sweating my *** off, being told I wasn't working hard enough, that all of my family and friends who were telling me I was in a cult "didn't know what they [were] talking about and were suckers", involuntarily losing 15 pounds, and getting pay checks that really didn't add up to what I and my calculator thought I should be getting.

But I wouldn't dare complain- we wouldn't want to "neg out the new guys". Then one day in the midst of a miserable raining day when nobody wanted to sign their life away- the clouds parted and the sun came out- I was being chosen to move to Cherry Hill, New Jersey with five other nutcases to start a new office with Chad Peters, the schmuck from Allentown, PA. Woo-h*o! I was being handpicked! I was one of the ones who was going to make it! I was getting out! Who cares about finding somewhere to live, working all day and not getting paid if I couldn't get someone to sign their life away, and leaving all of my friends and family in the "outside world" behind! How lucky I was! There were about ten others that got to go and open a new office too- but they got to go to Omaha, Nebraska! Lots of big business there!

And so we went. I got to spend a week of training in Philadelphia, PA on no sleep (literally! Try sleeping on the floor of some random guy's appartment with all of your belongings in a bag that you were using as a pillow!) I got to c collapse in the middle of the week, got to learn a new AT&T campaign, and was introduced to something new: ringing the gong when you get 10 apps! Woo-h*o!

And when we finally moved to NJ I paid my rent on my credit card. And I got to arrive at work at 5:30 in the morning. And I got to tramp around miserably all day and not eat, and bring out different losers every day and try to get them to join up and eventually drink the kool-aid, compete like an animal with the five people I had come with originally, and deal with Chad's crap every single second on my cell phone. Suddenly I was like, "Hey, in five months I have made about $5,000, I have no soles on my shoes, I have no food, my car has about 10,000 more miles on it that it had in June, and did I really want to be a manager??? I had wanted to get into advertising copywriting!!! And one day, after speaking with a fellow idiot who had actually gone to the Nebraska office, I decided it had had it. And that next morning at 5 am when I broke the news to Chad, the ******* merely raised his eyebrows and said to me that he hoped I'd remember him when I was 35 and still working in the corporate world of suckers, because he would already be a retired millionaire. Sure Chad. Yes, my days at the cult had ended.

I spent Christmas in a daze, crying and going through cult withdrawal, gaining back the 15 pounds, and picking up the pieces of my life. Sometimes I talked to Maria, Matt, Felicia, Rob, and Mike on the phone, but after a while Chad told them not to talk to me any more because I would corrupt them. And might convince them to ask him for their pay checks that had suddenly disappeared. From what I've heard in recent years they all finally quit- I think Matt went to California, Maria is still in New York, Mike went to Chicago, Rob's in D.C. and Felicia is probably still working at that hotel in Fire Island. I don't know. I wonder what the hell ever happened to Chad and Cory- being that I didn't see them when I was in Monte Carlo last summer, I think its safe to say that the millionaire thing didn't work out once all of their lemmings realized they were full of it the whole time, and that Cydcor and DS Maxx were crap and so were Murry Reinhardt, Avi Roth, John Wiggins, and whoever the hell else all of those head honchos were. I wonder what kind of gas Chad pumps now, or which fast food franchise Cory flips burgers or slings chicken for. I'll keep a look out for them in my travels. Can't wait to ask them about their retirement plan!

Kristen

Long Island, New York
U.S.A.

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