Probably the most frequent challenge I hear to our real-life experiences with Mary Kay Cosmetics is, “Oh, there’s always one bad apple in the bunch. Don’t judge the entire company by that one person!” Yet in maintaining this site, I hear similar stories daily. Stories of lying and deception in an effort to get to the top of Mary Kay Inc. I don’t care what anyone says. These incidents are not isolated. I have heard literally thousands of similar stories. Women in MK compromise their morals to move to the next level, get a few extra recruits, or win a prize.

So what are “thousands” compared to the million-plus Mary Kay consultants worldwide? They are very significant. Imagine how many women don’t know sites like this exist. Imagine the number of women who just aren’t comfortable sharing their stories. While “thousands” seems small in number, I belive it is very significant.

We are just starting this movement toward truth. We will keep exposing the repeated lies surrounding this “opportunity.

This story comes from Pinked the Hell Out, and she calls her story “My Mary Kay Jellyfish”:

I’m thinking of that scene in “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” during which Bridget and her friends are sitting in a bar. One friend quietly announces a “jellyfish alert” and they all try to avoid being noticed by a woman who has just entered the bar. The “Jellyfish” approaches anyway and makes a series of stinging remarks to Bridget, and a little jellyfish sting counter appears on the bottom of the screen.

Every time I catch my Director in a lie or I discover something disturbing about MK, I sort of feel a little sting. I am no longer a consultant, but I have not severed ties with my Director because, well, I actually work in her home as her office assistant. I have to hold on to this job until I finish nursing school, an endeavor which my Director/Boss calls “stupid”. That remark, of course, counted as a big jellyfish sting.

I am saddened and embarrassed by my former ties to MK as a consultant and my continued association with it as one who dutifully yet grudgingly dispenses MK rhetoric far and wide as my boss’s unit and “future area” stretch from coast to coast.

Now I must backtrack a bit…My very first sting was when I realized that by placing my $3600 inventory order in January (halfway through the MK year) some years ago, I had immediately landed in the top 10 in sales for our unit of nearly 300. I was up there amongst consultants who had been working at this for a long time and certainly had been working for the first half of that year, as well as another frontloaded newbie or two. I then realized that if these established consultants had not had cause to order much more product than what I had ordered in my initial inventory order, I really had no hope of turning my inventory in a year. My goal was to actually to turn it four times (my retail background now makes its debut on this blog), something which my Director said was guaranteed with her guidance. That was such a lie!

Then, she totally shut down my business after just one week! She knew that I knew very few people in town and she recruited my only three personal contacts who were willing to hold classes and refer clients to me. She recruited them at a guest event when I went for my first training session. I thought it was the smart way to let them try product and for me to get some training. I knew nothing about cosmetics, so it made sense to me to go. I never had a chance to sell those three ladies or hold their classes, because they left that night as my competition. I was shut down. We all went to the same church, and they had all gone there for many years. I was a newcomer. And I was shut down out of business. That was my entire local circle.

When I told her that I was very upset about how it had played out, she made me feel like I was incredibly short-sighted and had no head for business. Sting! She told me that the big money was in recruiting, and that anyone could be a customer but not everyone could be a team member. She told me that I was really missing the big picture. Sting! I then quit working my personal business, but I held on to my products because I was scared of getting fired if I returned them. I needed the job. And still do.

Over the past few years as I have quietly worked to put together “awesome” and “exciting” newsletters, postcards, flyers, conference calls, training meetings, prize packages (sometimes costing her just $.50 for a prize) special guest events, emails, letters, retreats, challenges, banquets, picnics, slumber parties (yes, it’s true) charts, checklists, tracking sheets, and the website and more, I have caught my Director/Boss in many little lies and some big ones, and each time it leaves me feeling a bit stung, a bit sick.

Just three months ago, one of her DIQ’s stepped down. This girl was a new consultant, submitted DIQ just two weeks after becoming a consultant and was then tracking to be a one month wonder. She had several working and recruiting personal team members and a huge handful of personal use consultants. She was blazing through the process so fast that she did not even have a true understanding of how it worked, and she unwittingly misled those close friends and family members who signed up as personal use consultants. I blame my Director for this. She was conducting many of those interviews herself and was using the lines “it’s just like buying a Sam’s Club membership” and “which line would you want to stand in? the full-price line? or the half-price line?” and those poor women thought that once they purchased the showcase/starter kit that they automatically had the discount on any orders for the entire year. The DIQ did not fully understand, but a 10 year veteran Director certainly did. STING.

Last month, in a rush to reinstate some consultants who had passed their twelve-month mark in August, my boss had me send individual personal emails from her explaining that the company gives her so many free reinstatement packages per year and that she had personally selected them. This was a lie, of course. Consultants can be reinstated for about $20, and my boss was just going to personally pay for it and sign them up as her personal recruits. Then she would heap on the pressure to get them active once they were in again as her personals, I’m sure. Anyway, I sent this out to all 13 people who had not reinstated in their twelfth month, so I guess each one was specially selected. Sigh.

And last year when my boss decided to make a big push for NIQ, she had me send out invitations to a dinner party to her top consultants and their spouses. She asked me to tell them that she had given their names to Sales Development at MK Headquarters (big, fat lie), and that they were monitoring their individual and team activity as they had been marked as future directors. She told them that they would be receiving special promotions, prizes, and secret information well before the other consultants. That was a lie. Sting.

Last summer, my boss created a promotion for all inactive consultants to encourage them to become active again. She promised to hold a drawing for a cash prize in the amount of $300, which would more than cover the cost of the required $200 wholesale order, tax, and shipping. I repeatedly asked her the following month if I could announce a winner, and she dismissed me every single time. She LIED to her unit and NEVER awarded that cash prize. We had 37 consultants qualified for an entry into the drawing

I think I put myself at risk if I continue with any further examples. I guess I’ll leave it at that. I just wanted to share that even reputable directors who aren’t signing up illegals, falsifying social security numbers, robbing blind their grandmothers, drinking and shopping with Sean Key, selling to exporters, and sending their cousins into huge debt, and who have been around for a long time in reputable areas, still bend the truth and manipulate people and flat out lie to get things to happen. Her status was never at risk. Her Cadillac was never in jeopardy. She was not backed into a corner with any huge debt, needing a bigger commission check. I do her books, and she does not have maxed out credit cards or huge outstanding debt.

She was running low on new consultants to frontload but still wanted her totals to look good. She was just overly ambitious and hungry for company recognition. She was also ready to move beyond worrying about the next DIQ and the next new consultant and the next skin care class. She wants to go National and just sit atop her plush, pink, pyramid and wave to the adoring peasants at her feet.

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