Topic: Something Awful kept me up for about 4 hours last night.

[gpw11]

Something Awful can be the most entertaining site on the internet at times.  Mainly Sunday nights.  I'm a big weekend web fan, and like to read the fucked up things people post on fucked up message boards.  The commentary at times is also hillarious.  Beyond that there is the Phorum Phriday's Monday (or something like that), which shows up at about 12:00AM PST.  It's basically a collection of the good threads on the something awful forums from that week.  I never really go to their forums, and just started checking this out a few days ago, but they have some very entertaining threads on there.  From the guy who posted all sorts of homemade porn pictures he found on the 'new' hard drive he bought, to the guy who wrote about his expieriences driving a street sweeper on the graveyard shift (maybe some of the best work stories I've ever heard/seen)...there's always something good to make you want to read more.

Last night it was this:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2503040&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

I've basically been skimming through it, but it's fucked up and the cult mentality of the defenders of the SouthWest Corp. is astounding.  I'm probably going to go on a rant about it when I'm done skimming it, but seriously, check out the emails and conversations she's had with the original poster. 

[gpw11]

Oh, I get it.  I see what's going on here.


Well, have fun selling your books chumps.

[JacksRag(e)]

You'd be surprised the amount of people that get sucked into these multi-level marketing schemes.  There's this one company I've heard about in New York called IDT Energy that has a tendency to strong-arm people into signing over their electricity to them with the lure of saving money on their electric bill.  I guess the story is that Con Ed was the original sole supplier of electricity there and the government broke it up and allowed private organizations to sell electricity to the people, but with Con Ed being the ones that furnished that electricity.  Anyways, IDT send their people door to door peddling their contracts, trying to coerce and otherwise badger people into signing these contracts that basically save them money for a short time then allow IDT to jack the rates up without warning.  They like to prey on non-English speaking families and have no qualms about getting the poor and uneducated to sign over.

I'm reading this fascinating interview from someone who went and applied for a job at one of these marketing places.  It's really a goood read.
http://consumerist.com/consumer/investigations/

If you're interested, start from the earlier dates and read your way up. 

[Shadowswhisper]

!!

Southwestern Company made me the person I am today! I sold books 20 hours a day, knocked on stranger houses and asks if they can put up with me for the night or the week, discouraged from calling home and using my laptop, walking 300 doors an hour and lose 30 pounds, but not too many have the priviledge to do this! You better not be dissing my book selling job GWP..um, GPW....11.!

 

[WindAndConfusion]

15 pounds in two weeks.

Right around one pound per day, for 14 days straight.

Seriously, imagine losing a piece of your own flesh the size of a child's fist, every gently caressing day.

And according to the numbers provided by that Jartonio guy, you won't quite make minimum wage in Oregon working that job - if you're one of the lucky ones.