Are you willing to settle for mediocrity in your life?

Everybody knows someone who does that knife selling scam. Cutco. It's always the annoying kid next door or your annoying little cousin who thinks he's doing something entrepreneurial.

In my family, there's a cousin - who is really not a cousin, just the son of a woman one of our cousins married - who is involved with this knife selling shit and let me tell you something: It's irritating. The kid brings these knives everywhere he goes trying to con people into making appointments with him. And it's hard for people to say no. He brought the knives to my dad's 60th birthday party and to our cousin's 25th anniversary. I'm just waiting for him to show up at the next funeral demonstrating how the Cutco 975Z can slice through a mahogany casket.

It's just inappropriate and very tacky to show up to family events with potentially dangerous objects. I won't dispute the quality of the product - it's a fine product, but you can buy knives just as good or better in the same price range without giving some idiot high school senior the satisfaction (and commission). But who is to blame? Is it the kid, the parents or the company?

I think it's a combination of the three and I truly believe that Cutco brainwashes their employees. My non-cousin uses a lot of phrases that indicate that he may have been brainwashed, such as "are you willing to settle for mediocrity in your life?" The answer to that question is YES! I would rather settle for mediocrity than to buy these knives from you. Henckel makes an excellent product without the annoying marketing tactics. (I'm not sure if their scissors can produce a corkscrew out of a penny and I frankly don't care because I already have a small corkscrew that I keep in my glovebox.)

I also hate the way Cutco recruits employees (which I am sure are referred to as "associates" or "team members"). They put up extremely vague ads all over the internet, newspapers and on fliers on college campuses. The same ad will appear over and over in classified sections (in all different categories). All the ads sound pretty much the same:


Jumptstart your Career! $18/hour base pay. Perfect for college students! Make a fortune and have a blast doing it! Take charge of your life - call 212-555-4908.


It sounds like the perfect gig, right? So you call the number and you are immediately invited for an interview (or a demonstration workshop) as long as you are at least 17. (I called after my senior year of high school.) But wait, what does the job entail? They will tell you that it is a marketing position that involves sales of different types of products for different types of purposes. Wait a minute, is this the knife thing? No answer. "You will be marketing housewares and sporting goods to a wide variety of different people. It will be better explained in the interview."


So finally I blurt out, "IS THIS OR IS THIS NOT KNIFE SALES?"


"Well technically, we market products that may or may not include devices that are used to assist in cutting items..."

After a few more minutes they finally admitted that they were indeed Cutco and I hung up without saying my perfunctory goodbye.

So the moral of the story is: Don't work for Cutco (or Vector Marketing), don't buy Cutco products even if the lady you play Mahjong with has a grandson who is embarking on an exciting new career and don't associate with those who sell or use said knives, even if it means settling for mediocrity and not being able to make corkscrews out of pennies.