Sunday, February 27, 2011

Park That Car... but not in MY Spot!

I already covered in a previous post that I knew when we were getting close to that night’s Amway meeting by the clunker cars - circa 70’s and 80’s BMW’s and Cadillacs - parked on the street.

The meetings took place at different houses - whichever IBO that the Platinum decided had earned the privilege of his presence. A lot of the newer neighborhoods where IBO’s were renting have small driveways - fit two cars - and if the garage is full of storage stuff the residents park in the driveway and visitors/tenants have to park on the street. In these neighborhoods both sides of the streets are packed with cars. Multi car families or social butterflies with lots of visitors, who knows but sometimes we had to drive over a block away to find a spot. I live in an older neighborhood where the houses are on good sized lots and good sized driveways. I have one of the smaller driveways around because my house is closer to the street and I have a backyard, whereas most of the other houses are set further back from the road and they have huge front yards. I can park four cars in my driveway.Hardly anyone parks cars on our street unless there’s a big party going on somewhere, and even then our boulevards are wide enough that cars can park off the street without affecting traffic.

We had three Amway meetings at our house until the Platinum refused to do any more meetings here because none of our prospects ever showed up. For those three times Ambot made a huge deal that one parking spot in our driveway was reserved for the Platinum sack of shit or whoever was driving him because he didn’t always drive his own car. One time our arrogant prick sponsor got the last spot in our driveway. Ambot asked him to move his car out on the street so the Platinum could park there. Man was that fucker MAD! He screeched his piece of shit car out of our drive and put it on the street. Then he stomped back inside and glared at everyone. Ugly ass son of a bitch looked ANGRY for the next three hours that he was stuck at our house while the sack of shit Platinum droned out another bored plan.

At every house where an Amway meeting was being held the IBO held space in their driveway for the Platinum or his driver. Even when it was street parking only one IBO would get there early enough to get a parking spot near the house and when the Platinum arrived the IBO would move his car so the Platinum could park.

Our Platinum was often late for 8pm meetings. Not overly late, probably never more than 20 minutes. One time Ambot got the “privilege” of driving the sack of shit to a meeting and he told me what was up. Ambot arrived at the house on time but there was nobody outside waiting to greet the Platinum so he told Ambot to keep driving. Hunh? He needs a greeter? What does he think he is? The King of England? Yeah, probably! So Ambot is driving him around the neighborhood listening to the sack of shit rant about how nobody was outside waiting for him to arrive. Ambot made three passes in ten minutes and said the Platinum was just about to ask him to drive him home when somebody finally showed up in the driveway waiting for them.

So that was the main topic of the Platinum’s rant that evening. Its not so much that he wanted “anyone” out there waiting for him to drive up, it had to be at least a thousand pin or higher. Hmm. That would be kind of scarce in our group!

And if it was raining? An IBO had to be standing out there with a big umbrella waiting for the Platinum. I mean God help him if he got wet. I’m a little tougher. I can take the rain!

As I see it? Platinums might melt in the rain but nothing stops Anna Banana!

10 comments:

  1. The non-stop groveling to anything upline was appalling. You instinctively know in your gut it's wrong. It's all part of the amway con/cult.

    Isn't it interesting in school/college, or whatever, you take a calss, say in Algegbra and you pass. You are not required to keep taking the class after that. You move on.

    Not so in amway. All CASSETTE TAPES are exactly the same except for the names. The speaker was living in a cardboard box and suddenly they saw a white light and heard a voice saying, 'Go to the light. I, the great and mighty Oz, er, amway platinum, have arrived to save you from yourself.'

    They got up shakily, of course, partially because of weakness from hunger, but also from the awe inspired by the platinum sos.

    The didn't let anyone/thing get in their way to the holy grail of amway freedom. Look at us today. Saved, as only amway can save.

    End of tape. You are now required to buy those same stories for the rest of your natural born life, if you know what's good for you.

    O.K., I figured out 2+2=4. I don't need to repeat the class. So why the incessant buying of tapes with the same formula repeated over and over?

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  2. Grovelling was another thing. It was the undying love and devotion the IBO's hold to their leaders that made me ill!

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  3. How interesting that I came across your blog. My husband and I are trying to find a way to get our daughter out of the cult of Amway. Her name is Anna,and we called her Anna banana when she was little. She is in so deep (her mind that is) that she married and divorced because her husband wouldn't buy in. Then every man she dated (lived with) she tried to get in. They would go along at first cuz she is so beautiful and they wanted to make her happy. When they caught on...she would break up. Her current marriage was arranged by her upline, so she could be "equally yoked" i.e. marry in the cult. Here is what we noticed is new in the cult: she went on a trip with us to CA to visit her Grandma for her 80th BD. During the entire weekend, she received almost constant texts on her AMFONE that were actually voice message, tapes. She had to stop everything she was doing to listen to it. I did not have one uninterrupted conversation with her all weekend. She also contact a male "friend" who drove all the way from Palm Springs to see her.We suspect she showed him the plan. We suspect that the only way she would be allowed to go on the trip with us was that she receive the text messages and contact at least one prospect.

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  4. Call it hero worship; I call it deification. In the biz, they call it "edifying your upline". There was a good QBlog post about this here:

    http://www.webraw.com/quixtar/archives/2004/04/edify_this.php

    A shrewd reader commented that if you switch the 'd' and the 'e', you get "deify". Couldn't agree more.

    The idea that you should treat someone as a God simply because he convinced more people to sign up than you did is insane. I mean, isn't that really what it boils down to? And that might not even be a function of skill! It may just be that he's been at it far longer. I mean, if Amway is really the best opportunity in the world, then why should we praise those who got people to sign up? That should be the easiest job imaginable!

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  5. Anna, Brian Eager here - what a laugh I have had reading your last 6 blogs.........it was the same in my day (1987-89) - well done for taking the time and chronicling this weird group who I knew to be ineffective from day 1 but wanted to help my then best mate out at 'his business' - you have listed the main distortions/lies all with a sense of humour that these people don't seem to have.....I quit & I saved shedloads of money from these ejeets.
    their only grip on you seems to be by asking you to dream and buy 'product' and 'Business tools' well Dreaming is free folks and business tools i.e Animal Farm novel can be borrowed from the local library along with quite a few 'real' business advice books (fee free).
    Please keep your recall Anna - excellent and v. funny in it's sad truth.

    Apart from my friend (the novice upline) the rest of the upline were people I would never normally invite to sit with me let alone open my front door to..........but that is why uplines exist - you suspend your normal (sensible) disposition and allow these people to screw your relationships and take your time and money away. Ciao, Brian

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  6. Anonymous - I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's involvement in Amway. It sounds like she's been in for a few years. Truly another sad story about how this cult destroys marriages and relationships. Constant phone calls and texts is nothing new. My Ambot was constantly on the phone one or the other the entire time he was in Amway. I have a blog on the phone calls at all hours in here somewhere. Its a much different situation with a child than it is with a spouse where we still might have some control over the situation. It might be helpful to you to read some of the books about cults and brainwashing and see if there is anything you can do to help your daughter leave. Don't expect Amway's head office to help you out on this one even though I think they should be offering cult intervention services to anyone who requests it from them.

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  7. Anonymous - copy and paste this link for my thoughts on all those Amway related phone calls and texts. http://marriedtoanambot.blogspot.com/2010/10/phone-calls-and-text-messages-at-all.html

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  8. John, here's dictionary.com's description of edify: to instruct or benefit, especially morally or spiritually; uplift: religious paintings that edify the viewer.

    Here's our sponsor's description of the word after Ambot asked him what edify meant: its about selling the person.

    Yup, that's the basic Amway rule about how you treat your upline - like they are some kind of Gods. It was sickening. And something I didn't buy into. If I don't like somebody and especially if I don't like an Amway IBO I'll treat them with disdain. They didn't like that too much!

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  9. Hi Brian! Thanks for stopping by and the nice words! Glad you're enjoying my view of what its like being part of a cult you don't want anything to do with. Things haven't changed at all in 20 years in Amway in regards to the things that are taught and IBO abuse. Your story is from 20 years ago and it is no different from those who've been in Amway in the last couple of years. The only things that change are some of the products. The bullshit about justifying the higher priced products and claiming they are higher quality than everything else will continue to dog this company as a long running joke.

    None of my upline were people that I would have associated with other than being shoved together due to Amway. I don't miss any of them since we got out.

    "Mate"? I haven't heard anyone use that word since I dated an Australian from Mount Isa back in the 80's! We call everybody "dude" out here.

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  10. Anon 8:55 pm;

    How very sad about your daughter; and yet, when we try to explain to the world that that is exactly how it happens, we are accused of lying, being lazy, greedy, not willing to do the work, blah, blah, blah.

    Your account cuts to the heart.

    No ambot would dare deny your experience. Get her off the CASSETTE TAPES.

    Godspeed

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Comments are moderated but we publish just about everything. Even brainwashed ambots who show up here to accuse us of not trying hard enough and that we are lazy, quitters, negative, unchristian dreamstealers. Like we haven’t heard that Amspeak abuse from the assholes in our upline!

If your comment didn’t get published it could be one of these reasons:
1. Is it the weekend? We don’t moderate comments on weekends. Maybe not every day during the week either. Patience.
2. Racist/bigoted comments? Take that shit somewhere else.
3. Naming names? Public figures like politicians and actors and people known in Amway are probably OK – the owners, Diamonds with CDs or who speak at functions, people in Amway’s publicity department who write press releases and blogs. Its humiliating for people to admit their association with Amway so respect their privacy if they’re not out there telling everyone about the love of their life.
4. Gossip that serves no purpose. There are other places to dish about what Diamonds are having affairs or guessing why they’re getting divorced. If you absolutely must share that here – don’t name names. I get too many nosy ambots searching for this. Lets not help them find this shit.
5. Posting something creepy anonymously and we can’t track your location because you’re on a mobile device or using hide my ass or some other proxy. I attracted an obsessed fan and one of my blog administrators attracted a cyberstalker. Lets keep it safe for everyone. Anonymous is OK. Creepy anonymous and hiding – go fuck yourselves!
6. Posting something that serves no purpose other than to cause fighting.
7. Posting bullshit Amway propaganda. We might publish that comment to make fun of you. Otherwise take your agenda somewhere else. Not interested.
8. Notice how this blog is written in English? That's our language so keep your comments in English too. If you leave a comment written in another language then we either have to use Google translate to put it into English so everyone can understand what you wrote or we can hit the Delete button. Guess which one is easier for us to do?
9. We suspect you're a troublemaking Amway asshole.
10. Your comment got caught in the spam filter. Gets checked occasionally. We’ll get to you eventually and approve it as long as it really isn’t spam.