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BiggerBoat posted:Expounding further on it, the job hunting experience really loving sucks and I can empathize. Pennsylvania is pretty much identical except for the part where the website is officially closed off hours. It frequently ceasing to work after you've put in 20 minutes of input and losing it all is spot on though. My one and only experience getting a job through the Unemployment office was in Tennessee and it was a bait-and-switch from the advertised Office Manager role into--surprise!!--uncommissioned sales. In medical equipment direct to customers, which let me tell you is very likely the most miserable flavor of Sales job on Earth. I was desperate so I took the job and did nothing for 3 months until they fired me. Which as it happened, they fired me one (1) day before I accepted a much better job.
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Sep 7, 2022 13:31
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BiggerBoat posted:Expounding further on it, the job hunting experience really loving sucks and I can empathize. Most of the major job sites are full of scams. I’m a tech guy, so I see a lot of poo poo like Revature, where you pay for a few months of training before they match you with (supposedly Fortune 400) companies. Fortunately, it’s usually pretty easy to spot the scams; especially if they’re as lazy as this one was. Online job hunting loving sucks.
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Sep 7, 2022 14:01
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BiggerBoat posted:Based on the nibbles I got, apparently I'd be really good at selling life insurance I watched someone do this based on some insane quota, and he did not appear to be having fun but did appear to bother all of his friends.
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Sep 7, 2022 14:02
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"Network Marketing" is just what the MLMs call each other now that Multi-Level Marketing has become a poisoned phrase, isn't it? In the early days Amway called it Pyramid Marketing and used a literal pyramid diagram to demonstrate it to marks. They have to change what they call it every decade or so so they can say "nonono, we're totally not an MLM, this is Network Marketing, totally different!" Flash forward to 2034 and the same people are saying "nonono we're not Network Marketing, we're..." Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 7, 2022 15:53
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Has anyone ever heard of Landmark? If so, is it a scam, cult, weirdo religion? I have a sorta friend that has apparently gotten pretty deep into it lately.
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Sep 18, 2022 20:32
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EdsTeioh posted:Has anyone ever heard of Landmark? If so, is it a scam, cult, weirdo religion? I have a sorta friend that has apparently gotten pretty deep into it lately. "Landmark" is a pretty generic term and a lot of companies use it, so I searched for "landmark scam", of which the first result was this Quora post. They all seem to follow the same theme of "It's not a cult but they do hard sell the poo poo out of you." If your friend enjoys it, it's their money, but it sounds like it's not exactly swell for most people. Digging a little deeper, I found this medium article, whose tldr is quote:Landmark isn’t doing anything illegal. It looks like a cult, it smells like a cult — but without the traditional quasi-religious associations. It appears to be a highly profitable socially exploitative business that’s learned its entire operational methodology from cults, its sales patter from IBM and shares its marketing and CRM strategy with the likes of Facebook.
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Sep 18, 2022 20:45
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Seems like for the most part if you have to google too deep or do more than a cursory search for an employer wondering what they do and if it's a scam or a cult, the answer is almost always yes.
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Sep 18, 2022 21:20
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EdsTeioh posted:Has anyone ever heard of Landmark? If so, is it a scam, cult, weirdo religion? I have a sorta friend that has apparently gotten pretty deep into it lately. What the other guy said. It's capitalizing on cult behavior. I went to a presentation. At one point they come around asking I'd you want to sign up. I said not now he said OK then maybe in the session after? I said I don't know maybe. He said, if you're going to sign up for a later session you should do it now. There's a blur here where I don't remember who said what, but it ended in me saying "no I was just being polite and I don't want so sign up and you're pissing me off by not understanding this and moving on." He said "doesnt that feel better to be your authentic self? We can help you with that" and I told him to leave me alone.
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Sep 18, 2022 23:28
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I've got a friend who got really into it, changed their life view and stuff. I guess if it makes them happier and fixes relationships or be more effective in daily life then good for them, they're getting value out of it. They got me to go with them to a session and I was pretty uncomfortable, and it's not a good sign when someone trying to get me to come out says "It's not a pyramid scheme"
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Sep 18, 2022 23:33
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EdsTeioh posted:Has anyone ever heard of Landmark? If so, is it a scam, cult, weirdo religion? I have a sorta friend that has apparently gotten pretty deep into it lately. p sure they shut the servers down a long time ago. Might be someone running a private server. 
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Sep 18, 2022 23:45
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Used to be called Est (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training#Related_organizations) More cult than scam. Think Tony Robbins. My parents did it in the 1970s.
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Sep 19, 2022 00:11
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StormDrain posted:What the other guy said. It's capitalizing on cult behavior. Sign up for what exactly, though? If they can't tell you or offer specifics, it's an Amway MLM Direct Marketing bullshit thing. ilmucche posted:I've got a friend who got really into it, changed their life view and stuff. I guess if it makes them happier and fixes relationships or be more effective in daily life then good for them, they're getting value out of it. They got me to go with them to a session and I was pretty uncomfortable, and it's not a good sign when someone trying to get me to come out says "It's not a pyramid scheme" Nah. Not to poo poo on your friend or anything but it'll most likely be short lived. And if they have to say "it's not a pyramid scheme" then that's exactly what it is. Sorry. If it's what I suspect it is, it's filled with "positive thinking", self help go get em inspirational talk and full of people who pretend to like you and tell you YOU CAN DO IT if you just believe in yourself and poo poo, so your friend is drawing off those endorphins. Next thing you know, before you know it, you're friend will find Christ and show up for your weekly gaming session or whatever you do with him wearing a suit and tie and be trying to sign YOU up. All the time. Soon, it will be all he talks about. He'll start lending you books to read. If I'm mistaken, I apologize in advance but I don't think I am and I smell a direct marketing/MLM style scam here where, before long, if you or anyone else in your circle doesn't get on board, he's going to stop hanging out with you because you'll be "dragging him down" and "ruining his dream" if you're not interested. He's also going to start giving you free samples of "concentrated" overpriced products to try out and never poo poo the gently caress up about how shiny it can make your car or whatever. If he's not doing that already. Has he given you any energy drinks, protein bars or car wax to try out?
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Sep 19, 2022 00:29
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BiggerBoat posted:If they can't tell you or offer specifics, it's an Amway MLM Direct Marketing bullshit thing. I mean it might be MLM in that they're probably eventually recruiting you so you get other people to join the courses. There isn't the low-margin lovely product that you're filling up your garage with and never actually selling. edit: from Wikipedia citations, unpaywalled: https://archive.ph/muW9p bort fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 00:38
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BiggerBoat posted:Sign up for what exactly, though? They want you to sign up for like weekend seminars where you do personal growth workshops and stuff. As you say, it's probably short lived as the high of the intense weekend goes away. I don't think landmark actually sells any product. Got the impression it's self help seminars only, so no inline for recruiting people or whatever. I didn't ask for details since the evening thing I went to made me feel really uncomfortable and it felt a bit culty so I wasn't going to stick around. Ended up moving away so I don't talk to that friend much anymore, but they've never mentioned it the few times we have seen each other so I think they're fine.
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Sep 19, 2022 00:42
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It was much cooler before, where they used to swear at and berate participants and not let anyone go to the bathroom all day. Kids these days couldn't deal with the cults I grew up with. 
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Sep 19, 2022 00:48
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As someone else best me to, they sign you up for $800/weekend seminars and follow up seminars and meetings and classes. Then get you to sign up your friends for a referral fee.
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Sep 19, 2022 00:53
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As cults go, their ideas are less repugnant than most. Accepting yourself, taking responsibility for your response to trauma, and that you stand in your own way. Like a lot of self-help, the pat ideas are seductive and sound super simple and so you may think you've made a ton of progress because your thinking has some neat rhyming couplets in it. And then there's "see, now call your friends and tell them what a great person you're becoming because of EST/The Forum/Landmark". Cult. Less sexual misconduct and more tax evasion, but cult.
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Sep 19, 2022 01:01
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I did the “Landmark Forum” back in 1999 or so, at the insistence of a coworker. It’s kind of a lock-in kind of a thing, where it’s positive reinforcement/thinking etc. using their own peculiar terminology. Strictly scheduled break times, which as I recall were supposed to be spent in the room. When you go to lunch or dinner you’re told what you should be talking about while you’re gone. It’s normally held in a mostly featureless room with no clocks. At the end their main goal is to get you to 1) sign up for further “seminars” and 2) get other people to sign up for the initial one Others may come in here and say they really get something out of it. My coworker sure did. I call it sort of a pyramid scheme but not really (because you don’t get anything by annoying other people until they finally agree to do it… well, maybe you got a small discount off the next course you were going to, if you referred someone, but nobody gets paid except for the landmark people) It is kind of culty IMO, but it’s not as insular and people don’t end up killing themselves on orders. It’s just kind of weird. Also it’s a waste of money IMO, if you are into self-help you can do better for cheaper by buying a book or two. Also when I refused to sign up for another course they called me a couple times a week for a couple of months asking me when I was going to sign up again. I think you all get the picture.
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Sep 19, 2022 01:07
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It's weird, I ran into a Forum advocate in grad school (although she mentioned it maybe once or twice), year later a relative talked to me about how Landmark might improve my life, and then years after that EST showed up on The Americans.
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Sep 19, 2022 01:25
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Welp I think this gives me exactly what I need. When she started posting these LENGTHY posts about “a new thing that’s all about positivity” I was a little suspicious but then she drops this big thing about “you know when you go to see your favorite band live and there are thousands of people singing along and experiencing the same energy? That’s what this is like but BETTER!” (Personally, my favorite band is the Dead Milkmen and I’ve never seen them with more than about 70 people, so no, I don’t really know that feeling). I tend to be pretty “cult aware” due to listening to weirdo podcasts and just generally being interested in dumb poo poo but this one has apparently escaped me.
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Sep 19, 2022 02:17
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Yeah, I knew someone with a lovely background who got into Landmark Education seminars for self-actualization. She cut off contact from anyone/anything negative (her whole social group) and we never saw her again. At the time, we understood it was some Scientology-adjacent pay-for-play nonsense. Now she's on FB, still doing the same spooky nerd poo poo as before, so she got out of whatever that trash was.
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Sep 19, 2022 14:10
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EdsTeioh posted:(Personally, my favorite band is the Dead Milkmen and I’ve never seen them with more than about 70 people, so no, I don’t really know that feeling). :3
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Sep 19, 2022 14:10
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EdsTeioh posted:Welp I think this gives me exactly what I need. When she started posting these LENGTHY posts about “a new thing that’s all about positivity” I was a little suspicious but then she drops this big thing about “you know when you go to see your favorite band live and there are thousands of people singing along and experiencing the same energy? That’s what this is like but BETTER!” (Personally, my favorite band is the Dead Milkmen and I’ve never seen them with more than about 70 people, so no, I don’t really know that feeling). I tend to be pretty “cult aware” due to listening to weirdo podcasts and just generally being interested in dumb poo poo but this one has apparently escaped me. This is the second time in ten years I've seen a Dead Milkmen reference anywhere, let alone on the forums, and the first was just yesterday  Also now I'm salty because loving Steve Jobs won't let me play their music in my region 
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Sep 19, 2022 20:18
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Weatherman posted:This is the second time in ten years I've seen a Dead Milkmen reference anywhere, let alone on the forums, and the first was just yesterday You need to hang around me when a Camaro goes by. Especially a bitchin one.
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Sep 19, 2022 20:57
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Weatherman posted:This is the second time in ten years I've seen a Dead Milkmen reference anywhere, let alone on the forums, and the first was just yesterday I hear you're thinkin about goin down to the shore
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Sep 19, 2022 20:58
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EdsTeioh posted:I hear you're thinkin about goin down to the shore
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Sep 19, 2022 20:59
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FMguru posted:Be sure to ask for Mojo Nixon He don't work here EdsTeioh fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 21:00
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Man, I just found out about Landmark a couple of weeks ago and the angle was its relation to the most infuriatingly hippie woo woo bullshit restaurant northern California ever produced. Here's their menu, and yes, you have to order the items as they are named and yes, the server does ask every table the question in the top right corner too. So, on top of, you know, all that... "According to a 2009 East Bay Express exposé on the restaurant, managers and owners describe it as "a school of transformation disguised as a cafe." The methods in which employees are expected to "transform" are what some people, former personnel included, find questionable. The restaurant's business model, which the owners have dubbed "Sacred Commerce," integrates spirituality into their profit-making. In order to infuse the company with positive energy, employees are strongly encouraged to participate in the Landmark Forum, a program "designed to bring about positive, permanent shifts in the quality of [one's] life—in just three days." Matthew Engelhart and Terces Lane, the founders of Café Gratitude, met at one such forum." from https://la.curbed.com/2014/10/23/10033900/cafe-gratitude-and-the-cult-of-commerce I can't find a real connection between the restaurant owners and the Landmark leadership or anything, but the owners sure seem to fancy themselves as cult leaders and IMHO are just outsourcing the brainwashing to a third party. "The Engelharts wrote a book about their business practices in 2008, called Sacred Commerce, in which they justify their practice of sharing as being part of a new sacred community, a sort of anti-business business. “Our sacred enterprise, Cafe Gratitude, is sometimes accused of being a ‘cult’,” they write, “because the perception is that we ‘make’ people be grateful. Apparently the god of materialism, the Hungry Ghost, finds thankfulness threatening. But we are not threatened.”" from https://www.grubstreet.com/2011/11/a_new_side_of_the_caf_gratitud.html
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Sep 19, 2022 22:55
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I would like 'I am exquisite', followed by 'I am humble', please.
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Sep 19, 2022 23:36
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I am grateful my legs work *leaves*
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Sep 20, 2022 00:12
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Oh hey, it's "cultural appropriation" the menu.
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Sep 20, 2022 00:40
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I'd like the 'I Am Enraged' pulled pork BBQ and the 'I Am Vicious' steak tartare for my date
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Sep 20, 2022 00:43
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ilmucche posted:They want you to sign up for like weekend seminars where you do personal growth workshops and stuff. As you say, it's probably short lived as the high of the intense weekend goes away. bort posted:It's not Amway. You don't have to sell anything. They just want you to sign up for more expensive courses in order to become a more fabulous human being full of cosmic potential and whatnot. Scientology with less subterfuge. Well, there you go. They're selling you tickets to motivational seminars and poo poo so it may as well be Amway or MLM since that's where these companies really make their money and it's all been well documented. Used to be, the real money was selling cassette tapes full of "you can DO IT" poo poo and, if you didn't buy them from your sponsor, you were destined to fail because you didn't purchase "the tools" to succeed in the business. But now that no one listens to CD's or tapes, they do this poo poo and surround you with positive thinking acolytes and trot out examples of success on to the stage telling you to believe in yourself. Sorry your friend is falling victim to it but hopefully he escapes without going bankrupt and just takes away the positive reinforcement poo poo enough to bolster his self confidence in ways that might help him do something useful.
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Sep 20, 2022 00:57
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I will say one positive thing about Landmark: From what I’ve read and heard, it’s not NEARLY as expensive as Scientology, LMAO
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Sep 20, 2022 00:58
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If you all will excuse me, I'm off to take some mentally challenged kids to the zoo. I was going to take the skinheads bowling (take them bowling) but that was a separate idea from a different band.
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Sep 20, 2022 01:03
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greazeball posted:Man, I just found out about Landmark a couple of weeks ago and the angle was its relation to the most infuriatingly hippie woo woo bullshit restaurant northern California ever produced. Here's their menu, and yes, you have to order the items as they are named and yes, the server does ask every table the question in the top right corner too. That menu would be way more classy if the cents part of the prices was in fractions.
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Sep 20, 2022 01:07
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BiggerBoat posted:If you all will excuse me, I'm off to take some mentally challenged kids to the zoo. Yeah that one didn’t really age well, huh? Also DM > CVB live but CVB is still good. Also holy poo poo that menu!!!
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Sep 20, 2022 01:21
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MrMojok posted:I will say one positive thing about Landmark: That's true.... I am glad I'm not supporting someone who's doing it though. Not anymore at least. I was quick to point out what that amount of money can buy and it's like arguing with a wall. Also apparently it's mandatory at Panda Express, for management I assume. Edit: oh boy I just recalled having discussions derailed over my word choices too. From things taught in that class. I am extra salty about it because of the things I was chastised for doing that didn't follow their lessons. StormDrain fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Sep 20, 2022 |
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Sep 20, 2022 01:28
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Red Oktober posted:I would like 'I am exquisite', followed by 'I am humble', please. I'm Yo Soy Mucho, or "I am a lot" which I guess sounds better than "I'm loving extra"
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Sep 20, 2022 02:41
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four dollars to get gluten-free toast instead of gluten toast? Yes I know there'sa lot of other things to be baffled about here but. FOUR DOLLARS?
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Sep 20, 2022 03:00
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