"Oh Man I Am Out of It" / "Fuck You, Quixstar"
I haven't engaged in any social activity whatsoever since Monday's little Quixstar fiasco at Sam's house. I've left the house plenty, but done nothing social.

I just got back from picking my sister up from work and it was a people tidal wave that amusingly (humiliatingly?) short-circuited my robot brain.

The week in review.

Worked twenty hours as usual.

Kristin wrecked the car and it has been in the shop all week. In theory I will get it back tomorrow. Lack of car is partially to blame for my lack of social activity. The other half is <3Morrowind<3.

Work has been good.

Reading a new book.

Saw Zoolander last night. Not bad. Not bad for what it was.

My goal for tomorrow is to get out of the house and have fun that does not involve playing X-Box, or feeling a wave of euphoria on the way home from work.

Sorry if I defended thee, Jenna and Kelly, with my awkward aloofness.

The meeting at Sam's house was not at all like I expected it to be. There was only me, Sam, Sammie (Sam's friend), Sammie's boyfriend, Sam's mom, and the guy who's name I've forgotten who was presenting the "plan." The presentation was a full hour long propaganda speech which appealed to my supposed desire to get a lot of extra money every month and only work five to fifteen hours a week. Apparently, by joining the Quixstar company, I would be opening up my own online store that is part of a franchise of Quixstar selling their products. The only way for you to make money is to tell people to buy Quixstar's superior products from my website so that I recieve a percentage of the sales. At the end of the month, Quixstar will send me a paycheck. However, the fastest way to make money is recruit people to join the Quixstar franchise. Quixstar's tier is based on a point system. The more people you have underneath you, the more points you have, which means that you make more money! The beauty of this system is that for everyone I recruit, they will be on the tier beneath me, and for all the work they do, I will recieve a percentage of! But it get's better. They can recruit other people as well who work under them, which gives them more points, and therefore, you get more points. So the most important thing about Quixstar is not that you actually sell products like an actual business, but by recruiting your friends and family to the abonimable machine that has consumed you. ^_^
One lady who lives in Florida reached the one-hundred thousand dollar something goal within NINETEEN days of joining the plan. At this point, everyone's eyes lit up and they kind of oohed. "The more people you know, the more money you will get," inept-speaker informed us. Sam's mom then said: "Well, I have seven in-laws on my husband's side! I'm gonna be rich!"

And almost the entire time he spoke he kept talking to me and making me site examples of who I would tell about the plan and what I would buy with all that darn money!

"I guess I would buy a car."

"I would tell John about it."

"Who would John tell that I don't know? Eerrr.... Aaron???? Oh, I get it, that was a joke because how could I know who John would tell that I don't know. Hahaha! I can already feel my guard lowering." (John does not exist)

I kept shifting around nervously because it was all making me so uncomfortable.

The only thing that can sum up Quixstar is by calling it "The American Dream Machine." It attracts people by promising them money, happiness, and a future so that they can live out the "American Dream," but it is soulless because it is a machine... Like Max Payne...

Anyway, the plan that Quixstar presented me was too good to be true. In addition to all the propaganda, my favorite part of the presentation was the very, very end.

"Oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you. By the way, there is a fee for joining our company. It is just 150$ for your membership, but it also pays for your literature and support tapes. But 150$ is hardly anything to pay considering how much you will make in the future. In fact, the average Quixstar member pays off the 150$ with the first month's pay-check."

After the presentation I got to talk to Sam for a few minutes and that was nice. But I felt, I dunno. Relief, sad, and angry. All that crap. Sam didn't seem too cultish, thank God. She didn't pressure me to join at all, and I don't think she will. I wanted to leave though after catching up with her.

To avoid thinking about it, I immediately went and watched Shrek 2.

I did some Google research on this money worshipping cult and this is what I found out (aside from the fact that it is a division of Amway):

"I lost all I had, great job, my financial future, my wife, children, and soul. With all that, there were moments where the future was mine for the taking and will never forget some of the special people and moments I had while in Amway."

"I read your page about Amway/Quixstar and the same stuff happened to us.One day at a store some really nice guy approaches my wife and I. He said, 'You look familiar, did you play baseball in college?' We kept talking, even though I never played baseball and didn't know this guy. He never really said too much about his business and we enjoyed him a lot, so we exchanged phone numbers. A few days later he called and we end up going out to eat with him and his wife. At the end of the dinner he briefly mentioned that he had this business meeting that same night. He invited us and so we went. My wife and I were seriously thinking of giving Quixstar a shot until we researched it more. I was almost sucked in. It was part of a scheme how this guy approached us. He looked good, clean cut and knew how to talk. The hardest thing for my wife and I now is that we really liked these people."

"I was approached by the father of a former co-worker about establishing a part-time income with 'a web-based business.' He said it would be better to hear all the information from his 'mentor' ('upline'). I was put through a meticulously produced presentation that lasted over two hours. Quixtar was the business, but Amway was only mentioned in passing, with no connection made between the two. Many things began to disturb me. Foremost, was the presentation's total lack of hard facts. Not once was it explained clearly how my income would actually be produced. Instead, the entire talk seemed to consist of appeals to emotion. Many things seemed to be held out like bait, to lure me in such as tropical vacations, new cars, etc. But of course there was a few hundred dollar fee to join. The next day I began looking things up on the Internet. Particularly surprising was Quixtar's connections to Amway, which they didn't explain to me. That sealed my decision--no way was I taking this further. I returned the informational disk to the recruiter and never spoke with them again. Potential victims of such schemes should study propaganda techniques, which often include incessant appeals to emotion."

"My husband and I have been in Amway for six years and we are still not making a dime, but my husband is SO dedicated. I went to all the meetings, read the books, listened to the tapes for five years, but now I want out. We fight all the time about this. It seems as if he's always out showing the plan or going to a meeting and not home for our family. He has really worked the system. Always out meeting people and showing 'the plan'. He looks good, smells good, talks good and yet nothing. I've heard him 'bend the truth' to new prospects and say whatever he can, but it's really scary because he finds a way to justify anything he says."

"I have left my husband of four years-- the man I love more than anything in this world. I am positive my story is not a unique one, nor am I the only person suffering because of Amway. I endured two years of being called "negative", "unsupportive", "non-Christian", and basically a bad wife--by both my husband and his "upline". I finally told him he had to choose [between Amway] and me--even if he only stopped for six months. I had already packed--because I knew which was more important to him."

Fuck you Quixstar.