NAK the Knife

Today is Tax Day, and for most unemployed college students, it doesn't mean anything. However, since I was employed last summer, it stood out to me in a number of ways.

Some of you may know (whether you want to or not) of a company called Vector Marketing. They're basically the front organization for the Cutco Knife Co, which (like it says) makes knives. And their selling model is this: they get young college students to go around to their friends and family and make sales demos. They guarantee a base pay of $15 per sales demo (following a rigid script), and a commission that depends on how much you've sold (it starts at 10% and goes up to 50% after you've sold $20,000 worth). With Bush's economic 'recovery' meaning that all the crappy service jobs I used to apply for are now going to middle-aged professionals, I signed up. How bad could it be?

Well, pretty bad. You become a nuisance to everyone you know, calling them up like some common telemarketer. And I'm not terrible at it; after a couple of months I'd sold $8,000 worth. And don't get me wrong; they are great knives. But not only am I not cut out to be a direct salesman, there are a few aspects of the company culture I disagree with:

- That wonderful base pay is only paid if you DON'T sell anything. It's not added to your commission.

- The attitude of the management staff. Call me a cynical teen, but nobody can be that enthusiastic and cheerful all the time without drugs. And I've never seen a serious business whose 'office' was full of trophies and blaring stupid music.

- They make a liar and an ass out of me. When you work this job, the 'flexible hours' become 24/7, because you are ALWAYS on the lookout for new customers. And that makes for an annoying person

- The constant 'team meetings' are a terrible waste of time. They're at unreasonable hours (8 AM on Saturday and 9 PM on Wednesday) and we're not a 'team'; I can do great and you can stink out loud and it won't affect anyone else. And they're basically 'pep rallies' for the sale of knives which involved heavy use of the word ‘rock’ (and variations thereof). Spare me.

- And they really do want to take over your life. After every team meeting they practically insist (though I always refuse) that everybody go and hang out. They call at least three times a day to make sure you’re busy finding people to sell to. Once, our manager said to us "Are we going to be the group that spends the summer hanging out with our friends and getting ready for college?" the answer he was waiting for was 'no'.

- The vagueness of the ad that brought me in. It just said 'summer work for students'. That was all. Not a hint of what was to come.

- When you call people to set up appointments, they recommend that you not say what you're doing. Seriously, if the potential customer asks what you're trying to sell, they (vector) recommend that you avoid the question.

- It's basically a pyramid scheme; since they don't pay you anything unless you find people willing to listen to the demo, they can hire as many people as they want and send them out to go sell, flooding the market.

- The customer base just isn't big enough for as many people as they have. After two months, of the two-dozen people who were hired at the same time as me, only two (counting myself) were left. Check out this site for someone else's experience.

So at the beginning of the school year, I quite, never intending to look back. When I would go home for various breaks, the Cutco people would still call me, but I always put them off.

Now, it turns out I’m not free yet. The bastards didn’t do withholding, meaning that I owe the government $250 for Social Security and Medicaid taxes.

First of all, it’s ridiculous not to do withholding. Why should I be given money that I can’t spend? Having it there at all is a useless temptation.

But this experience led me to believe two things: One, capitalism is hideous and soul-crushing. Two, we need to reform the tax system and raise the limit on those kinds of taxes. Why should I have to pay on my 2,000 worth of income but a millionaire only pays on the first $80,000, or whatever it is? Regressive taxes are the enemy of liberty.