Amelia ran from her car into the building in the pouring rain, taking shelter under a month-old Wall Street Journal that she had found in the back seat. The pages began deteriorating into a papier-mâché mush in her fingers, contrary to what she had seen in those 1940s movies with ladies in perfectly curled hair daintily running under newspapers during downpours. She tossed the newspaper into the gutter, briefly feeling guilty about littering. She stood under the archway of the building’s facade and dialed the receptionist to be buzzed in. It occurred to her that she was recreating the opening scene of Suspiria. Amelia really liked watching old movies.
“Hello? Can I help you?” “This is Amelia Richardson. I’m here to see Mr. Silverman for the group interview.” “Third floor. Elevator’s to your left.” The intercom buzzed.
Amelia hastily swung the door open with a click. She tripped on the threshold and her stiletto snapped under her heel. She limped over to the elevator and checked her watch. 10:09. Fuck. I’m late. My first interview in three months, and I’m late. Of course.
The elevator door opened. A group of strangers rushed out past her. The last woman out looked her up and down judgmentally with a faint hint of pity. Amelia blushed. With wet hair, running mascara, a wrinkled, ill-fitting business suit, and a broken pump, she was almost certainly a pathetic sight to see. She bowed her head down and walked into the emptied out elevator.
The 3rd floor button light was out, but it reached its destination anyway. She walked out of the doors and spotted an office marked “Prism Industries, Inc.” The receptionist waved her into the only door inside. Amelia sat down quietly among a group of a half dozen young men that looked to be about half her age. The presenter stopped mid-sentence.
“Nice of you to join us. Ms. Richardson, I presume?” Amelia nodded. The presenter continued with his PowerPoint presentation.
“How would you like to be your own boss?” The man flipped through slides of inspirational quotes and stock photos of smiling entrepreneurs in front of mansions, fanning out wads of cash. As time went on, Amelia’s stomach began to sink.
“You could get started today. If you make the commitment to invest in our starter pack for only $39.99...”
Amelia couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up and burst out. “What. The. Fuck. Seriously?! You called us all back for interviews so you could recruit us into your pyramid scheme? I spent the last of this month’s unemployment benefits buying gas to drive two hours to get here and now you’re trying to steal our money? Fuck you. Fuck all of you.”
The man sighed. “Pyramid scheme? This is a billion dollar multi-level marketing company. I’m sorry you’re stuck on welfare because you don’t have the will to succeed.”
“There’s literally a pyramid on the slide!” She gestured toward the intricate chart of clip art male and female figures with arrows pointing down. “It’s not a pyramid. It’s a reverse funnel.” Tears welled in Amelia’s eyes. A security guard walked in.
Mr. Silverman looked back at her. “Time to go now, Ms. Richardson. Thanks for stopping by.”
Ah I have totally done that. Not the broken pump part, but telling off a presenter in a group interview and leaving mid stream from a multi-level marketing scam. Such a shite feeling after the excitement of getting a call back for an interview. Wonderful writing here you sucked me in immediately. Much love - Carl
Thank you so much for reading! Hahahaha GOOD. I want to hear that story!
Ouch! This is true story, at least for me... and not a single time, but more than once. There's so much hunger for a job here, that only "offers" like that are given, and sometimes I wondered if they sooner or later will ask to be paid for making me work! :(
Ponzi schemes are shit...
I know so many people this has happened to! That’s why my mind jumped to that while I was writing this story. Someone just told me about how they were lured into this right after they had graduated from college and were hurting for a job.
Do you have these stories already completed and then post them here or do you come up with an idea and start the story from scratch on the Steemit platform ?
Keep up the good work !
Thank you!
They're actually five minute (semi-)freewrites, not including a few minutes of editing and coming up with the photo. Sometimes I spend a little more time if I'm on a roll. @mariannewest and @freewritehouse come out with a one word prompt (sometimes a phrase) and I'll come up with a first sentence. From there I just start writing and see where things go. If a story materializes I'll post it to my blog; if not, I just post it as a comment on the @freewritehouse post. Today's prompt was "wet." All I had thought of when I started writing this was the newspaper thing and how that's a trope when it rains in old Hollywood movies and how I don't see how a newspaper makes for an effective umbrella hahaha. I only worked out that the job interview was for an MLM scam around the time that I wrote the sentence about the people coming out of the elevator. I just imagine the story as I'm going and describe what I see in my mind's eye. It's really fun!
Very cool .. thank you for your explanation and the insight on how you create your stories.
Thanks for taking an interest in it!
For what it's worth, I had never written fiction in my life (save for when I was a small child) until I got to Steemit and tried it out for the first time a couple months ago. I was convinced I would absolutely suck at it. The only reason I tried it out was that I randomly entered in on a @freewritehouse comment contest and won it and I felt terrible that I had won when I hadn't even once done a freewrite, so I thought I better contribute something to assuage my guilt. Now I love it. It's like zen time for me, and I'm getting better over time. You should try out joining in on @mariannewest's freewrites!
😘 ❤️
I may give it a shot at some point. Steemit has a way of bringing us here for one thing but then we stay for another. I think its awesome that you won a contest on your first attempt.
It does, doesn't it? Reading back on my #introduceyourself post, I thought that my contributions here would be totally different than they ended up being. I'm glad it took a turn and I ended up learning that my capabilities as a writer are less limited than I thought they were.
You're coming along like a noicely roising cake. I'm glad you decided to do some freewriting. It's a nice brain explosion, isn't it.
I'm glad @rentmoney asked you this because I was going to as well. I love how your mind works and the direction this took (although the poor narrator not so much).
Whoa! Infuriating! I'm glad she told them all to fuck off.
Again, love your photo from Joshua Tree. I really do need to go down there and check it out.
You should! There are so many cool spots for art installations that you can just go view for free, and little towns sprinkled around with old bars and bookstores and whatever else. I could spend weeks wandering around there and find cool unexpected stuff every day. I also highly recommend visiting the area around the Salton Sea.
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MLMs are the worst!
Seriously! And they always take advantage of people like the character I wrote... people who are already hurting for money and opportunities.
Exactly. They're fuck-fucks twice over, greedy predators. I'm very glad that your character stood up and gave them what for :)
I wish we could just UGH I dunno! Make the world a better place for everyone!
It's just a switch in mindset, really, isn't it.
It always amazes me how blind we are to the fact that we really can't get ahead very much if we're only out for ourselves. Although then again lots of people do get ahead though, don't they. In their bank balances, anyway. Sigh!
Not proportionately lots, but yes, being selfish is still rewarded in our society!
@malloryblythe It's one of the most frustrating kinds of corporations. Not that other corps don't also exploit their workers.
Marxist-Leninst-Maoists? Those guys have no chill either ;)
groans I was lured into something like this years ago and had done the same, spent gas money to go to a fake interview. So bad! Great imagery in your writing!
Hi malloryblythe,
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Wow, thank you so much!!
This is such a relatable story, well done.
If I just had that courage at least once when things were bleak and a friend offered me my own pyramid. Thanks for the #freewrite and the nomination the other day. That made my day.
This is good stuff. My guess you can do just as well with this prompt: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-231-5-minute-freewrite-thursday-prompt-cherry
Hey there. Just saw this curie'd. Yippee! Congrats once again Mallory. Why do I not have the creativity or passion for writing ? Grrrr. Just stopping by to give my congrats, and keep at it!
Nonsense! I seem to recall somebody telling me today that “you'll never know what it is that you'll be good at it until you try.” Why don’t you give one of the freewrites a shot? 🙂
Reverse funnel is fabulous. I really love how much I can feel of her emotions - her frustration at being late, her shame of looking ragged, and her raw anger at being duped.
I sold cutco when I was in college. I'm not really good at sales, but I did get some really fabulous knives for cheap. They definitely have a racket going, but I don't know that it's any worse than a place like Amazon where Bezos is make a gagillion dollars every 5 minutes, and the workers are paid and treated like shit. My husband used to work at one of the warehouses. It was awful.
Yeah, I have a friend in Seattle and she says half of her friends are employed at Amazon and 100% of them are absolutely miserable, so it's taken over as the local industry. And the company store, for that matter. History repeats itself? Exploited workers working at a place that skirts labor laws who are practically forced to shop with their employers seems vaguely familiar...
I owe my soul to the company store ...