SHOW NOTES

Quick overview of this week's show:

• My encounter with a seemingly innocuous “company” disguisted as a pyramid
• A crazy account of what happened behind closed doors
• The story of two people trapped
• (Thank goodness I escaped!!)

TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever been in a situation where things seemed perfectly normal, and then something happens that makes you realize that it’s actually not very normal at all?

In this week’s episode I’m going to talk about a run-in I had with a pyramid scheme company. This memory stands out as one of the strangest and most bizarre things I’ve ever experienced, and something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Stay tuned.

***

Hello, and welcome to episode 15 of the podcast.

Today I’m telling my pyramid scheme story. I’ve told this to friends, but never the writing community, so here goes.

The year was 2006. I was a freshman in high school. I was going to a small private college in Iowa, and as one of the only black people, I was trying to make the best of it.

If you’ve never met me in person, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that I’m fairly outgoing and friendly, even though I’m socially awkward and an introvert at heart.

I remember introducing myself to a lot of different people my freshman year, just trying to find people that I could relate to.

That’s where this story begins.

The Beginning of Bizarre

It’s my freshman year of college, and I’m standing in line at the college grill, waiting to buy a hamburger. There’s a guy standing in line front of me, and I smile and nod to him.

Slightly balding strawberry blonde hair, which was unusual for someone his age. Short, wearing a blue baseball cap, gray athletic shirt, and basketball shorts.

We start chatting and actually ended up eating dinner together.

He tells me about how he is majoring in business and how he is actually an entrepreneur, selling products in his spare time.

He strikes me as a geeky kind of guy, but not the entrepreneurial type.

I, not knowing what entrepreneurs are at the time, am impressed. I want to know more.

He invites me to a weekly conference that he attends and says that he’d love to have me learn more about his company.

Being a young college student with no money, I agree to join him.

Mistake #1.

The Middle of Bizarre, Part 1

A few days later, we arrive at a local hotel. My acquaintance is dressed up, wearing a black suit and tie, which is a complete wardrobe reversal for him.

There are signs everywhere directing us to the conference center, a gigantic ballroom in the back of the hotel. Crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, a big stage in the front with blue and green lights shining in the center.

There are people everywhere, crowds and crowds of them, like your typical conference.

They’re all dressed up, too. I’m wearing a lavender button-down oxford and jeans, and I feel out of place.

As we’re pushing through the crowd, people are calling out my acquintance’s name.

As he shakes hands and waves at people, I think to myself, this is awfully elaborate for a weekly conference.

He introduces me to his district manager, a mousy guy who’s my age, which is saying something because I’m only 19.

The Middle of Bizarre, Part 2

We sit at a table and the manager tells me how he’s invested his life into the business.

He had a full ride to a prestigious school in the Midwest United States, but he dropped out of college to be a businessman, and he’s all-in.

I ask him what the company sells, and he tells me they sell… products. He hands me a brochure. There are energy drinks, shakes, exercise accessories. Things I would hardly call entrepreneurial.

It also doesn’t make sense that he keeps claiming he’s an entrepreneur, yet he’s employed by this company.

I pepper him with dozens of questions, and to this day I don’t think that he ever gave me a clear answer on exactly what the business was or how it made money.

Instead, he asks me point blank, “do you want a new future?”

I’m taken aback.

“You’re a smart guy,” he says. “And black. You could really make a name for yourself in this industry.”

I politely decline.

He asks again, I decline.

He asks me again, and I tell him “look, dude. I’m cool.”

Then he gets up and walks away, tells me that he’ll check in with me after the conference.

He’s not going to take no for an answer, and that’s when my gut tells me something’s not right here.

The Middle of Bizarre, Part 3

More people sit down and I find myself sitting next to an Asian woman about my age.

I ask her some questions and we start chatting. I’m sensing some flirting, and she is pretty attractive.

She’s dressed in a tan blouse and a long pencil skirt. There’s a pen tucked behind her ear and she has a portfolio on her lap filled with eloquently written notes about profit & loss, supply & demand, target markets and funnels. She strikes me as smart and assertive.

She tells me that she works for an aquarium manufacturer by day, but that she dreams of being her own boss. I ask her what she sells, and her answer makes zero sense.

Still, I like her personality and her energy.

The Middle of Bizarre, Part 4

The conference begins.

The lights dim, everyone claps, and a tall man in a double-breasted suit jogs on stage. He looks and sounds like a pastor.

What ensues is a sermon, but not about God. This sermon is about business.

The guy chastises everyone in the room for not activating their full potential, and then he praises them in the next sentence for being brave and taking their lives into their own hands.

He talks about how he just bought a brand new Cadillac because he was a good businessman. He calls two people up to the stage, hands them the keys to THEIR brand new Cadillacs because they are the sales people of the year. Everyone claps.

The whole time, the woman is taking notes, filling up page after page.

I’m confused.

The End of Bizarre

I’m chatting with the Asian woman the whole time, and we’re hitting it off. Despite the fact that I have no clue about the business she’s in, I’d like to get to know her better.

I’m pretty shy when it comes to these things, but I mustered up the courage to ask her out for…ice cream.

Her eyes light up when I ask the question, then she says to hold on, she needs to ask her manager if he would give her permission to go out with me for ice cream. [CUE NEEDLE SKIP]

She ventures through the crowd, asks the manager I confronted earlier. He gives me an evil look.

Then she wanders back over and says “I’d really like to go out with you, but he won’t allow it.”

My head is about to explode.

I tell her thanks, and good luck.

Then I turn.

And I run like hell.

True story.

So that’s my pyramid scheme story. I researched that “company” later that night and found out that it was, in fact, an alleged scheme. I read horror stories of people who invested tens of thousands of dollars into it, only to find themselves in a dangerous physical, financial, mental, and emotional danger, usually from manipulation.

I won’t share any more because I don’t want anyone to know what company I’m talking about. This is some scary stuff.

I can laugh about the event now, but I remember feeling really sorry for that woman.

She was definitely in over her head. Whatever kind of relationship she had with her “boss”, it couldn’t have been healthy. Not if she couldn’t think for herself.

I read stories of “managers” controlling every aspect of people’s lives, even telling them what to wear and say. I’m pretty sure some manipulation was at work here.

I think sometimes if maybe I should have done something. Called the police and reported the incident. But I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have ended well for her OR me. I hope she got out.

Or, maybe I was completely wrong and misread the situation. Or maybe she misunderstood what I was asking. I don’t think so, though. I was pretty clearly asking her out on a date.

I never saw her again.

As for the acquaintance that dragged me to the event, I don’t know what happened to him, either.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” – Henry Rollins

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