DISQUS

It seems like O'Reilly and his ilk can get away with just about anything these days. I've never been sure why until fairly recently. In the wake of our "Liberation" of Iraq in early 2003, O'Reilly started putting out these snippets saying that if, "...you don't support this war effort, then you just better shut up...", or else he would, "...add you to my list...".

Worse than his recent lynch words about Michelle Obama, Bill O'Reilly has actually been threatening opposing voices for years. What concerns me the most about his words in that clip about Obama wasn't the word lynch as much as the word unless. Here it is again:
"...don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama UNLESS there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels."

In other words, he is not going to attack someone unless they disagree with him. Then it's game on. Very 'Fair and Balanced' of you, Bill. You give journalism a bad name.

I'd like it very much if people were reminded of this type of O'Reilly/Hannity/Coulter/Cavuto/Hume garbage the next time any of those clowns tries to whine about the "liberal bias" in the media. Otherwise, they can all go back to kissing each others' asses and using their journalist positions to sell more of their own books!

Fuck you, Fox News. Your day is coming.

For such a hot shot attorney, you really ought to learn how grammar and spelling work. Since you used the term SHIZ, I'm gonna guess that you are; A) LDS, and B) one of the big dogs on the inside of this Firstline fiasco. Is this really Jared Taggert? I'll just about bet that it is. Or maybe Ryan Roach...

Either way, your obvious lack of communication skills and grammatical prowess make you about the most laughable thing I've come across in quite a while. A real esquire or attorney-at-law would at least leave their full name and pedigree at the end of anything they write. Such as:
Adam ( ), ESQ. JD.
Or something similar.
Instead, you've got a big mouth and a half-assed knowledge of the law. You even capitalized INTELLIGENT with a misspelling. Did you used to edit Think Magazine?

Enjoy your big mouth now, before you talk down to the wrong person and they shatter your jaw (or worse).
Sean Himebaugh, Spell check certified. :)

Hello all.
First of all, I'd really like to apologize to all of the people experiencing trouble with their alarm systems. I worked for Firstline from February until August of this summer.
Secondly, I would like to apologize to all of the people that I actively tried to recruit during the 'preseason'. You really can't recruit anyone without having at least tried something first...and now I'm paying the piper.
To all of the rather self-righteous employees who have posted on here about how everyone needs to quit complaining...I must say that your tone reflects the attitude of the company louder and prouder than any of your door approaches ever could. :)

I am not upset with Firstline Security, per se. I am more than a little aggravated at "The Prodigy"; a hip new reality TV show that doesn't exist. That's how I was recruited to work for Firstline. "Come out this summer, work hard, control your emotions, break through the learning curve, and you can be the CEO of your own company with $1 million in venture capital, a staff, a Hummer, etc..." I did not expect to win...but I did believe that I could have more money at the end of the summer than I had at the start. Trouble is, it's not a reality show at all...it's some internal company competition. It looked legitimate; there were sponsors, auditoriums, and pep rallies galore. Then the hammer dropped. That, my dear Firstline afficionados, is called 'deceptive marketing'.

I was enthusiastic about the hard work. I was happy about the concept of door-to-door sales. I was even ok with the total lack of pay and compensation for all of the recruiting I did during the spring.

I was not ok with all of the things that occured once I got to my summer location. Here is the short list:

-Firstline promises a short-term draw against future earnings so that you aren't totally broke while you learn the ropes. What they don't tell you is that you will be having most of that money deducted back for van rent and room rent. $250 - $150 = $100 a week...enjoy. :)

-Firstline has you on the books as a 1099 contractor. Then they tell you where to be, what to do, how long you WILL do it for, and impose penalties (sanctions) for any violations. They tried to tell me I couldn't claim workman's compensation for the gash I got in my leg as I ran from pitbulls and got caught on a spike on someone's fence. In other words...I was totally responsible. That seems to be a common theme coming from the company and the advocates who posted here earlier in the year. In other words, Firstline is totally irresponsible, and it's up to the consumer and the sales reps to do the responsible thing.

-Firstline purposefully recruits people from out of state. They will not recruit locals to fill in missing numbers. One common excuse may be that they are simply 'burning our bridges', as advocated in Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich". The truth is, they want to be able to fly by night.
FLY BY NIGHT: That's what my office did. I was in Central California this summer, up from Phoenix. After one particularly long, hot day, our regional VP showed up and told us that we were being shut down and relocated. Less than 24 hours later, we were gone. Again, I apologize to any and all who got burned in the crossfire of that exchange.

-Simon XT: I'm not certain which offices got those...or if they were just for the extension crowd, but most of us spent this summer slinging the Simon 3. It's not a bad system...the problem is that the upper management types at Firstline care less about providing services and more about making the INC. 500.

In fact, I am holding a copy of the INC magazine. It states in there that Firstline was projecting a total summer sales growth of 50,000 households. That's not a bad goal, unless you were recruited under the premise of "the average rep makes $20,000". In order to do that, one would need to hit 75 good credit installations. But, there are 2000 employees. Ok, so let's say that at least one third of those employees are technicians, office assistants, or upper level management. That leaves about 1300 sales reps. Divide 50,000 by 1,300 really quick. That actually is only about 39 sales per rep. Since Firstline is really awesome, that actually means the pay bracket is only $130 per deal X 39 deals = $5070 for the entire summer...and that's if you actually get good credits all the time AND collect activations from as many as humanly possible.

Another thing the Kool-Aid crowd won't tell you about is how many times the company policy changed about how they pay on accounts. A rep can sell and install 5 or 6 accounts in a week, and be left with about $150 to show for it after all of the nonsensical smoke clears.

How about the weeks everyone spent working from 9am until 9pm? And for what? To quote Wright Thurston, co-president of Firstline Security, it was "to give you guys more opportunity to break out of the learning curve." That was ok, the first time. The second and third times got to being a little upsetting...especially since $150 for a 72 hour week adds up to a total of $2.08 an hour. You could have made more working in an Indonesian sweat-shop. :) Go Firstline!

One last thing I would like to mention is that during the recruiting season, and during the recruitment lectures themselves, I couldn't help but notice all of the references to a movie called "Boiler Room". This is a movie about a dirty sales organization that creates a phony market to sell shares of non-existent companies to people via impulse. Know why so much mention of that movie is made during the lectures? Because Firstline Security of Orem, Utah, is in fact a boiler room.

Nobody mentions that these guys also charge employees for any parts that are 'given' to secure deals. I must explain this in depth.
In bulk, Firstline can get parts and bits of these systems, such as door/window sensors, for about fifty cents or less a piece. If a rep needs to over extend him or herself with a few extra pieces in order to get a deal, then those parts will ultimately be charged to the employee for the retail value. In the case of the door/window sensor, we're talking about $100 a piece. Do that often enough, and pretty soon reps will be owing Firstline money at the end of the summer...as stated by other reps in earlier posts. To boot, the company will then charge off all of their excess inventory as a tax write-off. Nice, huh?

And Paul...wake up and smell the roses. There is not going to be a public issue. It was all part of the sales pitch. They have no assets other than contracts that get auctioned off as soon as possible. A stock issue would bring too much unwanted attention to their operations and books. It's a chop shop. If you did well, and ended the summer with a positive balance in your bank account, you are the exception and not the rule.

-Sean