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- [00:00]
Rosetta Stone Advertiser
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- [01:09]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy and before we get started, I want to tell you that the Moth is coming to Michigan. Michigan Radio is going to sponsor crack up stories of comedies and calamities, and the first stop is going to be Royce Auditorium in Grand Rapids. That's going to be on June 22, and tickets are available at smarttix.com the show will also be appearing as part of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival on June 23rd at the Power Center. Tickets are available @annarbor summerfestival.org and now that we've got the business out of the way, let's get down to this week's story by Jen Lee, which was recorded live at the moth in 2010. The theme of the night was stories of fooling and being fooled.
- [02:04]
Jen Lee
So a lot of people are raised with a religion, and I'm one of those people that was raised with two. There was our official religion. My family is, and I was at the time conservative East Evangelical Christians. But then there was our unofficial faith and hope we had in Mary Kay Cosmetics. Many of the women in my family had been Mary Kay beauty consultants since I was a child, and I loved Jesus as long as I could remember. But that Mary Kay thing was I was hoping to dodge that bullet. I was this brainy grunge girl from Boulder County. I wore hemp jewelry and clothes from the Salvation Army. I had moral objections to wearing makeup. And when I Got a scholarship to go out of state for college. I thought I'd made my big escape. But my last visit home, I listened to one recruiting tape too many. And the logic and reason finally got to me. And I saw the dotted line. And I started my business as a Mary Kay beauty consultant. Now, on paper, the business plan looks foolproof. All you're supposed to need is to have one friend to host a party for you where you sell skincare and makeup to her friends. Then you're supposed to book two more every time. So your date book is never empty. But I could never book two more. I used the script. I thought I was fun to be with. I don't know what the problem was, but luckily for me, there was like a hundred other ways they trained us to get bookings. And one of these ways was to strike up seemingly natural conversations with perfect strangers. And we had a name for this. We called this Warm Chatter. And I thought, damn it, I am going to rock this. I am going to be the queen of Warm Chatter. So what I am about to tell you, I did this for a very long time. About two or three days a week, for two or three hours a day. I would get dressed up in my business suit and I would put on all my makeup and I would pack my bag full of samples and I would drive to Target. And in Target I would get my red shopping cart and I would pretend I was shopping for items. But really I was just hunting for women. I was looking for women who looked cute or friendly or approachable. When I found somebody like this, then I would just discreetly follow her through the store until we could be together in an aisle alone. And then I would appear to just be walking by normally and I would slow down and in the most casual way possible, I would say these words that I'd rehearsed a hundred million times. I would say, excuse me, can I ask you a quick question? I'm Jen with Mary Kay and we just came out with a new line of lip glosses. And I need some women's opinions of it. You know, I have some samples here in my bag. Is there any reason why you wouldn't want to take one home and try it? And this part was really important. We are trained to smile and nod while we ask the question. It has to do with the non verbal communication and mirroring. It's very advanced. And if she said yes, I'd give her the sample. I'd get her phone number. When I called her back later to thank her, I would offer her A complimentary appointment with me. And I wouldn't mention that all my appointments were complimentary because it just didn't seem important. So at the same time I was doing this for my career. My husband and I were also leading, helping to lead programs for our local church. And this is the kind of church that was trying to be really hip and modern. It met in a strip mall and we had a rock band, a rock band leading worship up front. The pastor was this 40 somethings British guy and he really wanted to attract 20 somethings. So we were a hot commodity. We were right in the demographic and we started to get promoted up into higher and higher echelons of leadership. So we were invited to the leadership team meeting and then the core leadership team meeting. And I still remember my first night at one of these meetings. And I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but I think I'd always imagined them to be kind of soulful events. And I was really dismayed to show up and discover it was this really tedious conversation about branding and marketing and what the church's next advertising campaign was going to be. So it didn't take too long before these two worlds, the church and Mary Kay, started to look more and more similar. They both had the lure and Mary Kay was giving out free samples. But at the church we were having free events to try and get people in the doors. In both worlds, we were couching everything we did inside a conversation about service. So Mary Kay's company tagline at the time was changing women's lives, which if you think about it, isn't that different from saving people's souls. And we really believed it, we really thought we were doing this, even though nobody's motives are that pure. And in both worlds I was being trained all the time to listen to people everywhere I went for whatever was missing or not working about their life and offer what we had as the solution. So if you needed time or money or flexibility, Mary Kay might be perfect for you. But if you're struggling with your marriage or you've had a recent loss, maybe you're questioning the meaning of life. Call me crazy, but have you considered maybe Jesus is the answer? And soon I just started to feel like a 24 hour saleswoman and. And it started to get confusing, like which hat I was wearing at which time, until one day I was in Target with my little red cart and I saw this lovely looking redhead who smiled so big when I smiled at her and I started into my script. Excuse me, can I ask you a Quick question. Except this time it started to sound kind of flat, like those pull string dolls that sound kind of wonky at the end. And suddenly I was just thinking, does she need Mary Kate or does she need Jesus? Does she need Mary Kate or does she need Jesus? And I don't know which one I offered her, but she said no, because I was acting crazy. And she turned and walked away. And I realized the problem with whenever you have something, whether it's a religion or a business or anything else that you think is the right answer for everybody through that lens, you can't help but look at everyone in the world as if they're broken and need to be fixed. And I didn't want to do that anymore. So I put my card away at the front of the store and I drove home. The next night was my weekly success meeting. And the director was up front telling us, giving us all the information about the new lipstick formula and the changes that were being made. And I started to look around the room at these women, and they were either my friends who I recruited into it, or my relatives who had recruited me into it. And I was thinking, thinking about how devastating it would be when I quit. Because I wasn't just rejecting everything they stood for, but I was letting down my friends I'd gotten them into. I was bailing on them. And then my relatives, the people who had recruited me, their income depended on me, their income, their status. All of our fortunes were tied in together. And I thought, but is this really changing women's lives the way I hoped it would? And the director started passing around mirrors and lipstick samples for us to try it ourselves. And I thought, no, I don't think so anymore. And a couple days later was the church leadership meeting, and the pastor was telling us that the church's new mission statement needed to have five points, one for every finger on the hand, so people could remember it. And I started looking around this room and thinking about what they would think about me when I quit. They would think I was backsliding and falling off the wagon. But it was even worse than that. They would think I was going to hell, that my children were going to hell, and if I was wrong, maybe they would be right. And I thought, but is this really saving people's souls, this, all this that we're doing? And the pastor interrupted to say that all five points needed to start with the same letter. And I thought, no, I don't think so anymore. And so that was when I stopped trying to save the world. And I decided to save myself instead from this life I didn't want anymore. And it really cost me. I lost my identity. I lost belonging. I lost the ability to ever be that certain or righteous about anything ever again. And if you can imagine what it's like to lose a faith and then imagine what it's like to lose two at once. Because even though Mary Kay was a business, it wasn't just that. It was a way. I thought the world worked so way I thought that we could all win and everybody could get what they needed. It was really devastating. I felt like I might not ever be able to trust myself again. The last piece of our exit strategy was our move to New York. We were going to get geographic distance, start fresh someplace else. We landed in Brooklyn, in a neighborhood called Park Slope. And everywhere we went, people were either trying to recruit us into or warn us against joining the Park Slope Food Co Op. And it seems so unobjectionable, you know, like, who can argue against cheap, organic, environmentally friendly food? Community run. And part of me was really tempted because I thought, I can have my identity back. Everyone will know I'm a good person and I can belong again. But there was something about the way that the people we talked to were just so convinced it was the right thing for everybody that felt creepily familiar. And I thought, I know where that path leads. So when one particularly zealous friend cornered me one day and said, are you going to join or not? Are you in or are you out? I just took a deep breath and I looked her in the eyes and I said, sorry, I don't do religions anymore. Thank you.
- [14:09]
Dan Kennedy
Jenn Lee is a Brooklyn based writer, photographer and instructor. She leads workshops and retreats on creative expression and is the creator of Finding youg Voice, a multimedia course. She can be found online at Jen.
- [14:23]
Rosetta Stone Advertiser
Lee Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy is the author of the book Rock An Office Power Ballad. Learn more@rockonthebook.com thanks to all of you.
- [14:34]
Dan Kennedy
For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange Helping make public radio more public@prx.org.