Something Wasn’t Right

 As some might know, I went to back to school over a decade ago to finish my bachelor’s degree. I went to University of Houston, and at the time was told that my degree (Psychology and Human Development/Family Studies) would “open doors” to work in the nonprofit sector. Then once I graduated, I quickly discovered that nonprofit organizations mostly only wanted volunteers. I felt completely duped and went on to other things. Lately, though, it’s been suggested to me to try again to get a job in a nonprofit. 

I started on indeed, and tweaked my resume a little before submitting to things I would have applied for right after I graduated from college. The very next day, I got a phone call from a woman who’d received my resume, and by god, this was the most bubbly woman I’ve ever come across in my life. 

She started by saying that my resume was AMAAAAAZINGGG.  She acted like she was my best friend, and asked me a few basic questions. Some of the questions were, was I ok working 10 hour days, could I occasionally travel to Dallas, and so on. We scheduled an interview for the following day, and I immediately thought the whole thing was weird. 

She described it as fundraising for several nonprofits and framed it in such a way to make it sound like the nonprofit was the client and we did fundraising. She said I would be trained on the job, so it didn’t matter that I didn’t have fundraising experience. I thought maybe this would be a good way to learn what organizations are in my community. It seemed so off, though. They don’t usually call so quickly, and her personality was over the top fake. She raved about my resume, but they never really rave about that either. I’ve moved small hills in my life, but never mountains. She was acting like the latter. 

I quickly discovered that what this company was my local chapter of Universal Events, run by a woman named Harmony Vallejo (maiden name Hunt). And that what I would be doing was standing outside stores and soliciting donations for a handful of different charities. I would not receive a salary or an hourly wage, but a commission of about 60% of whatever people donated. Discussions online claim that the charities only receive 10%, which means Harmony Vallejo and the company receive 30% of whatever people donate. 

As if standing outside of a store to solicit donations wasn’t terrible enough,you learn that this is what happens to the donations. I have seen these people outside of stores before, and I always try everything to avoid them. When I can’t, and I say “no thank you” I’m always told in that condescending tone to “have a blessed day.”  I would never be ok with doing that myself even if it was legit and moral.  How much worse is it that 90% of peoples donations don’t even go to the cause they think they are donating to?

I immediately canceled the “interview” over both email and text.  Then I lost a whole nights sleep doing a deep dive on these people. This is the best deep dive I can find. It’s over an hour long, and the person being interviewed has his voice and face censored. I may actually delete this post after I know that my handful of readers are aware of this and NOT to donate money and to also spread the word if they can- because my real name and email that I used to apply for this non-job is linked to this Google profile, and my home address was on my resume. So not that I’m soliciting comments, but if you could, at least comment “done” so I know you read this and are aware of the real story behind the people who solicit donations outside of stores. 

In another video I watched about it that I can’t find now, a young lady said they would send everyone to Dallas basically for pep talks and motivational speeches. She said they would make them “network” with each other until very late at night and then make them get up extremely early in the morning.  If you aren’t aware, sleep deprivation is a brainwashing tactic.  The woman I spoke to asked if I was occasionally able to travel to Dallas. I was mortified.

I came away from this just vowing not to try and use my degree anymore. It’s a lost cause, and that’s ok. I also need to come up with a good response when people try to tell me that a college education is “never” a waste and that I can “always” use it. It’s well past time that I give up on it and accept that yea, it was a huge waste and a mistake. I’m in a good place despite the choice to go back over a decade ago, and I have good experience. I had good experience then, and I have even more now.