The pyramid game

So, my NS friend asked me out to dinner. Which is strange, becuase i didn't really know him that well to begin with, he was a good working ally and nice person to talk to in camp etc. but i didn't really expect to see him much after we went our own seperate ways. So it was quite a pleasant surprise when he called me up to ask me out for dinner. So okay, i say why not come along for this dinner we're having to send another NS friend off for his masters degree in violin? And then he says no thanks, actually he doesn't really know the rest of them very well. Which i find highly curious, but is not terribly inconceivable. So i say not this week, try next week.

So next week he calls again and asks me for dinner. So alright, i agree and in the end we meet at lau pa sat, near his office. And i'm thinking "wa, poor chap, working till 7pm." (we agreed to meet at 7:15) And i see him all dressed up in a tie and a long sleeved shirt. And i'm rather surprised, partly because i didn't think he'd be in such a formal job requiring such clothes, and later, when i realised it, because i'm wondering why he's still wearing his tie and stuff after office hours.

So we talk, he asks lots of questions about what i'm doing, what i'm going to do, the usual smalltalk. But refuses to answer questions about his job. Very cryptic. Already on the phone when i tried to find out, he refused to tell me, so, okay, i'll give him that much, but even now he went on saying "oh i'll tell you after dinner." which i found completely perplexing, and i was wondering what sort of illegal job he was trying to do.

And then he started being very nice to me and tried to pay for my dinner and ate what i ate and drank what i drank... which was when i decided that he didn't care about the dinner. And he asks me cryptic stuff like if i ever considered being retrenched, and whether i'd want to be in a job all my life, and such. When you consider that all our previous conversation about jobs basically involved things like 'dunno, see how' and the like, this got highly curious. So i figured he was trying to sell me insurance or some sort of financial instrument. Which i found amusing, coz, well, there's always the chance of me coming back to him on the same matter with a rather different change of roles 4 years later.

But he STILL REFUSES to tell me what he's selling or trying to get at. Which started to get agitatingly irritating. And he refused to tell me, saying 'well, come back to my office and it'll be easier to explain, or you might misunderstand.' At this moment various alarm bells started ringing, but i thought, hey, let's see where this is going.

So we take a walk along shenton way, and voila, office. we take the lift up, and he sees someone he knows in the lift. Considering that it's already 8 plus by now, i'm wondering what sort of job he does where temp people wander around the office so late at night. And he tells me about a nice working environment and lots of young people and that sort of thing. gee. So the doors open at the top floor of some random office building, and he leads me... into a showroom. I'm there going 'wtf?' at seeing a whole area full of maybe 30 people talking at small tables in groups of 3 or 4 or so. I was expecting a graveyard, and i got a market.

And he shows me the showcase of their products (aha, you're trying to sell me..... beauty products?!? and aromatherapy?!?) and explains some more, does a whole sales pitch, shows me the website, says good things about the company's president and director and stuff (why am i interested? what's your point? who are these people to you?) and eventually i figure out that it's multilevel marketing he's gotten himself into.

Which then begun a whirlwind journey of logic fencing with my friend who refuses to tell me very much, in fear of having me misunderstand. So he says wait for a while, i'm getting a senior partner to explain to you what it's all about. So in the end, he, this other army friend who was there too, and this strange senior partner who was probably the same age as he was, sit with me at a table. *glance at watch*

So senior person does all the talking. In chinese. Which is sliiiiightly problematic, since my logic fencing doesn't work quite as well when i'm spending half my brainpower trying to figure out what she's saying in the first place. And all the while i keep trying to point out how they have only 2 products for crying out loud, and they're really just selling the franchising system which won't work since there's no inherent value in their products. And she pulls all sorts of analogies with macdonalds and math games and stuff which i try to point out aren't relevant, but she refuses to listen to me anyway thinking that i've got the wrong idea and should just follow her train of thought for a moment. I suppose i don't express myself very well in chinese.

My friends try and convince me about the learning opportunities and how the courses are really good, i try and ask them if they're really worth the money because they keep talking about it in such vague terms like 'oh it's good' 'you won't believe it until you try it' and so on. I figure it's very personality cultish and brainwashy.

And so it goes on and on for *gasp* 3 hours, all the while i spend time trying to understand their concept and these people, and ask them probing questions to undermine their faith in the system, but it doesn't work. sigh. So i give up and decided my time was better spent elsewhere, like, say in a festering cesspool just down the road.

All in all, it was a 3 hour lesson in logic, chinese, patience, and human fallibility. Fun. Freaky. F-ed up.