7/16: Picture This "Minimal Investment"
So I look around occasionally for a side job or something to supplement my income – besides male prostitution, of course. Hell, I like to look around for something to replace my primary source of income, but I digress. A month or so ago I was browsing through Monster (or was it not-so-Hot Jobs?) when I came across this one ad that didn’t look quite the same as the thousand or so “Do you want to make REAL money now?” ads that are ordered by staffing agencies or those multi-level marketing places. I clicked on the link and basically it was a business that offered “cyber tours” of homes for sale. I was initially suspicious, as I always am when looking at jobs through this medium, but I figured oh what the hell. Although the words “minimal investment” shot off a red flag, it also said that it was part-time and that I can make my own hours. Hey, I work 6:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.; if I got to do this in the mid-afternoon whenever I wanted to during the workweek, I'd be a happy camper.
A week or so later I came home from work and played a message on the answering machine from some guy about this job. I called him back and we started talking. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I was told that I would be employed on a contract basis, and I’d make $25-40 per each photo shoot. There was some mileage reimbursement, but that was only if the price of a gallon of gasoline went above a certain amount. That didn’t really bother me though, what shot off every red flag in my arsenal though was when talked about the “minimal investment.”
$1800.
I knew this would probably be where I get the rare opportunity to say in a job interview “Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” and sadly it was. As he finished his spiel and explained what the $1800 was for – company-specific camera, laptop, software and other equipment – I began punching up numbers on the handy calculator I had nearby because I knew I was going to use during this conversation. I noted to him that in order to pay off that $1800 “minimal investment” I would have to take pictures of 72 houses for $25 per shot. On the low end, if every house I took pictures of had a $40 bill, I would have to go on 45 different trips. I also said that if I were to go on five “assignments” per week (which is the figure he said I'd average to start out), I would have to work 2-4 months to pay off this “minimal investment.” I also noted that I wasn’t even including the taxes I'd be paying in any of these assessments, or the cost of wear-and-tear on my vehicle. When we wrapped this phone interview up, I was “offered” this job, but like I said before, I got to be on the giving end of this rejection offer, which is a nice feeling considering all the times in the past I have been given the old, “Your resume is very impressive, but you suck and we found someone else to do the job we advertised for in the newspaper, but we'll keep your resume 'on file' just so you can get out of our lives forever and leave us alone” rejection letter. So for that feeling alone, the whole experience was worthwhile.
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