This is an excerpt of a story I wrote for a fellow MK bashing site. I wrote this about a year ago when I came across this particular site as a means of venting all the built up frustration I had from being suckered into becoming an "independent beauty consultant" at a time when I really should've been focusing more on myself than anything else. The site asks ex-MKer's to divulge their MK experience. The good, the bad, and the ugly... I had a hard time locating this, but I just found it. Awesome! I still giggle a little when I read it. =)
Your Name: Erica
Date Joined MK: July ??? (guess it wasn’t that important since I can’t really remember.. LOL!!) of 2008
When Left MK or Still Active?: As of right now, I am considered “IN-active”.. And I don’t plan on becomming active again any time soon! But I think I went inactive this last May??
Initial Inventory Purchased: $2600?? Yeahup.. Still pretty dissapointed in myself about that one too!
How were you recruited?:
Ugh!! Well, I havta say that it all stemmed from me having the YEAR FROM HELL! I was going through a crappy divorce.. Living in a new town (away from my friends and family) that didn’t even have a WAL-MART! And I just felt so desperate and lonely. I lost my factory job, I was humiliated, I had to fight tooth and nail just to get unemployment, and I had also formed a nasty little drinking habit too by then.. This made me even MORE gullible, susceptible, and easy to be taken advantage of! =( So, I visited a nearby tanning salon and had seen a little box encouraging customers to fill out their name and phone number to “win a queen for a day makeover”. Silly me.. I assumed it was a makeover AT THIS PARTICULAR SALON!! Well, needless to say.. I found out that I “won” when my future-recruiter had called to tell me all about MK and to set up a day for this alleged “badgering”.. OOPS.. I mean “pampering”!! LOL! And, hey.. Like I said.. I was in a dark place in my life at this time and really wanting to snap out of it and bring some positivity into my life, so I went for it. I went to her house, had her try all these products out on me. And to be honest, YES.. I liked the product and I liked the consultant. Alot. And she picked up on it b/c I am just so damn readable. Well, then she started inviting me to all these little *glamor meetings* and whatnot, and I had found them to be very uplifting. It was a breath of fresh air in my life and I really felt like all these women were really terrific. I don’t think I had ever been a part of such estrogen-fueled bonding in my whole damn life and I loved it. Well, THEY all picked up on it. Lo and behold, a week or so later, I am at a local restaurant w/ recruiter and sales director for the “gang-bang-initiation”.. OOPS.. I mean “coke or coffee”. Miss Director didn’t even let poor Mz. Recruiter get a word in edgewise. It DID seem a little shady.. But I couldn’t say NO!! These women were so damn geeked up on MK, that I wanted to snort 20 starter kits to get on their level!! Hehe! And, seriously, like, it is ONLY $100 .. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LOOSE?!?!?! This is the opportunity of a LIFETIME!!
So after the paperwork was signed, fast forward through the next month or so, I attend some meetings at our national director’s house (or I should say MANSION!!) and the “Black and White Ball” and a handful of other MK “rah-rah” get-togethers and I really thought that given enough optimism and practice and endless pursuit of nagging the bejezuz outta my pals.. I could really turn this into a nice little part-time side job!
Hmmmm…. It’s harder than ya think!
The MK girls always preached about “never giving up”, hanging in there, being strong… blah, blah, blah…
But when you are the only “girly-girl” out of all your tomboy friends (who don’t even know HOW to apply makeup).. Or your friends are so friggin’ poor that going from Wet and Wild brand to Maybelline is an UPGRADE for them… You KNOW your gonna have a hard time trying to get them to purchase let alone come over for a facial.
Fast forward over the NEXT few months.. I am now happily employed FULL-TIME at a new factory job that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE, have LESS time for the MK, and can’t attend the monday glamor meeting at my director’s house which is also 25 minutes away!!
So, now I am the failure.. Atleast that's how they were making me feel!!
Let me tell you the things that happened over the course of my short MK journey that made me despise mostly everything about my Director and recruiter (ok, so I STILL like the recruiter… but there were moments where she REALLY ticked me off!) If I have ANY negative feelings about this company, it is because I felt BULLIED and TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF!
These women KNEW that I wasn’t planning on being a full-circle MK girl. They KNEW I was looking for a job.. So why PUSH ME INTO BUYING $2600 WORTH OF PRODUCT??? HOW STUPID IS THAT?? Absolutely RIDICULOUS!!
Plus.. what makes me even MORE upset, is that after KNOWING everything I went through that year, and KNOWING that I was desperately seeking a REAL job with a GUARANTEED income and health insurance, my recruiter was actually UPSET when I had given her the news that I had been hired at a new factory. Yup.. She wanted me to work my business full-time just like her… BUT, I didn’t even mention this yet.. I take an $180-a-month medication.. And after being kicked off of my ex-husband’s insurance AND losing my old job, paying that amount of money for monthly medication is HARD! I NEEDED health insurance. My recruiter?? Guess what. She had MEDICAID! That’s right! !@#$%^&@#$%^&! She lived with her baby-daddy, got free food and health care and she STILL struggled. Hmmm… I guess she must've heard of that one saying that’s popular in MK~ “fake it til you make it”?? B/c she had the latest and greatest when it came to computers and cell phones and gadgets, and her bf was remodeling the house they had lived in. Who knew that welfare could look SOOOO GLAMOROUS?!?!?!
Excuse me, but WHAT A CROCK OF B.S.!!!! How could she have so little sympathy for me? How could she be so self-absorbed? Oh, I know the answer to that one!! Because she was USING me to accomplish HER personal MK goals.. She wasn’t encouraging me to achieve MY GOALS!!! Whatever my goals should have been at that time, the “hurricane Mary Kay” swept through, setting me back about a year or two!! Guess I shouldn't feel so hostile towards her now though..... Recently heard their house went up for foreclosure. Looks like I should be happy I never got sucked into MK as much as she obviously did! =/
My recruiter actually pressed me to apply for the MK credit card, and I did… Well, my initial inventory order was her key to the red jacket. At the last minute, I was starting to back out of making a HUGE inventory order and I told my recruiter how I was thinking about scaling back my order to the bare minimum.. 10 minutes later the friggin’ DIRECTOR calls me and explains that she had this HUGE celebration planned for my recruiter and it ALL depended on MY inventory order.. ” Oh, but she is even inviting family from out of town for this event, and it would just be SOOOO disappointing and embarrassing if you went back on this now”… GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! You wanna talk about “humiliation and disappointment???!!!! Watch the movie of my life this last year and you will see HUMILIATION AND DISAPPOINTMENT!!
There were also times when the director REALLY pushed my buttons.. Like, when we were at a big old meeting, and I was talking to my recruiter.. the director came over to me and actually KNOCKED ON MY HEAD with a CLOSED FIST and piped, “pay attention”!!
Heck, I guess as long as you *say it with a cute little smile*, that makes it okay to physically assault someone…
Maybe next time I get ticked off at somebody I will kick them in the groin with a SMILE on my face and talk really cute.. Because that will make it legal and acceptable.
So, anyways, once I really started training at the new job, I didn’t have time to return the annoying phone calls from my recruiter. At first, I guess she thought that I’d be her puppet and place an order every MONTH (yeah, like I needed MORE product after ordering $2600 worth of it the month before?!?!?!)..
Later on that month, me and the bf go downtown to the bar because the town is having their annual Cruise Night celebration, and we bump into the husband of a gal in my unit. The bf tells him that what HE thinks of the MK crap (and believe me, it aint positive!) So, the hubby runs and tells the wifey, then the wifey runs and tells my director, who in turn tells my recruiter at the next meeting, but does it in the humiliating way that only a pissy MK director could do.. Blasting it out there, rudely in front of all the fellow MK vultures. How embarrassing. Lol!
Thus, the recruiter calls me in TEARS , ranting and raving.. while I’m driving home from work. And it took EVERYTHING I had inside of me to try not to laugh and/or freak out and hang up. I eventually calmed her down and reassured her. Ugh. That was a “challenge” in itself!
After that whole ordeal, I think she finally realized that she cannot PUSH a human being into doing whatever she wants at all times.. Also, this was a time where I was finally starting to sober up as well. I went from drinking from morning to night EVERY DAY (back when I first joined) ~ probably at least 10-20 shots of vodka a day.. to just drinking like that on weekends.. to now, NEVER drinking!!!! Truthfully, I almost want to say that I felt like I HAD to regain control of my life because whenever I got drunk, people knew it… Like they had “drunken idiot pushover” radar. My recruit was one of them (with that particular radar).. And the only way to stand up for myself was to regain sobriety and, in turn, re-grow some balls in order to JUST SAY NO!!
Don’t get me wrong.. Along the way I DID bond with my recruiter. We are around the same age, and I am perceptive enough to see that this is her living. MK is her everything. She is not very happy with her personal life. She hurts inside and her bf isn’t so nice to her. The MK meetings are uplifting to her. It’s HER escape. Mary Kay is her drug and could very well be just as costly. Sorry. I sobered up, so she can keep her damn drug to herself. Don't want none of that. At least I'm in control of my life now.
Memorable experience you had in MK:
Uhm, well.. There were quite a few. Actually, I am shocked that I DID remember them b/c I was drunk at many of them (even though MK frowns upon that sorta thing..) But I must say that the most memorable experience was throwing my “debut party”.. I called almost EVERYBODY in my address book. Emailed EVERYBODY.. Made huge lists of ideas, people, suggestions. I put 100% of my effort and focus into it. I scrubbed the house from top to bottom. Bought sushi as hors’devours. Bought PLENTY of booze. Bribed friends. Did whatever I could to get people to attend. PROMISED them a great time!! Well, needless to say, it was a HUGE disappointment! I felt so much pressure come “party time”, I ended up doing 5 shots of vodka in a row. The director was being a bossy loud-mouth and interrupting my friends when THEY wanted to talk. The recruiter stood there like a puppet for the director with one thumb up her butt and the other one displaying MK product. Then, my poor mother calls in the middle of the meeting, UPSET because she got lost in this town on the way over here.. I had to leave the party to go and find her.. And the director acted upset about that!!!
Most of my friends LEFT in the middle of the party and it was OBVIOUS that they were ticked off about my director’s pushy and overbearing attitude. I only made about 26$ in sales. I had 4 bookings and followed through with only 2 of them. After the party, I called my recruiter and she told me that the director was disappointed with the party because nobody seemed serious about it. HELLO?!?!?! It was suppose to be a PARTY.. Not a Nazi meeting with Hitler!! She also told me that I should be grateful because our director is one of the more “easy-going” ones… LMFAO!! She said if it were any other director, they would have WALKED OUT!! Can you believe that?!?! It’s not like we shoved cheetos up our butts and danced around naked!! Granted, yes, we were drinking. BUT, I was NOT sloppy drunk. If anything, I was a nervous wreck because I had worked so hard for this party and did not feel like it was a success AT ALL!!
What did you learn from MK?:
Hmmm.. Numerous things. If anything, it was an EXPENSIVE refresher course of important lessons in life that I learned before..
That people will tell you ANYTHING to benefit from you. That you are nothing but a rung on the ladder for them to step on and climb over. That as long as you ALLOW people to walk all over you, they will. That I really don’t NEED to belong to any group or anybody… I am my OWN person!! That vodka makes me susceptible to being taken advantage of. Lol!
I’ve learned that it is incredibly easy to be fake. I’ve learned that as long as you have a fake smile and a sweet voice, you can hit somebody in the head and insult and humiliate them and make it appear to be constructive criticism. I’ve learned that no matter how glamorous people dress, look or act… They still have just as many (or more) issues than you. I’ve learned that you will never get true sympathy from hardly anybody for unfortunate life circumstances unless you are suffering a terminal illness and laying on your death bed. I’ve learned not to EVER give anybody a clue about my credit score or savings or finances WHATSOEVER because they will try to find a way to manipulate me into benefiting them somehow. I’ve learned that beauty is only skin deep (Or that inch layer of MK Foundation deep). I’ve learned that your TRUE friends won’t make you wear a skirt and “bring a dish to pass” in order to hang out with them… Because true friends want you for your companionship, not for increasing their commission. I’ve learned that the more you push people, the more their feet are gonna be walking towards the door. I’ve learned that there is nothing MORE SATISFYING than a 100% GUARANTEED paycheck (which is normally acquired through an hourly paid REAL job). I’ve learned that health insurance is VERY IMPORTANT.. So up your pink cadillac if your packin’ the medicaid card!!! Hahaha… I’ve learned that if your bf has a 15-year-old daughter, you should probably HIDE YOUR MK INVENTORY and/or keep very good track of it!!! And last but not least… Probably most IMPORTANTLY.. ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS.. (O.K.. AND MALE COMPANION..) IF THEY SENSE THAT SOMEBODY IS TRYING TO HARM YOU INSTEAD OF HELP YOU… AND DON’T INVEST MONEY IN THESE MANIPULATORS!!
What are you doing now?:
I am currently growing and learning every day. My life has done a complete 180 within the last year (or ever since I got hired at my REAL job!!) I work in a mill, I operate HEAVY machinery, I drive a forklift, I have a total MAN’S job and I put in over 60 hours a week… But I still wear my makeup and gel/acrylic nails! I’m still a girly-girl.. Just one who actually MAKES (not loses) money now!!
I am staying sober.. I’m trying my hardest to make myself happy. I’m trying to build up a good savings account too… One that nobody (no divorce, no man, and no Mary Kay vulture) can ever grab and take away from me. I am trying my hardest to build up and regain what was lost during my “year of utter hell”.
Additional Comments: I know… I didn’t try hard enough to “work my business”.. I’m a “quitter”, I’m LAZY, I didn’t “BEE-LIEVE” (ugh, gag-me!!) OKAY.. Well, maybe some of you MK girls CAN make it work… But it’s just NOT for me.. What else can I say?!?!?! I learned my lessons and I’m moving on. Best of luck to those out there who really know or feel that they can make a career out of it… Now… anybody care to trade any items?!?!?! I HATE the bella perfume and I got stuck with a bottle of it (director ordered it for me)… But I LOVE the subtle tan lotion and the mattifying lotion, Clean cotton perfume, and all shower gels!!!
SUCK MY PINK CADILLAC, MK BITCHES!!!! XD
