DISQUS

Ok...he's supposed to look creepy...1- hes the MAD HATTER, and 2- its tim burton. They have made amazing movies together in the past...can we not wait until we see the actual MOVIE before we start critiquing? Jeez.

Twilight is so cool!!!!!! and i mine it but i am nole 10 years old and i love it!!!! and dose not chang a thing at all and i love slip~not!!!!!

i would NOT classify that picture as awesometastic. hahaha!

hahaha...have fun buying something!


ps - i keep forgetting to ask you to re-add me to amari's blog. thx!

wow, i am no help because i think travel to EITHER sounds wonderful!!!!!
i hope it will be a wonderful time for you guys!!!

yay for kevin's safe arrival - feel better amari!
the template is cute but not sure it screams "maria"! :)

have a great day with a!

I think that comparing selling door to door in Fresno, CA to serving in a war zone is a little extreme, but that is neither here nor there. The thing is that you have personally attacked my husband because he worked for Firstline in their summer sales program for 7 years. All I was trying to say is that everyone uses their own pitch and some are honest and some are not. Thankfully, neither Wright nor Trevor are my husbands. And while I still wholeheartedly disagree with your views. They are just that, your views. And I have my own. I know what kind of man my husband is, and so it doesn't really matter what anyone else might think of him. And, I'm sorry for being rude. That is not the person I normally am. I offer my apology for being less than curteous I hope you'll understand that I just spent a stressful day spent taking my 4 month old baby daughter to doctors to try to find out why she won't eat. I came home and read this and it was the straw that broke the camels back. I hope your son has a better experience in another job.

Did "these kids" you mentioned not have cell phones? My husband puts his cell phone number on the top of each contract. He doesn't care if customers can call him because he has nothing to hide. The number to Firstline is on just about every singe piece of paper that the customer signs. And how is it that I know so many more people (in almost 8 yrs) that have had a good experience in summer sales as compared to those who have had a bad one? You take your son's one year and the people he met and suddenly his experience is the norm? I think my husband and I have much more information with which to base our opinion off of. As for the official material: Firstline provided contracts, signs, and welcome packets for all of their sales reps. Business cards are a waste of time. People who want your business card just want a quick way to get you gone. They will never "call you back". So, why would any door to door company waste the time and money to print out thousands of business cards that are just going to be thrown away. Your son should have read the contract he signed better to know what he was getting into. Why should a company have employees living off them when they are not producing any revenue for the company? That just doesn't make any fiscal sense. As for the Prodigy being deceptive. Haven't you ever seen "a free weekend in so and so" advertised on T.V. and all you have to do is attend a meeting. It's obviously to sell you something and I would hope most people are smart enough to know that. Millions of companies use tactics like that to generate interest. I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's not like Firstline made this approach up. And, anyone with any street sense can see that it is more than what's at face value. I also know for a fact that Firstline was dead serious about the Prodigy when they rolled it out to their employees. Sure it was to generate interest in the company, but it was also to find a prodigy. How is "advertising director" deceptive. Waitresses and waiters now call themselves "servers" now but they still do that same thing. "Server" just sounds a little nicer. So are they being deceptive? The customers are advertising for the company and they are getting a free alarm system for it. If they were just to go out and buy the equitment, they would have to pay for it. And, even if you got a totally dishonest sales guy you would have to be a complete idiot not to see that you have to pay for the monitoring. It's everywhere on the contract and you have to answer "yes" to the customer service respresentive that you understand that (did you gloss over that in my intial post?). And, finally, my husband isn't a liar. Never has been and never will be. His approach isn't based on deception. He is a good man who is doing his best to provide for his family. You don't know him or anyone else in this industry so shame on you for your uneducated generalization. I'm not a cheerleader for Firstline. They do some things I don't like, but you seriously don't have clue when you start talking "summer sales" companies in gereral or the people that work in the industry. I have a little boy who I plan to raise to take responsibility for his own actions and experiences instead of being acted upon and blaming others.

Karoli,
I'm going to have to take offense to your characterization of summer sales guys as liars and cheats. My husband has been in sales for going on 8 yrs now and worked for Firstline for 7 of those years. He is the most honest and hardworking guy I know. He never lies to customers and always leaves his sales with a good relationship with the customer. In fact, he often calls me to let me know that his customer has invited him to dinner and so he may be a little late getting home. At the end of each sale, sales reps are required to have the customers they sign up talk to someone in customer service who asks them point blank if they know the length of the contract is 36 months and that they know the specific price that they are required to pay each month. How exactly is that deceptive? Alarms save people's lives. Period. He's selling people something that could save their valuables at the least and more importantly, save their lives and the lives of their family members. Why do you buckle up when you drive? Your chances of getting in a car wreck are not seriously high. You do it so that in that unlikely event, you are protected. Same with health insurance, life insurance, and alarms. I personally love my kids too much to even take a chance that someone could break into my house and hurt or kidnap them. It unfortunate that your son didn't have a good experience and now he has to find somewhere else to point the finger for his failure. Certainly, there are sales reps, managers, etc.. that are dishonest, but your son is the only one that decides what he's going to say to customers on the doors. No one makes anyone sell their soul, it's a choice that the indvidual makes. My husband choses every summer to go out and work extremely hard to provide for his family in an honest and upfront way. He has had his share of success but he knows he could sell more if he lied. He just choses to work that much harder than the guys who take the easy way out by cheating. So, it sounds like Starbucks or MacDonalds or whatever would be a good fit for your son. That way he can have someone tell him to work and take no intiative for his own success. But, if you are hardworking and self motivated you can have a lot of success selling alarms door to door and still maintain your integrity. By the way, how on any level do you think you have any real knowledge of summer sales. The only people your son has associated with and that you listen to are the guys that did the same thing he did and are now playing the blame game. This is a job that separates the men from the boys and some guys just aren't ready to see that they are boys. I have no problem with guys that quit and have the personal insight to say, "hey, I just couldn't cut it; it's not something I want to do". But the whiners who blame their experiece on everyone but themselves just irritate me to no end.

Yay that's my list I made! Visit my facebook group called "You Know You're in College When" - I add more continuously as I think of them and any help's appreciated! :) Brooke

I worked with a guy whose real name was Haap. I thought it was wierd, and as we were working in a restaurant and people often used \"server names\", I didn\'t entirely believe him. So one day I asked to see his license. Yes, his real name was Haap, and his last name was Peacock. I can only imagine the torment he must have gotten.

hey megan!

i just saw you on missy's new livejournal and remembered i saw an article about you in the vindicator about a month ago. so, looks like you're newly transplanted (i knew that from marty's lj) and doing awesome. just wanted to say congrats. you do ytown proud!!

-- brooke

"Mom never hid the fact that my dad picked his career over us. What'd she used to say?"

"Once a carnie, always a carnie."

--Drop Dead Gorgeous

Bob,
Private retirement accounts in lieu of Social Security would never be invested entirely in Enron stock. When you have highly diversified mutual funds and your investments range not just among different companies but among different sectors, the rate of return is almost always better than the return from treasury bills.

People seem to think that private accounts means that people will be picking and choosing individual stocks on their own: no serious reform proposal suggests that. The accounts can very easily be structured such that investors are protected from individual company meltdowns like Enron.