On the Money: Presumption

Recently, we had some 'friends' that attend a large Church in the Northern suburbs ring ‘out of the blue’.

As we had not seen them in some time, we were quite surprised to hear from them. It was not long before my wife was asked if they could come to our house…and show us a new business opportunity...

They told us that they are working really hard to achieve an independent income stream so that they won’t have to work and will then concentrate on doing ‘God stuff’. It was not long before we realised that their motive was to sell Amway. They presumed that we should be interested because we were told 'the Business' has some connections with a community we have been involved with for some time.

Needless to say, my wife gracefully declined the offer.

Though, I have to say that, it does make me angry to the very core when people take advantage of relationships.

There is always something sinister about mixing relationships with money, especially when there is a spiritual connection. My parents always used to say ‘Make friends out of business associates, but never make Business associates out of friends”. You can't beat parental Wisdom - they are not trying to sell you something and have your best interest at heart.

Needless to say, our 'friends'(who are a really warm but naive couple), like so many others we know have a high chance of being burned in the process, falling by the wayside so those at the top of the 'food chain' can drive luxury cars. To the Business, 'churn' is all just part of the 'Business Model'. In the business world 'Churn' is represented as statistical numbers against a target - not as people where each and every one is important.

I never mind helping out friends or giving to bone fide charities, but nothing is more sinister than manipulation and exploitation - taking advantage of peoples good intentions, dreams and time to meet its own ends. Amway is undoubtedly a successful organisation, founded by 'Christians' and offers some quality products - but that doesn’t mean that like all Businesses, that its representatives always act with integrity or consideration.

People are always more important than the objectives of any organisation, regardless of its relative level of success.