KambingBujang

Photo: ProfessorYackle

IT ALL BEGAN WITH.. 

1. I’d got a message from old, long lost-contact friend, saying that he had a business opportunity he wanted to share with me.

2. With the 20 percent shares he allocated for me to pursue business together.

3. The world started crumbling down when I realized that the business that he eager to jump start with me, was another goddamn dinosaur-like multilevel marketing business.

4. I need someone to be my punch bag.

LET ME TELL YOU THIS AGAIN..

5. I couldn’t help myself but to get excited when my friend — ex school mate — invited me to join venture to set sail in the world of air industrial business.

6. Since his educational background was engineering, I assume he knows the business like the back of his hand.

7. He told me that:

• He got consulted by a lawyer to help him in developing his business,
• A business coach to make things rest assured;
• and A banker to aid with the financial constraints so that the business will not be disrupted by those monetary nonsense.

8. So that Sunday, I started to text messaging with him like lovers. Even my wife started to get jealous,

“what’s the deal between you and your cellphone?”

“Oh, don’t tell me that you feel something bad about me just because I’m texting someone longer than you”

9. My wife was frowning during our painful conversation. I told myself she didn’t understand. But she would when I brought home a Toyota Estima key for her, benefited from a profit of my future business.

10. OMG, I was dreaming before the business had even started.

11. Then I told my wife to soothe her feeling “It’s my old friend. Okay. Relax. I will not do something funny in front of you. Beside, there’s a business opportunity here and I will not turn it into a wasteland”

12. After break fast, I grabbed my keys and off to Kuala Lumpur. There was a long-time-no-see meeting going on at KLCC with me and my old friend.

13. Yes, something funny had happened.

IT’S A TRICK

14. And I could picture that my wife would be laughing at me when I told her I was tricked by so-called MLM businessman.

15. I remember a day before, My wife started to get mad at me when I told her that I would not be here to have the iftar with her (Iftar: break fasting or berbuka puasa).

16. When my friend told me this meeting was all about MLM; I realized my lovely wife’s madness was truly worthwhile.

17. My innner voice was telling me that it was a really, really stupid idea to substitute the intimacy of doing iftar together with my wife, just to meet with the old friend and his business proposal.

18. So I cancel the meeting and rescheduled it after having iftar with my wife. And that decision was right the moment.

19. I realized the word MLM came out of my friend’s mouth like a loath of vomit.

20. My blood was draining out and off my face. I could feel my wrath running wild around my head. I would be relief I could smack the hell out of his face.

21. That moment got me rewind back to where my wife frowning because I couldn’t have iftar with her so I could meet my old friend.

22. Wife, thank you for doing that; that frowning / tantrum / merajuk thing. I would put myself into eternal self-purgatory for life if I abandoned my wife alone with our kids.

DEALING WITH MLM PEOPLE

23. My mind was a stormy sea. And it’s generating heat inside of me. If I had powers like Kratos in the God of War games, I would hit him off the ground with the double-chained blade and do the immortal hits on him, along with his self-righteous fellow friend, and the MLM products they slept with, as well.

24. But I still had a respect for him because I’d known him for years now and he was my school mate.

25. My heart’s thumping, instructed me to burst down the double door of the hall and left him in confusion. But I got hold of myself at that moment.

26. Instead, I followed my brain and carried my respect for him.

27. As for that, I wasted almost four hours listening on how their MLM product could shoot earth’s garbage into space.

28. Thank god I was good at listening and absorbed nothing.

29. This was not the first time I was approached by an MLM salesperson. And I always knew what he would be saying. I could pick most of his words ahead of him.

30. You always knew what they would be saying like: how dirty the conventional business is and the good way of doing business is by network marketing.

DOWNWARD IS THE WAY FORWARD

31. Now, how he tricked me to get excited about this business was simple. From the first text message to end of our meeting, he never mentioned any typical words or terminologies of multilevel marketing like MLM, downline, upline, PV (point value), generations, kaki, pyramid, network and so on.

32. Instead, he carefully picked up words of legal business entity like share partner, business proposal, contract, maintenance, closed sale, project, overseas market, and so on.

33. He was so clever that he never let me opened my mind — not even the slightest idea — into thinking: there would be a grim reaper of Multilevel Marketing waiting, on the corner, to decapitate my neck.

34. In 45 minutes of his presentation, I never rose a question about anything. I sat still like a stone.

35. What really annoying about his presentation was, he applied the fundamental of marketing that I already learned: the product life cycle, product establishment, brand recognition, 4 types of people in marketing world, A.I.D.A Model, types of promotion, marketing strategies, and so on.

36. If someone didn’t have such a marketing knowledge, they might be mesmerized by his presentation.

37. They must be thinking hard on how to penetrate my MLM-proof mind and turned me into a zombie of the night..

38 ..and giving them my money right away.

39. But they failed to do that to me.

40. For all I knew, I was listening to words that he said but never let him constructing an insidious inception inside my mind.

Conclusion:

41. My hatred of Multilevel Marketing model was so deep that I could dig a well of infamous articles and join forces with Aididleaks like there’s no tomorrow.

42. And I feared that it would become my greatest passion: to elevate all MLM companies to the seventh level of atmospheres and gravitate them down so fast to the ground that the impact would bring the horror of vibrations miles away, the sound of the wrath would echo for millenniums, and everything would be laid to waste.

43. So to anyone, especially my fellow friends, don’t you ever persuade or trick me to let me step into your door of endless promises. Because if you do, I will never acknowledge my respect for you and then I will advance against you, above manner and morality.

44. Now, I can rephrase the 4400′s most famous quote: “We are at war now, don’t pick the wrong side.”