I had the displeasure of being called after submitting my resume via Monster.com and not 30 minutes had gone by when i had a voice mail saying that Sonia had called me to schedule an interview saying she recieved my resume and i was a perfect candidate. When i called back Maria answered the phone and said Sonia was not there. Strange for 2:30 pm on a Wednesday. She told me i would be meetin with Paul Malcom in the Burlington office and to bring my resume for them to look at. This was after she said she had my resume and said i was the perfect candidate.
I drove up to Burlington from Quincy and upon seeing hte shabby state of the building they were in started to wonder how legit this company was. I let it go deciding that a lot of small companies do great business from worse places and in this economy you cant be picky. When i got to the door there were paper signs taped to the walls with arrows drawn crudely on them with magic marker saying DYNASTY and pointing down a dark stairwell with water stained rotted carpet.
I went downstairs and immediately heard loud rap music shaking the walls and saw a few people standing around bouncing a basketball reciting lines and holding papers. One lone girl was online shopping on her computer and picked up the phone and started talking as soon as i walked in as if to seem busy. I was told to fill out an application and wait as she talked on the phone. Meanwhile a movie star looking guy was chatting up a tall dark skinned man in a polyester suit and they were throwing out loud buzzwords about contracts and "the deal is going through" and what not.
The man in the suit told me to come into his office and asked me what my background in sales was and we talked for about 5 minutes before he told me that he could see himself in my eyes and he knew i would be a good fit. I reached for my resume but never pulled it out and he went on and on and then showed me a training video on his computer in his office which was covered with fake trophies from a store and framed posters of the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls and the Boston Bruins. He said I am the kind of person who would fit into his fast tracked management program and he wanted to start training immeidately and at my age I could be a manager in 8 months running my own office in Virginia because they are expanding. I am 27 by the way.
He said i should come in the next day and visit one of his fortune 500 companies they were just finishing a deal with and it would be nice to get some ground work in right away to get started. All this was before any talk of Pay, Health Insurance, Car Allowance, Vacation, Product education. I went in the next day and Paul told me we would take care of the paperwork when we got back into the office but we had to hit the road in order to meet with the new client. I foundhtis strange that he would bring a tentative new hire to a new client meeting to work out a new contract.
We never made it to the meeting because there was an accident on 95 but again a red flag was that instead of calling the client we blew off this "appointment" and turned around and went back to Burlington to the office where he gave me the tour of the conference room and facilities.By this i mean he showed me the room where the people were bouncing a basketball listening to rap music very loudly and reciting lines off of paper. The walls were smashed in and the paint onthe walls had imprints from where numerous balls had been slammed into them. There was also a broken metal bell ont he floor next to some uncapped dry erase markers making this "conference room" look like a destroyed play pen in the basment of a flooded abandoned building. Oh yes Pauls office was flashy with his posters from Newbury Comics but im sure those were just covering holes in the walls.
The team cam back in around 5:30 and they all started to do a cheer and sing songs which was very unprofessional and very strange for a high end sports managing team. There werent even any chairs for people to sit in nor a table to hold proper sales meetings at.
I was told to come in the next day and I would get paid a base of $50 for my 1st days training and any commissions i would make. This consisted of me getting into the "top rep's" dirty 1992 camry while he smoked cigarettes and drove us up to New Hampshire to sling coupons on the street to passers by. I still kept myself blind at this point and hindsight is always 20/20 but i knew somehting was wrong when we walked into McDonalds and he started slinging these coupons to people sitting down eating lunch. Then we went to Wal-Mart and did hte same. No appointments no high end clients no contract writing. Walking around walmart disturbing the everyday lower class americans trying to sling coupons for paintball and golf tee times at local businesses. We were asked to leave Wendy's McDonalds Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Dunkin DOnuts and Taco Bell. I realized at this time that this was a pyramid scheme that ropes young college students into soldier footwork for a fake marketing company and decided to google search on my phone while the "top rep" was slinging his garbage. Do what i did... Type Dynasty and Scam into any google search adn see what comes back. You might meet Mr Paul Malcom before he meets you all over the internet. And his fake secretary Maria/Sonia will not have to lie to you about who she is in order to look legit.
I told the rep i had had enough and got hte gist of the job and was ready to head back to the office and he denied my request becasue i needed a "full days training" which really meant he had not sold all of his coupon books that he bought from the company and he was going to lose money if he did not sell them. I told him he had to take me back. He said well its about 4:00 and we have an hour to drive back so maybe we should go. We went back to the office after i had made my stand and i asked how i would be getting paid since we never worked out anything and i had signed no tax id forms and had no material. They said we get paid in cash so there was no need for those things. Red light. Any business who is a cash basis is not a business. All jobs have tax forms and if you are commission you are 1099 not W-2 i get that but ther eare tax forms none the less. I figured it out hours before but this confirmed my suspicions i took my $50 cash and never showed up again.
So for a job that never saw my resume, never gave me forms to sign, no contracts only promises in buzz words of fast track management positions and unlimited earning potential to distract you from the reality of the workforce, i strongly say stay away
do your homework on Paul Malcom and Dynasty and any other company that he might rename to. The building will be the same and Maria/Sonia wil be there and hte posters will be the warning signs for you. Dont be fooled
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