The title is a little harsh. Most of the people I work with are actually pretty cool, just not the people in charge. I'm kind of reluctant to write this but I need some place to vent because I have a situation at work that has become really annoying. I'm pretty sure none of this will get back to them. No one I work with games and I'm pretty sure most of them have never even heard of the Escapist. Still I'm going to keep details as vague as possible. If you don't want to read the wall of text I'll summarize my problem. Boss wants to recruit me in a pyramid scheme to sell dubious health drink she has forced onto the disabled clients where I work.
I work at a group home for the severely disabled. Again, no details as to their specific problems, but a few of the clients can't eat. Well they eat but not through their mouths, but through tube that goes directly into their stomachs. They reside on liquids basically. Within the past year, it was decided by the nutritionist that they needed more antioxidants or what not, so we started giving them this slush made up of spinach and blueberries. We mixed it ourselves. Not too long ago, the owner/manager of the company decided to discontinue the slush in favour of this acia berry juice she had started selling. This stuff is $40 dollars a bottle, contains freeze dried acai as well as other fruits, and she swears drinking it has improved her health dramatically. She's talked all about it at a staff meeting and made it seem like some sort of miracle drink. Naturally my suspicions were raised but I ignored it figuring it was just fancy fruit juice so how bad can it be?
So we started giving them this drink, and everything was fine, I didn't notice any dramatic changes for good or bad, but then the owner started to try and recruit those working for her to also start selling the drink. Turns out how this company works is they recruit retail customers (not called distributors for legal purposes) to sell their product and motivational seminar tapes. They in turn are supposed to sell the juice and the tapes to others who they are then supposed to try and recruit others to sell the product. The tapes are about $250. If you need me to be more clear on this, if your sign up to sell this juice, you sell the product to others, who in turn are supposed to sell it to others, who in turn etc. etc. IT'S A FUCKING PYRAMID SCHEME. The company gets away with it because it's not distrubutors who are selling the product but retail customers, which they can get away with calling them that because THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE SELLING THE PRODUCT DON'T MAKE MONEY. My boss is trying to recruit me to sell a product in which I would pay hundreds of dollars for, continously so I could resupply, and not make any money for myself, but she seems to think I would be able to. The thing is she might actaully be showing a profit for selling this crap because the company she owns has more than one house like the one I work for, and at every one of them she has insisted they introduce this drink into the clients diet. She herself is the supplier. I'm really not sure if that's legal, but it seems really unethical to me, particularly her trying to get her employees to shill the product as well.
Only two people at my house have actaully bought some of the stuff, both managers. One shelled out over $500 dollars for some of the drink, and this wieght lose supplement made by the same company. The other one only bought the juice. They both have started to sing it's praises. They say they have more energy, feeling better and talk about how great it tastes. One thing I will confirm is it is does taste pretty good, the juice that is. I had a sip a while ago. One of the said managers was telling me how much the stuff has made her poop. She was telling me a story how she was in a rush to get to work one day a week or so after she startied drinking the stuff because she really needed to poop, and was worried she was going to go then and their in her car. She attributed this to the drink, and was telling me about as if this was a good sign. First off, eww, second, I'm not a doctor but since when is nearly shitting yourself on your way to work a sign of excellent health? As for the other manager, she hasn't mentioned if she's lost any wieght but her ass is still barely able to clear a door frame.
Okay, now on to the the supposed health benefits. Acai is good for you, but freeze dried acai is less nutritious and also a lot of the effects of acai have been show in vitro, for cells in a petri dish, not in vivo, cells in an actual living body. The drink makes claims that it can lower cholesterol and such, but all claims are unsubstantiated. Test done on the drink have found it scored lower on certain nutrition values then apple juice, welches grape juice, and just eating an apple. All those things cost a minimum of 10 times less then one bottle of this stuff does. It is phenomenally overpriced. The most compelling evidence for the drinks benefits are all ancedotal, and most or those come from it's distributors.
Final insult. Last year around christmas time the boos gave us gift cards for groceries. I understand that was very generous of her, and should not be expected. This year she gave us 10% off our first order of said drink.
That's all. Let me know what you think and share a similar story if you have one.
EDIT: I forgot an "t" to the end of diet. The drink is not making anyone die, it's really just overpriced berry juice as far as I know. Still I am going to report this as there is some unethical behaviour I'm not sure it totally legal. I haven't because I think the clients are safe, they are just not getting the proper nutrition the should be because the drink isn't nearly as nutritious as it claims to be. Yah, just what this post need, more text.
I work at a group home for the severely disabled. Again, no details as to their specific problems, but a few of the clients can't eat. Well they eat but not through their mouths, but through tube that goes directly into their stomachs. They reside on liquids basically. Within the past year, it was decided by the nutritionist that they needed more antioxidants or what not, so we started giving them this slush made up of spinach and blueberries. We mixed it ourselves. Not too long ago, the owner/manager of the company decided to discontinue the slush in favour of this acia berry juice she had started selling. This stuff is $40 dollars a bottle, contains freeze dried acai as well as other fruits, and she swears drinking it has improved her health dramatically. She's talked all about it at a staff meeting and made it seem like some sort of miracle drink. Naturally my suspicions were raised but I ignored it figuring it was just fancy fruit juice so how bad can it be?
So we started giving them this drink, and everything was fine, I didn't notice any dramatic changes for good or bad, but then the owner started to try and recruit those working for her to also start selling the drink. Turns out how this company works is they recruit retail customers (not called distributors for legal purposes) to sell their product and motivational seminar tapes. They in turn are supposed to sell the juice and the tapes to others who they are then supposed to try and recruit others to sell the product. The tapes are about $250. If you need me to be more clear on this, if your sign up to sell this juice, you sell the product to others, who in turn are supposed to sell it to others, who in turn etc. etc. IT'S A FUCKING PYRAMID SCHEME. The company gets away with it because it's not distrubutors who are selling the product but retail customers, which they can get away with calling them that because THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE SELLING THE PRODUCT DON'T MAKE MONEY. My boss is trying to recruit me to sell a product in which I would pay hundreds of dollars for, continously so I could resupply, and not make any money for myself, but she seems to think I would be able to. The thing is she might actaully be showing a profit for selling this crap because the company she owns has more than one house like the one I work for, and at every one of them she has insisted they introduce this drink into the clients diet. She herself is the supplier. I'm really not sure if that's legal, but it seems really unethical to me, particularly her trying to get her employees to shill the product as well.
Only two people at my house have actaully bought some of the stuff, both managers. One shelled out over $500 dollars for some of the drink, and this wieght lose supplement made by the same company. The other one only bought the juice. They both have started to sing it's praises. They say they have more energy, feeling better and talk about how great it tastes. One thing I will confirm is it is does taste pretty good, the juice that is. I had a sip a while ago. One of the said managers was telling me how much the stuff has made her poop. She was telling me a story how she was in a rush to get to work one day a week or so after she startied drinking the stuff because she really needed to poop, and was worried she was going to go then and their in her car. She attributed this to the drink, and was telling me about as if this was a good sign. First off, eww, second, I'm not a doctor but since when is nearly shitting yourself on your way to work a sign of excellent health? As for the other manager, she hasn't mentioned if she's lost any wieght but her ass is still barely able to clear a door frame.
Okay, now on to the the supposed health benefits. Acai is good for you, but freeze dried acai is less nutritious and also a lot of the effects of acai have been show in vitro, for cells in a petri dish, not in vivo, cells in an actual living body. The drink makes claims that it can lower cholesterol and such, but all claims are unsubstantiated. Test done on the drink have found it scored lower on certain nutrition values then apple juice, welches grape juice, and just eating an apple. All those things cost a minimum of 10 times less then one bottle of this stuff does. It is phenomenally overpriced. The most compelling evidence for the drinks benefits are all ancedotal, and most or those come from it's distributors.
Final insult. Last year around christmas time the boos gave us gift cards for groceries. I understand that was very generous of her, and should not be expected. This year she gave us 10% off our first order of said drink.
That's all. Let me know what you think and share a similar story if you have one.
EDIT: I forgot an "t" to the end of diet. The drink is not making anyone die, it's really just overpriced berry juice as far as I know. Still I am going to report this as there is some unethical behaviour I'm not sure it totally legal. I haven't because I think the clients are safe, they are just not getting the proper nutrition the should be because the drink isn't nearly as nutritious as it claims to be. Yah, just what this post need, more text.
