Morgan Spurlock wrote, and then starred in
the 2004 block buster movie, Super Size Me. It won all kinds of awards and put the fast
food franchise McDonalds back on its heels to recover its customer base. By the end of his 30 day experiment of eating
only McDonald’s food, three times a day, he gained 24 and a half pounds. As shocking as that may read, what most
people don’t know is that it took him over eighteen months to lose that weight to
get back to his original weight…. And that was WITH the help of his Nutritionist girlfriend managing his recovery.
I
mention that because I just lived through a similar experience with trying out
a fun idea only to have it haunt me for longer than I would ever imagine.
The other day I was informed that the US
Defense Finance and Accounting office was planning to decrement my retirement
pay by half. Starting in December no
less, you got to love their timing. Why
not December, I mean, what’s going on then?
I
digress into my black mood concerning the government. Realizing I would have to make up the
difference to continue to live my wanton life of luxury and outrageous month
long block parties, I would have to come up with a way of bring in more
money. One thing I learned after twelve
years of college study, and most of that in business, was that you don’t get
rich working for someone else. Nope,
nada, nyet, a paycheck is the consolation prize in the land of risk-makes-
fortunes.
So
I was seduced to the dark side. Yes, I
saw on the Internet offers of money for taking surveys; I bit. I signed up with scores of sites. The more that came, the more I signed up, I
would turn this enterprise into an empire of point earning opinions and
dispositions about everything under the sun from Obama Care to Oscar Meyer Bologna.
The
raw truth of it is, as you may already suspect like my wife; it’s a scam. OK, yes, my wife TOLD ME SO, but then who listens to their wives? Right? I’ll take the “I told you so” with the same aplomb
I weather the reasons we don’t leave wet towels on the floor or put the toilet
seats down. Just stop talking to me like
I’m a retarded dolphin and I’ll do whatever you say.
The
surveys fall into two categories. One is where they get the information they
want and then dump me. A window pops up
near the very end of the survey, the payday threshold I call it, with: “We’re
sorry you’re not of the demographics we are seeking to hear from” What kind of
crap is that? How on EARTH can a national
survey have any validity if they only pick a particular segment of
society? No more listening to those commercial
voices telling me their product was found the best among 89 percent of those
they surveyed…I’m wise to that ploy now.
Secondly, no matter how many times they say FREE….it’s not. Free if you order should be mandatory; but
then by the stated condition of ordering something makes it not free at
all. I think someone had to go to court
to get their hand slapped for saying it’s free when it’s really not. I don’t think that applies to survey takers
though. So I fill out the survey and
give them my thoughtful opinions only to find out I have to order two of the
three options, (usually credit scores, magazines or trial something or other
that I’ll forget about in 90 days and then get slugged in the stomach with a
huge bill). After a dedicated couple of
days taking every survey they sent me, and having the same thing happen time
and again, I realized it was a shame and total waste of my time. When I mentioned that to my wife she actually
did the moon walk and snoopy dance together…I’ve never seen that before then.
Now the rest of
the story is that happened a week ago and I am STILL unsubscribing to survey emails. I am STILL getting phone calls from India
offering to find me a school that I can enroll into. And like my friend Morgan Spurlock, I am
paying for my impulsiveness…one day after the other… minus the 30 million he
raked if from the movie.
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