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skipdogg posted:I always thought the Mary Kay cars were part of a bonus structure. You can get the car and as long as you meet sales quotas MK makes the lease payment for you...OR you can get a cash bonus of whatever the lease payment is. So it's not a FREE car, it's a car payment or cash bonus. That's the correct interpretation. But if you take the car and fall below the bonus goal, now it's your payments. ninja: Also, anyone seriously considering it as a full-time vocation has had too much kool-aid and seriously needs to do some math.
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Apr 1, 2014 16:46
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I did some IT consulting work for Arbonne (very similar to MK) a while ago and it's nuts how much money the (very) few people at the top of the pyramid rake in. Also they have more full-time lawyers on staff than pretty much every other administrative position combined.
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Apr 1, 2014 17:34
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Guinness posted:I did some IT consulting work for Arbonne (very similar to MK) a while ago and it's nuts how much money the (very) few people at the top of the pyramid rake in. Also they have more full-time lawyers on staff than pretty much every other administrative position combined. If you outsource fullfillment and production (And why wouldn't you), all you need to run an MLM is a marketing / branding department, some support staff and a shitton of lawyers for when you get sued or need to shut someone up. It's a great business model, really, the marks are doing most of the scut work themselves and paying you for it.
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Apr 1, 2014 17:50
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A buddies ex did MK. She now makes more money at a minimum wage job than she did doing MK full time, ha. And the MK parties...horrid. My gf went to one and had to make an excuse to leave early. The MK girl was going on and on about how she was going to get a MK car, too. From her sales, I doubt that was reasonably possible, but her higher up's had convinced her it was... Ah MLM, lawlz for all!
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Apr 1, 2014 19:47
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I reminded of the person who's girlfriend moved away to sell books or something and it completly changed her into someone else. Scary poo poo.
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Apr 1, 2014 20:00
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My sister did MK. She and her husband are relatively financially stable and she did it because she liked the products herself, and sold them for some of her friends/coworkers. She wanted to make it more of a big thing but I think she realized it would have to be a full time job for significantly less money.
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Apr 1, 2014 20:02
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canyoneer posted:We've talked often in this thread about MLM/Pyramid schemes. Here's a decent blog post about why they are garbage. My favorites are the comments along the lines of "hey it's not so bad.. I make $200/year from selling smelly candles and it didn't cost me that much... oh god please buy my smelly candles here is my contact info/website". There seemed to be a lot of Scentsy people in those comments. Scented electric candle poo poo seems like the dumbest thing you could sell. At least makeup and cookware has some intrinsic usefulness (except some of those gimmicky Pampered Chef things that are a pain in the rear end to clean if you don't have a dishwasher). Scented candles and plugins just give me terrible headaches and I think they all smell pretty gross, so maybe I'm extra biased. But still, how do people think this is better than just setting up a product review blog laced with affiliate links? I make a couple hundred a year from my half-assed Amazon affiliate links on my low-traffic author website - all I do is direct people to Amazon via links to my books, they buy poo poo other than my books and then I get commission for doing virtually no work (I'm more into the affiliate program for the data at this point). What I find so baffling is that these people often put in a lot of effort and work and piss off their friends and have to organize parties and keep their inventory up to date and a whole bunch of poo poo only to lose money, break even, or come out with paltry earnings not nearly worth the time and effort put in. Seems like the absolute worst way to make money, especially with so many legit ways to make "work from home" money much more easily. MLM koolaid must be some powerful poo poo.
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Apr 1, 2014 20:04
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If you've not read it before, Merchants of Deception is a great case study on how loving insane MLMs are, specifically Amway (it's free): https://archive.org/details/MerchantsOfDeception Even the diamonds aren't making what they say they're making.
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Apr 1, 2014 20:24
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pathetic little tramp posted:If you've not read it before, Merchants of Deception is a great case study on how loving insane MLMs are, specifically Amway (it's free): This is so cult-like it is surreal. I guess being indoctrinated over time makes it easier to swallow but man, what a complete con game.
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Apr 5, 2014 03:37
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Not to interrupt all the MLMchat, but I have a story I'd like to share. It's about my old gf so I get perverse pleasure out of telling it, and I probably can't be totally objective. Anyway, back in 2003 (well before I met her) she bought a row house in a part of the city that was "up and coming" for $100,000. Zillow says that today it's worth $130k. Okay. What Zillow doesn't know is that shortly after she bought it, she haphazardly gutted the place with the intention of remodeling it, but never did. So now it's a shell of old framing with various levels of flooring, sub floor, and an odd patchwork of drywall and plaster on some of the walls, bare studs in other places. She has spent tens of thousands of dollars on aborted, half assed renovation attempts. She paid $2,000 for a complete set of plans, then kept spending more money having the plans changed. She paid a plumber thousands of dollars to run copper pipes because she didn't like PEX. She has a lawyer on retainer to help her with the permits and variances. The house is basically a running joke at her job at this point, when I met her coworkers they would say "so how's the house going?" and smirk. It's not just money either, she tries to do a lot of the work herself, but she has no real aptitude for it, she's not strong enough to drive nails through studs, so she was using loving drywall screws. Anyway, I just realized that this all sounds funny and interesting to me, but maybe it just sounds like a bitter ex to everyone else, there's lots more if anyone is interested in hearing it.
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Apr 5, 2014 14:47
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Blackjack2000 posted:she's not strong enough to drive nails through studs, so she was using loving drywall screws. If it isn't something that needs to be able to flex for structural reasons, and which you want to stay in place, and the screws are long enough, this is not a bad approach. That said; has she never heard of a nail gun? Also, CHILDREN can drive nails into studs, WTF.
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Apr 5, 2014 15:03
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Blackjack2000 posted:Anyway, I just realized that this all sounds funny and interesting to me, but maybe it just sounds like a bitter ex to everyone else, there's lots more if anyone is interested in hearing it. Dick tease. Share it all. That's what this thread is for.
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Apr 5, 2014 15:07
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VideoTapir posted:If it isn't something that needs to be able to flex for structural reasons, and which you want to stay in place, and the screws are long enough, this is not a bad approach. Yes, she is VERY weak. There's no structural problem with drywall screws, but if you ever need to take it apart it's an absolute nightmare. You either need to back the screws out with a driver, or trash sawzall blade after sawzall blade cutting through them. All of her framing will need to be taken apart. Okay, I will tell more, I just wasn't sure how it was coming off. Sooooo... She and her mother both used to live in Seattle, she moved here a little before she bought the house and her mother eventually went down to Tennessee. But her mother went from a house to an apartment, and had to leave lots of her awesome stuff (garbage) in a big storage unit that my gf paid for. $225 a month. For more than ten years. About 6 months into our relationship, her mother gets a 1 month notice from her landlady to vacate. My gf decides to solve the stuff problem and the housing problem in one fell swoop, by buying her mother a house. (You've probably realized by now that my gf makes a lot of money, about $140k per year. She could have an absolutely amazing lifestyle if she was smarter with it.) What's more, it was going to be a surprise. Remember the house that she gutted and was going to renovate? She had been working with a credit union to get a big loan (~150k) to just hire out a contractor and be done with it. She was unsatisfied with every single contractor that she got bids from however, and was afraid that she would spend all that money and be unhappy with the result (which is absolutely what would have happened). So she pivots, calls the loan officer and tells him instead of a construction loan, she wants to buy her mom a house in Tennessee. She gets in touch with a Realtor and begins flying down to Tennessee to look at houses, ends up buying a huge SFH for around $160k, and "SURPRISE!" mom just signed a 1 year lease on a new place because she had no idea what her daughter was doing. I drive down with her to help mom move in. The house is beautiful, it's amazing what $160k will get you in rural Tennessee. It has like four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a huge kitchen living room, and a large yard with a garden. I suggest that maybe mom can take on a boarder to help with the mortgage and expenses since she's 75 years old and never really owned a house before. That's apparently out of the question. Now, obviously I thought this was all a terrible idea, but I kept it to myself because she was not looking for my input, she was spending her own money, and we were not engaged or anything. I would later learn that this was not a reflexive concession. Anyway, I'll post some more later.
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Apr 5, 2014 15:41
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This girl sounds full of great stories. Please continue when you feel like it! Fwiw, nail guns ftw. Buy one and don't look back if you have framing to do. My HF gun has thrown about 1500 nails without an issue. If buying el cheapo nail gun (HF), make sure you get one that can fit *real* nails in the event you do real framing vs stuff meant to last a few years and come down, cuz cheap nails are very weak.
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Apr 5, 2014 17:15
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What does she do for a living?
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Apr 5, 2014 18:47
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SiGmA_X posted:This girl sounds full of great stories. Please continue when you feel like it! More stories than you can imagine, but I'm going to try to avoid all the E/N stuff and stick to financial matters. After she broke up with me she came by to drop my poo poo off and told me that she had finally bought a nail gun. I shudder to think what the ability to sink dozens of nails per minute has meant to that poor row house. EugeneJ posted:What does she do for a living? She works for the Federal Government. G-14 I believe. Her story of 'making it' is actually pretty impressive. Growing up in cockroach infested apartments in NYC with her single mom to putting herself through engineering school. She's got guts, there's no question about it, but I also think her childhood has really affected on her behavior. Anyway... more stories. A few years after tearing her house apart, she was exhausted from all the effort of putting it back together. Keep in mind, she's very small and not strong at all, and she also never had a car. (That will be another story.) So framing a wall might take three or four weekends. It would go something like this: go onto the zip car website and find a van to rent. Walk to the lot where the van is. Drive to Home Depot. Wander around looking for the right lumber and someone to help load it. Checkout and load up. Get home. Spend a half hour interpreting the plan and figuring out where the plate needs to be. Drill holes in everything. Screw everything together. All this took forever because, you know, she's not a framer. So she would cut a piece three or four times, and then it would be too short, that type of poo poo. So eventually she got the third floor more or less 'done'. It looked terrible, but it was livable. And she moved all her poo poo up there and the construction work just about halted. So there she was, making $140k, living in a semi-sketchy part of town on the third floor of a mostly shredded row house, about 450 square feet. But now that she wasn't spending hundreds of dollars every weekend on her house, she decided to spend more money on clothes, beginning with a $14,000 fur coat that she never ended up wearing because she regretted buying it and is kind-of against fur anyway. So did she sell it? No. She paid (and for all I know, continues to pay) for some service where it's stored and maintained for her. I think it was something like $40-$50 per month, or maybe it was less. Clothing is a thing for her. She was always telling me about how clothes that are made now are crap, and the stitching is garbage, and the fabric is lighter and woven more cheaply and on and on. So this is her solution, she decides to buy a few yards of fabric (nice, expensive silk) dye the silk, and have her tailor make blouses for her. She figured out that cost of buying the silk and the dye, and having the blouses made would be about the same price as buying them from the mall or something. You can probably imagine at this point has it all went. She was not happy with the color the silk came out when she dyed it, she did not like the way the blouses were cut or how they fit her, she didn't like how they were stitched, and she didn't like the way the buttons and trim looked. The whole process took like six months front to back, with her making numerous trips down to the tailor, asking questions, arguing about different things, dying samples of fabric, and on and on. In the end I'm guessing she spent several hundred dollars and I bet she does not wear the blouses (I thought they looked fine).
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Apr 5, 2014 20:42
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She spent 10% of her yearly income on a fur coat that she pays $40 a month to take care of, doesn't wear, and morally opposes. That might just be the worst single decision posted here.
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Apr 5, 2014 23:23
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Boyfriend's sister got braces in college at a cost of $4000. Got them removed two days later because they hurt too much.
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Apr 5, 2014 23:48
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Switchback posted:Boyfriend's sister got braces in college at a cost of $4000. Can't really blame her there, are those things supposed to hurt?
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Apr 5, 2014 23:50
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FrozenVent posted:Can't really blame her there, are those things supposed to hurt? Yes. Your mouth aches until you get used to it/the teeth start shifting a bit (which is the point of braces) and the metal bits cut into your mouth until the skin gets used to it (they give you wax to ease the pain while the inside of your mouth adjusts). It's literally metal wires that gradually drag your teeth into a straight row. Colin Mockery fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 00:24
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Horking Delight posted:Yes. Your mouth aches until you get used to it/the teeth start shifting a bit (which is the point of braces) and the metal bits cut into your mouth until the skin gets used to it (they give you wax to ease the pain while the inside of your mouth adjusts). This post so true that I just experienced the ache and irritation from the mere MEMORY of having braces. This is explained ahead of time, but I knew I was in it for the long haul. Sunk cost etc
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Apr 6, 2014 01:52
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FrozenVent posted:Can't really blame her there, are those things supposed to hurt? They will hurt repeatedly. They move your teeth little by little, so once they stop hurting they will re-tension the wires and the pain begins again. There will be a 2-5 day period where all you can eat is things like mushed up bananas and yogurt, or you may just decide eating isn't worth it for a day or two.
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Apr 6, 2014 01:53
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I remember when I was a kid I would take myself to my orthodontist appointments on the city bus, and my mom would leave me a bus ticket and five dollars for taco bell beforehand since I wouldn't be able to eat again that day  Speaking of bad with money, my dad paid up front for a full course of invisalign and then his wife had to borrow $400 from me to pay their utilities. She paid me back, but geez dad, they have a no interest installment plan.
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Apr 6, 2014 01:57
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Trilineatus posted:I remember when I was a kid I would take myself to my orthodontist appointments on the city bus, and my mom would leave me a bus ticket and five dollars for taco bell beforehand since I wouldn't be able to eat again that day I know this is pretty weird but I always could tell how well-off my friends families were by how nice their teeth looked, since I was always self-conscious of my teeth but we could never dream of affording braces when I was a kid. Now I have dreams/nightmares of just sucking it up and getting invisalign because I know it would help my confidence more.
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Apr 6, 2014 15:47
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fruition posted:I know this is pretty weird but I always could tell how well-off my friends families were by how nice their teeth looked, since I was always self-conscious of my teeth but we could never dream of affording braces when I was a kid. Now I have dreams/nightmares of just sucking it up and getting invisalign because I know it would help my confidence more. If you can afford it, just do it, since it seems to be a big self image thing for you.
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Apr 6, 2014 16:09
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fruition posted:I know this is pretty weird but I always could tell how well-off my friends families were by how nice their teeth looked, since I was always self-conscious of my teeth but we could never dream of affording braces when I was a kid. Now I have dreams/nightmares of just sucking it up and getting invisalign because I know it would help my confidence more. Worth it. Just plan for it better than my dad did. I know some people consider "luxury" expenses related to physical appearance to be wastes of money (the exception seeming to be fitness related line items), but I think things like invisalign, contacts/laser eye surgery, laser hair removal, monthly upkeep stuff like waxing, or even things like weight watchers meetings have such a huge impact on quality of life that if you can afford them I can think of NO reason why you shouldn't invest in them. If my teeth were crooked now you can bet I would be in braces.
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Apr 6, 2014 16:14
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What's the process of getting invisalign? I'm guessing I need to make an appointment with a dentist and get myself cleaned up and everything checked to make sure I don't have cavities or whatnot, and then I just ask them about getting invisalign? (How much does it cost out of pocket cause I don't think my insurance covers orthodontics for adults).
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Apr 6, 2014 17:01
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Boris Galerkin posted:What's the process of getting invisalign? I'm guessing I need to make an appointment with a dentist and get myself cleaned up and everything checked to make sure I don't have cavities or whatnot, and then I just ask them about getting invisalign? (How much does it cost out of pocket cause I don't think my insurance covers orthodontics for adults). Yeah, you would need to see a dentist about this. You should be seeing a dentist regularly anyway, major dental problems can actually lead to major general health problems.
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Apr 6, 2014 17:16
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Boris Galerkin posted:What's the process of getting invisalign? I'm guessing I need to make an appointment with a dentist and get myself cleaned up and everything checked to make sure I don't have cavities or whatnot, and then I just ask them about getting invisalign? (How much does it cost out of pocket cause I don't think my insurance covers orthodontics for adults). I recently got invisalign. I saw an orthodontist, rather than a dentist. Invisalign cost me about 4600 including the x-rays for top and bottom. Conventional braces were slightly less expensive (a few hundred dollars), because I believe they're more profitable for the orthodontist since he doesn't have to spend all the money on a third party for the aligners that they manufacture. Many orthodontists will do a free consultation where they just visually inspect your teeth, and tell you what they would recommend, and give some quotes for treatment. If you still want to go ahead, they will then charge you several hundred dollars to take molds + xrays. Then they do a detailed plan of attack for the braces / invisalign based on those, and you either choose to spend $4k or not.
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Apr 6, 2014 17:25
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Boris Galerkin posted:What's the process of getting invisalign? I'm guessing I need to make an appointment with a dentist and get myself cleaned up and everything checked to make sure I don't have cavities or whatnot, and then I just ask them about getting invisalign? (How much does it cost out of pocket cause I don't think my insurance covers orthodontics for adults). I got mine through my regular dentist. Many dental plans have a lifetime amount you can spend on orthodontia. I had MetLife, and they contributed $1500 toward my $5000ish total. I also got a 10% discount by paying for it all up front. If you can afford it, always ask if there is a discount for paying in full up front. Cost also varies by how many trays you need. I needed 11 for my lowers and 22 for my uppers. It took about a year and a half and now I wear a retainer. I'm 32 and it was totally worth it. And yeah, you should be going to the dentist regularly anyhow. It wasn't painless, but it was not unbearable in any sense of the word.
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Apr 6, 2014 17:44
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Not all crooked teeth qualify for Invisalign. My husband asked and they said it wouldn't work for his teeth (one section is pretty wonky and overlapped). Traditional braces or nothing - sucks because he had braces as a teen but never wore the retainers so they shifted right back.
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Apr 6, 2014 18:12
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Braces on the backs of your teeth are sometimes an option, or normal braces but clear. It wouldn't look totally bracesless but it's not that big a deal either.
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Apr 6, 2014 19:03
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You're all pussies. Get a good friend to gently caress your jaw up with a rubber mallet (say you fell off a cliff), then get the reconstructive surgery. Cheaper in the long run because that's usually covered by major medical as opposed to orthodontics, plus more long-lasting results because they'll usually have to permanently fuse some metal into your jaw.
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Apr 6, 2014 19:38
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pathetic little tramp posted:You're all pussies. Get a good friend to gently caress your jaw up with a rubber mallet (say you fell off a cliff), then get the reconstructive surgery. Cheaper in the long run because that's usually covered by major medical as opposed to orthodontics, plus more long-lasting results because they'll usually have to permanently fuse some metal into your jaw. What are we thinking, this plan is flawless. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
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Apr 7, 2014 03:11
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pathetic little tramp posted:You're all pussies. Get a good friend to gently caress your jaw up with a rubber mallet (say you fell off a cliff), then get the reconstructive surgery. Cheaper in the long run because that's usually covered by major medical as opposed to orthodontics, plus more long-lasting results because they'll usually have to permanently fuse some metal into your jaw. I tripped on my stairs one night and broke my jaw, knocked out a couple of teeth, cracked several more teeth. Needed a bunch of work done. My medical insurance jerked me around until the time limit to file a claim expired. So, no. That's not a good plan.
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Apr 7, 2014 04:13
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Shattered five teeth on a bungee cord cause I'm a retarded mouth breathing goon and medical covered the root canal and five crowns. Lucky I guess. Of course my dentist managed to dick up the root canal and I got an abscess and had to have it redone by a root canal doctor. My dentist felt bad and replaced my crown on the house though.
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Apr 7, 2014 07:50
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A reminder, there's a useful place for everyone to tell their "I chewed glass and spent ten grand on a dentist" stories: http://www.pluralofanecdote.com
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Apr 7, 2014 08:01
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A absolutely hated having my braces tightened and the noises it would make, but I found the sensation of my teeth being pulled back by the wires weirdly pleasant.
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Apr 7, 2014 08:05
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I floss religiously every day and brush carefully and wear my night retainer thing because my teeth were very expensive. And I don't really eat sugar or anything acidic. But they're also made of chalk so I just had seven cavities filled. I feel like a man who abstained from smoking only to be diagnosed with lung cancer. I'm never loving flossing again. 
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Apr 7, 2014 13:53
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Anne Whateley posted:Braces on the backs of your teeth are sometimes an option, or normal braces but clear. It wouldn't look totally bracesless but it's not that big a deal either. As someone who just last week got clear braces off - it's not worth it. Even though I was careful to avoid foods that stained (Indian foods, tomato sauces etc), I still got significant enough staining of the bands that my teeth just looked yellow and gross. I was so used to the appearance that I was shocked at how white my teeth were when the braces came off. Don't bother with the extra (at least it was extra in my case, compared to normal metal) braces. You'll be happy at the end of it when it's all done, and it honestly is true, the time goes quickly (2yrs for me). FYI I was 23 and am now 25 and spent weeks before getting them freaking out about how I'd look. I guess hindsight is 20/20. Also Tuyop - my dentist recommended a water pick while I had braces. While I was shocked at the lack of food sticking in my teeth post-braces, I was also shocked by the amount that still came out when I flossed, especially since I got 4 teeth removed and so don't have teeth that are tightly crammed together. I regret not flossing so much before I got braces! Eden fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 14:16
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