Southwestern

I've been saving this one...because this will be LOOONG.
Anyways, for all of you college students out there looking for internships, you might come across this program associated Southwestern.

What do you do? You sell books. Textbooks.

My advice? Don't do it. Especially if money is your primary reason. If you're studying to be a salesperson, this does not apply you.

Their whole selection process bugs me from the beginning. I got a call about 8-9 pm at night from this person from this company offering me this opportunity to start this selection process. Apparently, they got my name AND phone number from an internship/job service. Problem is, I never signed up for one. Strike one.

But hey, I decided to give it a shot since at the time, my summer wasn't planned. The guy told me to attend a group meeting in which I counted about 15 people. Apparently, there's another session too, and I'm assuming that about the same amount of people attended, so 30 in total. Remember this number, it'll come in play later.

Anyways, at this group session, a guy from the company presented some background history of the company and how the job will be like, and then proceeded to have one-on-one sessions with the students. He also handed out some forms for you to fill out and sign, one of which is a contract - BEFORE YOU WERE EVER OFFERED A JOB. Strike two. Then everyone got a packet, which has their mission statement, a page for you to fill out your fears, questions, good points, etc., and a short story called The Black Door. You're told to fill this all out before meeting with your sponsor about 2-7days later depending.

Before I proceed, here's some info that's presented at the group meeting.
-You will need to travel somewhere else to sell books. So for example, if you're from Kentucky, you'd have to go to Texas to sell books.
-There is no guarantee of a return, theoretically, students can earn anything from $0 to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on how much books you can sell.
-You are not an employee, but an independent contractor (the form they made you sign)This is very important. They are not legally responsible for you, and people on this internship have gotten into legal troubles. Please PLEASE research this term and all it details if you're planning to actually accept this internship.
-They do not take care of your food, transportation, or whatever else you have.
-You have to attend their sales school, which you will get communication credits, but the expenses to the sales school is up to you. They will pay your housing and food while at sales school.

Moving on to my first private meeting with my sponsor. He went over the packet he gave me, showed me an album of pictures, went over how much the profits are distributed, and gave me another packet to fill out with a list of phone numbers of students who've participated in this program the year before. He encouraged me to call four of them to ask them how their experience was. Oh, he also mailed out this form to my parents which basically says that they're responsible to pay for whatever books I damage/destroy/steal. That's a boost of confidence huh? Strike three.

Several things to take note of in this meeting.
ONE: Money.
There are two types of books that they sell. The first type is a textbook reference kind of book and cost I think around 180. The other type is 6-7 kids books which you have to sell all or nothing and cost about 180. Now they call this a unit. 6-7 kids books = 1 unit and 1 reference book = 3 units. Your profit per unit is $5.

Looking at this as a percentage. 5/180 is approximately 2.77%. If you haven't figured it out, this is a horrible deal already.
Now let's look at it this way. You work Monday-Saturday, about 10 hours per day - that means you work 60 hours per week on average. They're expecting you to sell 2 books per day, which means you get $60 per day/$360 per week/$1440 per month. Ideally. That means for every hour you're working, you're getting paid about $6. Compare that with minimum wage of about $7.25. If you worked 60 hours every week for minimum wage, you will get $1740 a month. But don't forget to subtract the extra costs that you will have by going to this intern program. For one, you need to subtract your transportation to sales school (several hundred at least for airplane ticket) and your gas money for 3 months. Worth it? That's for you to decide. And let me stress this again, that is IDEALLY. There can be days when you sell nothing. NOTHING. Strike four.

TWO: Dishonesty.
Remember that number I told you to remember awhile ago? It was 30 in case you forgot. I told you that he gave me a list of all the people who attended this program last year from my college and encouraged me to call them. Guess how many people are on that list? 25. Now let's see...25/30 is approximately what? 83%. But we'll dumb down that number since I'm not sure how many people there really are...so perhaps 70%. Competitive? NOT. Strike five. I can imagine that some of the people who backed out have better offers or are smart enough to realize that this program is out there to exploit YOU. Can't you?

Southwestern is desperate. They would allow everyone who shows interest in - unless you have seriously issues. Now during their meeting sessions, they will sound like their internship is prestigious and all, but it's not. It's just a sales tactic to get you to buy into their internship.

Also, on that list of students he encouraged me to call, he crossed off the person who made the least money and told me that she isn't available. I wonder why.

THREE: FORMS FORMS FORMS
I'm just so very wary of the forms that this company makes you sign. As I mentioned before, there was a form that you had to sign on the very first general meeting which basically says you agree to be an independent contractor - which takes away any protection you would normally have as an employee. Now, they're making your parents responsible for all those books too so THEY can have financial guarantee.

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Anyways, I was going to go through the entire interview just to see what other weird things they have, but at this point, this is beyond a waste of my time. I think on the next meeting, he was going to make me write an essay of why I wanted to do this. I'm having a hard time thinking of any reason.

If you're reading this, and you're still considering going on this internship, you should read what people who've actually done this says. You have to look for your own host family - which is beyond awkward. The food is horrible. You're on the run almost all the time. The supposedly relaxing Sunday is not relaxing at all. And your sponsor takes several percentages off of your check for himself. The only good thing about this? You have the potential to make a lot of money. But think about it...if some college student went knocking on your door to sell you a $180 textbook that you don't need, would you buy it?

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If you would like to know more, you should read this blog. It's awesome in explaining even more evils of the Southwestern company.

Go here if you want to learn about independent contractors.

'Til Next Time

TM