What I have done with my life: 2005-2010 (previously titled life-changing experiences of the last 2 years, but it outgrew that)
Submitted by darktremor on Mon, 11/19/2007 - 05:04
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- Got into graduate school, working towards a combined M.Sc Neuroscience on the topic of portable EEG devices.
- Went to a 4-day rave festival (Eclipse), which was the most fun 4 days of my entire life.
- Co-founded a small start-up with a successful venture capitalist, developing portable EEG devices that connect to the iPhone using Bluetooth (current job), for advance detection of seizures and strokes, the tracking of moods and sleep quality, and as a meditation quality ("vividness" or "clarity") indicator. (I still work for this company, and it's doing reasonably well).
- Started playing squash daily
- Spent a month and a half traveling. During this time, I visited New York, most of Northern India, a bit of Pakistan, Nepal, and Tibet. It changed the way I view the world, and has made me deeply appreciate the cushy life Canadians and Americans enjoy. The trip was also deeply fascinating, and a lot of fun :D
- Tried 2-CB and 2-CE. They're like putting on funny glasses that make the world look silly and amusing. It doesn't mess with your head at all. On 2-CE, I found myself and my best friend hanging out with 3 alcoholic street musicians who eventually took us to a strip club, where we had an in-depth conversation with a meth-addicted university student who takes off her clothes to support her habit. I decided I dislike strip clubs (this was also my first time in a strip club).
- Appeared in an S & M themed Burlesque show, in which two friend and I danced on stage to "It's Raining Men" while stripping from snowsuits down to S & M leather outfits, then finally down to nothing - in front of an audience of over 1000 - primarily gay men, lesbians, and the polyamorous - virtually all with the sadomasochism fetish.
- Began rock climbing every weekend.
- Moved out. I now live in a 3-bedroom apartment with my best friend and fiancee, along with another close friend, very near where I work and my city's downtown.
- Started seeing indie and classic bands live, including The Arcade Fire and Smokey Robinson.
- Got properly diagnosed and treated for the problems with my personality, reactions to things, and abnormal, erratic, and lasting emotions I've suffered my entire life. I am not attention-deficit, depressed, an insomniac, or suffering from anxiety. I have bipolar disorder. While this is a relatively serious diagnosis, it's also quite treatable for most compliant and dedicated patients (which I am). I've been placed on sertraline (Zoloft) and lamotrigine (Lamictal), and I finally feel like a normal person, albeit a little calmer at my baseline, yet more enthusiastic about things I love. This is likely just my actual personality. I have stayed this way for since my current (and hopefully permanent) medication regimen kicked in.
- Finally learned to get along with my family. This started around the time I began the bipolar regimen. By the time I left home, I had fought with no one in over 6 months. This was a major change for me, as I used to fight with someone in the house every day, sometimes more, pre-lamotrigine.
- Was sent by one of the research labs I worked at to a large fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging - aka real-time scanning of the brain to see what areas are currently active/working) conference.
- Designed several websites
- Did LSD several times, including for the first time. I also went on to take my brother on his first acid trip. It has been mind-expanding every time.
- Designed and performed a visual development study - on the differences in the rate of development of the parvocellular and magnocellular visual pathways, and what this means for childhood visual learning.
- Published a scientific paper. If you want to be very bored, you can read it here:
- http://www.tqmp.org/doc/vol4-2/p65-78_Chartier.pdf
- Went to many raves, including seeing Infected Mushroom, Mr. Scruff, Eric Prydz, Deadmau5, Miss Honey Dijon, Juno Reactor, Xeros & Illumination, Dmitri Nakov, Koxbox, D-Nox, Beckers, FM Radio Gods, and DJ Duca. This is the closest thing I have to a subculture - I love the atmosphere and people at these events.
- Worked in an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) lab
- Got completely drunk and high and woke up on a park bench with no recollection of the previous night
- Wrote many exams (and aced them, which is very surprising to a lot of people considering the rest of my life)
- Visited a large number of jazz lounges
- Did magic mushrooms and peyote for the first time. All were similar, though with substantial differences between one another that made each uniquely interesting. Was pulled out of a depression by my first magic mushroom trip. I have since taken magic mushrooms about 15 times.
- Worked on designing computer models of synaptic communication
- Got engaged
- Wrote a large number of short stories, mainly science-fiction, surrealistic, post-apocalyptic, comedic, and/or non-sword-and-sorcery fantasy.
- Began attending a weekly writing group.
- Tried to install a hammock on the top of a tree in a public park in the middle of the night after smoking salvia divinorum while stoned and drunk with a bunch of friends
- Ate at an ultra-pretentious fancy restaurant
- DJed 5 parties - including 3 at a nightclub in Mexico
- Worked on a business team
- Turned temporarily into the chief of a gnome village after doing magic mushrooms with my fiancee's brother in the middle of the night.
- Acted as a local celebrity's agent (I got some gigs for my magician friend)
- Went to a wedding and drank illicit liquor (moonshine) with the groom's dad
- Worked as a research assistant at a community research centre
- Slept on the street with my fiancee (in a bus shelter - we stuffed the cracks to keep warm, as it was a chilly night)
- Worked with schizophrenia sufferers
- Sold illegal drugs, including to one of my university professors (who is in his 60s, and both tenured and highly renowned) [he then fought to get it made a requirement for all psychology majors to take this drug, based entirely on a joke I made]
- Acted as a webmaster assistant for my university
- Was awarded several prestigious scholarships
- Went to 3 protests
- Drank opium tea [don't do this], and believed I was melting into a couch
- Took up kama sutra
- Did audio-visual technical work for 2 stage shows
- Shingled a roof
- Took my brother on a salvia divinorum trip
- Made a documentary on schizophrenia
- Traveled to Mexico for 2 weeks
- DJed a nightclub in Mexico, 3 times
- Saw the Mayan pyramids
- Visited several modern art museums
- Acted as assistant editor to a research newsletter
- Found a meaningful long-term relationship, and made it last (it still lasts - the same one that eventually resulted in engagement)
- Tried marijuana for the first few times - had some very funny experiences with it, and some interesting hallucinations. Replaced alcohol with it. It's safer
- Long story: Ran a business under a terrifying corporate cult, that eventually caused my complete nervous breakdown. It began when I saw a flier saying "earn 18,000 dollars over the summer with College Pro Painters." Intrigued, I decided to go check it out (thinking it was painting). It turned out to be running a business franchise, which intrigued me further. I went through the interview process (some of which had multiple people in it, oddly): it took 5 interview before I was given a contract to sign. Throughout these interviews, I was always told "Don't worry, the only way you can fail is if you're lazy, stupid, and unmotivated. Everyone who has ever failed has been this." They also showed me a sheet of paper on which they said was "the data from last year" - which showed 90% of the businesses on it as succsesful. I was hooked after this process, I trusted them. Little did I know, I had been brainwashed by their interviews (I didn't realize this until I looked back, but the same ideas were drilled into me again and again and all of them were such that I would feel like an absolute loser if I didn't take the job). I was taken through the contract: the "laymen's copy", that is, which apparently perfectly linked to the "legalese copy" (it turned out it didn't). I trusted them enough by now that I signed anyway, and they gave me an "area."
- The first weirdness was afoot two weeks later, when I got a call about the "first meeting in Toronto." I was then told that I'd have to pay them for the conference, and pay for my own hotel room, food, and busing. Still under their influence, I spent what little money I had and did it anyway (forgoing all social events to afford it - or working around spending money). Throughout the conference, some things struck me as strange. For example, we would have little chants, where they would shout things like: "Why would you fail?" And we'd shout back "If you're lazy stupid and unmotivated!" - several times. They had all kinds of people coming in telling us how much money they made, and how rich they are now, and how only an idiot wouldn't do this, and only an idiot could fail. Whenever someone was mentioned that didn't succeed for whatever reason, it was always followed with (by one of them): "because he was a friggin' moron?" before the actual instructor followed with a laugh, and then well, the actual point is...(insert business tip here). This is only naming a few of these "exercises," but by the end of the conference, I belived everything they told me, believed College Pro wasn't important, because no one else seemed to find any of it weird - so I assumed something was wrong with me (this is how cult work). There were other scary things that didn't bug me at the time, like breaking contact with anyone who doesn't understand what you're doing with College Pro or thinks it's a scam, and hanging out mostly with the College Pro people (they had a "performance culture" of continuous parties that we were expected to attend - all of which contained more propaganda, chants, jokes about people who don't "believe in College Pro," painting talk, and talks about how much money we make - there were dozens of them). There were 8 conferences (many multi-day)throughout the year, and countless more parties.
- I was told during the interviews that when I started working, I would probably work about 20 hours a week, until April when it would be about 30, then I could expect 60-70 hours during the summer. That seemed reasonable to me. However, when I started working, it turned out that between doing estimates all day Saturday and Sunday (20 hours), cold-calling around 15 hours per week - which was needed to fill the weekend, doing their paperwork (5 hours/week), our various meetings (2 hours/week), working on hiring painters (3 hours/week), and busing to my turf (3 hours) that it was almost 40 hours a week. This was unacceptable with my course load (which took up about 50 hours/week), and knowing it would get much worse, I e-mailed my boss and said that it wasn't for me. His reaction: "you can't. Read the contract. You're not allowed to leave." He then named three sections, far apart in the massive document. Upon deciphering the convoluted legalese, and grabbing the right definitions in each paragraph he pointed to (all intertwined with other clauses for maximum confusion), the sections boiled down to three things:
- 1)Fraud is a 10,000 dollar fine, plus royalties (that amounts to 20,000 dollars. That's reasonable, because fraud is normally several years of prison time).
- 2)Breaking the contract is fraud.
- 3)Leaving College Pro is breaking the contract.
- I was trapped. And the workload only got worse, culminating in 70 hours of work per week by April, plus 50 hours of school. Some weeks were even more because of their parties and conferences. The work itself was miserable and unrewarding - it was a cold winter, sometimes going as low as -45 (celsius), during which the company still expected me to go out (or I'd miss my quotas). One potential customer actually picked me up and threw me off his porch. People would constantly cancel, book appointments and not show, then yell at me when I called back, make me do ridiculous activities at estimates, make me come back 10-11 times before tearing the contract up in front of me (because they found someone cheaper, and I'm a pricker for overcharging so much (I could only charge what the company told me to, or I'd make no money)), call me sleazy, stupid, and asshole, etc. - after all, I was being obtrusive - that's what I was expected to do (I'm not thin-skinned, but when that's 70 hours a week, it quickly gets very hard). Plus, it turned out the previous franchisee in my area ripped everyone he dealt with off, and pulled little scams on them (especailly taking deposits and running off) - so people were doubly mad in my area, and way less likely to book or make estiamtes. I mentioned it to the company numerous times, even providing evidence of the fraud, and their answer was anyways: "you're doing it wrong. Your cold-calling needs to improve, and so does your estimating. You can't externalize all you problems. You have to remember: everything is your fault. If you don't accept responsibility and work harder instead of lazing about, you will fail." Dealing with the company was nearly as bad as the customers: if I didn't meet all of their ridiculous and arbitrary expectations, they would take money out of my account, which they had direct access to. Sometimes their requirements were contradictory, and I would be reprimended and fined if I didn't meet them (ie: 10-12 estimates per weekend! 2 hours per estimate! And all numbers in by 8 O'clock Sunday night! um... add that to 2 half hour lunch breaks and 160 minutes of driving to and from the area, and an hour of data, and that's almost impossible - if anything at all went wrong, I'd miss the deadline - and it frequently did. I was often fined). The turf they gave me was a 20-40 minute (depending on traffic) drive away, and it was 1.5-2.5 hours across (again, traffic), because the useable areas were so spread out - something which I didn't agree to.
- Throughout all this time, I was working out a deal with an old friend to buy her production vehicle and equipment (I assumed that I could trust her - although she sounded off on the phone, as if something was wrong with her. She did the company the year before, and she was a person that recommended it to me during the interviews. I'd known her for 5 years, but hadn't talked to her since she did it.). The deal was for 4000 dollars for everything I'd need: equipment and vehicle. However, one day before production started, she said she "couldn't get it safetied and e-tested" (each test is over 100 dollars, and was part of the deal) the mechanics wouldn't do it" - even though she told me on the phone that it had already gotten this check. So, her dad stepped in, and said: new deal: 3000 dollars for the equipment only (value new: $2000). If I didn't buy it for his price, he'd pull out completely. Being one day before I started painting houses, I had to agree. Upon sorting the stuff that night (which I trusted my friend to do), I discovered there were no complete kits, and much of the equiment was damaged or broken. Upon calling them back, I got no answers, ever again.
- So, I found a new vehicle at the last minute, with no time to do an extensive check (I had one day to do it, or I'd lose 1000s of dollars in lost jobs), and started the next day. 4 days later, the car broke down. On calling the seller back, no answer. I managed to get it fixed within 4 days (during which time 3 painters quit, because they were supposed to be working at that point), and started again. 2 days later, it broke down again. So, I got a ride to the man who sold me the car's house, and his neighbors said he'd gone to Europe for the summer - but they weren't sure...he might have moved there (in other words: he was a curbside dealer). The car was declared undrivable ever again by the mechanic 4 days later. However, 2 days in, I started using my parents car. One of my employees was belligerent and started stealing money from me (by lying on his budget sheets about how long was worked, and invented miscellaneous expenses), so I had to fire him (he felt entitled to this because he didn't get the work promised at the beginning). 2 weeks went by, and it was difficult, but manageable - although I had to work 130 hour weeks to keep up with the College Pro workload (which I had to meet or I'd get no money from them, I only get money past the "royalty break" or 75,000 dollars of revenue). This involved running 4 job sites at once (8AM-5PM 5 days a week), on top of cold-calling 20 hours per week, doing 10 hours of College Pro paperwork a week, 2 hours of talking to my boss, half an hour doing "time-sheets" in which I had to write everything I was doing at all times, even at home and on my spare time (breaking the sheet would = a fine) and doing 15 1.5 hour (now 1.5 hour - it always took me 2 hours because of the drive though, even with good planning - and only 10 were manageable) estimates on the weekend - on top of moving crew kits from site to site (10 hours per week including all the driving), managing payroll (one hour/week), managing business related things (2 hours per week), and meeting with customers for various reasons (10 hours per week). To stay awake all of this time, I started taking ADHD meds to keep myself awake - I began taking 2-3 per day, every day. My paranoia began here, delusions and hallucinations started creeping in (ie: I have to keep a pin stabbed the full way into my leg at all times when I drive, or I'll crash; the company is trying to steal my brain. Everyone everywhere hates me. That sort of thing. Although I managed to keep it all away when dealing with painters or customers)
- I came home one day, to find that insurance had pulled out on me, because they discovered an accident I'd had in March, which voided me for my parents vehicle. I was unable to work for 6 days while I found a new car, during which time 2 more painters quit. Upon returning to work with my meticulously chosen car, I went to one of the job sites, and found that the crew had dumped much of the paint on the side of the house, and destroyed the crew kit ($500). They were there, and they said they were quitting, and: "that if it were legal, we would slit your fucking throat, you fucking asshole. You promised us work 5 days a week, and that's 6 more days we've missed. So fuck you, and go to hell." And they stormed off, leaving me with a furious customer (who complained to the company, which fined me) and a massive mess to clean up. On top of the business, I had to hire 2 new painters, rearrange all of my work, and paint the entire damaged house myself (a 50 hour job).
- I brought the power washer over to another job site that day, where they needed it, and it set on fire. On close inspection (after putting it out), the power cord had been cut open, the wire switched, and then closed again. The furious crew has wired it to set on fire. I mentioned this during to one of their many calls to me for extra pay (or they'd sue), and they claimed it wasn't them, and to talk to the homeowner about that. The calls kept coming, day in day out, angry customers (mad that they'd been bumped up because of the smaller crew), company fines, customer complaints (because we were so late to start), and crews looking for solutions to problems (that only I carried to solutions to). I wasn't allowed to scale back operations to a manageable level, or the company wouldn't give me any money. Everyone in my life was angry at me for not spending enough time on them (from the customers, painters, to my old friends, parents, and friends. Only Lisa didn't get angry at me) But I managed. The weeks went up to about 140 hours of work now, but I survived. During every call, I was pushed to work harder (or I'd be lazy, stupid, and unmotivated) by the company, which I always tried to do.
- However, all of this was taxing: my delusions got worse and worse, I began suspecting that everyone was in a plot against me, and that Lisa was only there so I didn't full out lose it, and even she was part of it. I would have little mental breakdowns where I'd hurt myself badly, then sort of "wake up." I'd hallucinate; for example, at one point I saw myself on a rollercoaster that I couldn't stop, other times, I looked around the room and saw faces staring at me out of the walls, and glowing eyes everywhere. The nights doing paperwork were worse though, so I could still fake my way through the day - although mistakes appeared. For example, I accidentally didn't use a dropsheet in front of a customer - and several drips got on his driveway, and he screamed at me and demanded a refund of all of his money. I could only give him 50 dollars, so he slammed the door and said he'd tell everyone he knew never to use my idiotic company. In my self-loathing and paranoid delusion, I smashed my head with a wire brush until blood covered my face (luckily I didn't hit anywhere that anyone would see it - it was only my scalp that was bloodied). As long as I kept it clean it went unnoticed - and it did. I began having "petit-mal seizures" in which I'd go basicaly catatonic for a short period, then carry on again - scary for driving all of the time (I hit a pedestrian crossing sign in one of them, and dragged it 100 feet down the road before I noticed it. It's still in my garage today - a man across the street took down my license plate and threatened to call the city on me, but I never recieved the fine - thankfully). One day, in the middle of July, after being awake for 4 straight days, and having not eaten for 36 hours (no time), when going around a corner at 80 - in a 40 zone - a water bottle rolled under my pedal. I tried to break, but instead crashed into a tree full speed. The airbag didn't go off, but I was completely unhurt. My only worry was the company. I started calling customers, all while a mob gathered around and started screaming at me to "reattach my head" and "use more than 2 brain cells once and a while" (because I was walking around like nothing happened - a habit I'd picked up over the year). One even threw a rock at me, before the ambulance arrived. A cop showed up, and upon hearing my disconcern for my health, proceeded to scream at me about reckless driving, and slap me with the maximum fine. I spent the day in hospital (during which I was found physically unhurt, but was tested extensively regardless).
- I came up with a plan on getting out - I would sell my jobs to another franchisee. I worked out a deal for 15% revenue with one (which is supposedly half of profit, but in reality, it IS the profit - she didn't seem to realize this (as neither did I until I had time to do budget after the summer)), and in her desperation of being out of jobs, she agreed. Still, I had to call the company to transfer the jobs, because all of the information was stored on the company website. On calling them, I was told that I couldn't do that, that the process for getting in an accident was to have the jobs taken from you and given away to another franchise, after which I would have to pay full royalties on them, and get a 10,000 dollar fine.
- This put me over the edge. I had now not slept in 6 days, and I went right into a nervous breakdown/psychotic episode. I got lost in my own dark nightmare, and had to be put in a mental institution for 2 weeks to get out of it. It was a paranoid, self-destructive psychosis: I believed that everyone in the entire world was out to get me, that my whole life had been perfectly pre-ordained to maximize my misery. Everyone was involved in this grand Shakespearean drama involving the perfect destrction of my psyche, simply because I was the most pathetic, boring, useless person ever to live, and so I deserved this treatment. It got me in on my self-destruction: my girlfriend and mom forcibly dragged me to the hospital when I stabbed 15 pins the whole way into my leg, whacked my head with a wire brush (the same one I'd used before), threw myself against a wall, smashed several beloved possessions, puched myself in the face until I bled (and the legs), and ripped my skin off with my fingernails, everywhere that I could, in the final stage of the psychosis. All of them had before sort of ritualistic self-tortures, each one originally done for some illogical appeasement of some strange force in my surreal little world, but now just a barrage of self-destruction. Upon entering the hospital, I rejoined reality within 2 days, and was fully recovered in two weeks.
- However, just before discharge from the hospital, I had had another episode, when a nurse tried to kick Lisa out. We were just talking in my little alcove, with the blinds shut, sitting on my bed (she'd brought me some really nice presents - including the new Harry Potter book, the day it came out, and lots of food :D :D). At that point, an orderly stuck his head in, saying "you guys are in big trouble now" in his stereotypically accented (though forever spite-filled) Jamaican speech. We assumed he must have been joking, and we missed the joke, until he returned a few minutes later with 2 other nurses and 2 security gurads. Apparently sitting on my bed is against hospital rules: on hearing this, I agreed that we could sit somewhere else. They replied that it was too late for that, and that Lisa would now be escorted out. We both debated it, citing calm, logical arguments against it, and the nurse ordered the guards to seize and drag her out, which they did, and came up to me with restrainers and a hypodermic needle. At that point, I actually lost it, and thought I was back in College Pro, and that they were in on the plot, and went back into my despairing spiral, not even aware of reality (smashing my head against the wall over and over), until my mom showed up, and forced the curses to stop trying to restrain me (which she could do, being my legal guardian still). I was instead forced to take 2 pills of Haldol (I found out afterwards that I'd been given 20 grams). My psychiatrist (who was great) found out what had happened and thought it was ridiculous, and so arranged for my discharge the next day.
- I found out that College Pro legally couldn't touch me after having been hospitalized (you can't legally fine someone for being in the hospital, which is what it would have boiled down to if it had gone to court, as the car accident somewhat precipitated the hospitalization), and Lisa and my mom had tied up all the loose ends while I was inside. I lost over 4000 dollars: they drained my account of all money left when they found out what happened - to pay at least some of what I "owed." I closed my account the first day out.
- 2 days later, I started smiling for no reason. It kept going for several hours, getting more and more intense, and I thought I was just REALLY happy to be done with College Pro. However, at the 4 hour mark, it started getting painful. I called the hospital right away, and they said to come into ER with utmost urgency. I couldn't drive legally anymore, so Lisa drove me over. During the (half hour) ride, it became excruciating. My jaw started pulling to one side, pulling back and forth, until it literally dislocated, only to shove back into the socket, and dislocate again. I could feel my ear canal being distorted, and my eustacian tube being crushed by the muscles tightning. My teeth bit my cheeks and wouldn't let go. My jaw came in and out at least five times, and I could feel pulling and ripping of ligaments and muscles all over my face (I was screaming by this point). By the time we reached the hospital, I was thrashing about from all the pain - I felt like my jaw was going to break, and could feel massive strain on it. I knew the ligaments had torn in many places, and could feel the ripping of those left. 10 minutes later they gave me a shot (Cogentin) (I was screaming out - in all earnesty - to be killed if they couldn't stop it - it felt like having every bone in my face crushed at once), and it went down in 10 more.
- At that point, I was out, it was all over. There was virtually nothing left to deal with. However, none of my friends would talk to me. No one returned my calls, no one called me, no one came over anymore. 3 months later it was officially over between all of us, when one of them called me up after having promised to come over - 4 hours later, and told me that he'd found something better to do, and didn't feel like coming over. I asked him...you know, you could've just invited me over too, and he responded with "I just wanted my group of real friends to come." Me: "So the last 6 years meant absolutely nothing, none of you even like me anymore?" Him: "Look, I'm too high to talk about your self-esteem." I hung up on him. Most of my (old) friends felt I'd abandoned them, having not seen them for 10 months (even though they knew the reasons). So, it was over, I never saw about 14 of my friends ever again.
- I late discovered that the incident was the trigger for my first long-lasting mixed-manic episode, and that was what I went through during my College Pro experience. I also stopped caring about the whole thing after being given MDMA psychotherapy by a close friend, and it later faded to almost nothing after being placed on a proper medication regimen for bipolar disorder.
- Getting my first job that I actually liked: work at a psychology lab helping with research (along with school), in which I was paid very well. I was also very respected and really genuinely liked by my co-workers. 3 years later, I'm actually friends with the only two of them that are close to my age now. In general, they were all really great, warm, friendly, and fun people. The policies were fantastic: work 10 hours a week, come in whenever you feel like it, leave whenever, take as many breaks as you want, just be productive during your actual time working. It brings a lovely atmosphere. This has taught me that it wasn't me, no matter what College Pro wanted me to think, that I really wasn't stupid, lazy, and unmotivated (which I truly believed until that job began - their brainwashing was very effective).
- Making dozens of new friends in only 3 months. After losing all of my old close friends to College Pro, I reconnected with other old friends (who were, now that I think of it, much better people), and began hanging around with dozens of people from university. For the first time ever, I actually had too many social events to go to. For the first time ever, I didn't feel like I wasn't really wanted, because of this.
- Wrote my honours thesis
- Got a degree in psychology
- Tried psilocybin mushrooms (magic mushrooms). This story is too long to write right now, because I'm tired. I'll write it here later. It's really strange, and reading back on it, pretty interesting. But don't see it as a bad thing: it wasn't. I researched the drug heavily in advance; I was very interested in mushrooms after learning about them in my psychopharmacology course. There are literally no side-effects (except a possible bad trip), no negative long-term consequences, and no addictive properties (it's actually been shown to alleviate depression symptoms). It's safer than coffee: it's just intense.
- Dealing with drug addiction: not to anything I've experimented with myself, but to the drug my psychiatrist at the time got me to take. SSRIs are very addictive (regardless of doctors will tell you), and I'm severely addicted to them. During this period, if I didn't take them I'd throw up, have paranoid delusions, talk to objects, the room would spin in 4 different directions at once, I wouldn't be able to walk, I'd be furious at everyone and everything, I'd randomly feel electric shocks throughout my body, my head would pound, and all of my muscles would repeatedly tense up. I ditched them eventually, but later discovered it wasn't the drug - it was my very poor psychiatrist. Rather than tapering me off, she simply told me to stop taking them, that SSRIs don't cause a withdrawal. They do. My current psychiatrist has told me that if I ever need to stop them again that she would reduce my dose by 1 mg every 2 days, until after around 3 months I had gone from 50mg to nothing - that this was a proper taper from sertraline (Zoloft).
Wow.(about the college pro painters thing) That's really quite something, so are they like one of these pyramid scheme companies? And they sound like absolute assholes, I'm glad you got out of it in the end!
Haha, you regarding the second to last post you might find this film trailer quite funny...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHhwiT6eedc
Yes, very insane. Being out is nice though :D Plus I can say I survived a cult.
HAHAHAHAHA, that trailer got it completely wrong. That's almost as funny as reefer madness.
I can only say I am much too happy for you it's all over. I hope everything falls back in order soon, if not already. The college pro experience sounds like the new hell ;)
Thanks! Everything is already back in place. I have straight-As again, a great new job as a research assistant, I got a thesis professor a year early, I have dozens of new friends, I'm still stable with my girlfriend, and now I'm starting to taper off my psychiatric meds. I'm pretty quick at rebuilding :D :D :D :D
It IS the new Hell. Don't let anyone do it ever.
The College Pro experience sounded horrible, I'm glad you got out of it and are doing something you like now :]
Thank you! :D
I found your article interesting. I was heavily involved in CPP 20+ years ago when I was an undergrad at the U of Calgary. Back then we barely heard from the head office (which I think was in Toronto at the time) and pretty much did whatever we wanted. Royalties were on an honour system and we paid $1.00 per man hour I think which seemed fair. I finished my summer with $11K cash in the bank and no debt (this was in early 80's) and it seemed unreal to me at the time.
I have heard over the past few years that the company has descended into a Cult like organization, using many of the techniques you describe (multiple meetings, heavy use of the "you are a failure unless...", encouraging a break from your existing friend and support network). Kind of sad really since the company started as a means for student entrepreneurs to
learn business skills and run their own business.
I guess increasing overheads combined with pretty ruthless company leadership has turned the organization into a kind of "Herbalife meets Don Lapre" scam (remember him? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mubCkCAEiDQ ) and has forced the techniques you describe to maximize profitability. By the way, CPP is part of a TSE listed public corp called "first service limited" which has a mountain of debt on its balance sheet to service.
I can't say I'd recommend the program to anyone these days,...you're better off starting your own company.
It's good to hear someone who's experienced both in business and the company to agree about that - it lends more legitimacy to my story, and further drives out the last indoctrinated vestige of belief that in fact I was a failure. Thank you, I mean it.
It's interesting, the College Pro company you describe from 20 years ago is similar to what I was told the job would be like at the first "interviews." Of course, the legal details of the contract contradicted that...
That's very interesting but...if they were really making you work 140-hour weeks, surely you could have contacted a lawyer? I realize what they were threatening to do but if they're making you work more than half the hours in a week I doubt any court would hold that up.
Anyways...what happened with your jaw? What caused it? I have never heard anything like it...
The issue was that I wasn't being told or forced to work 140 hour weeks - it was that I was given a set of requirements that had to be completed or the company would (they threatened) bring severe legal and monetary consequences (they had direct access to my bank account, for example, as per the contract). Not every franchisee had my experience - the territory I was given was particularly bad - it was 2 hours across and sparsely populated (most were about 20 minutes and quite dense), 30 minutes from my house, and the previous franchisee had committed a great deal of fraud in the area (which effectively doubled my marketing time - fraud meaning things running off with customers' 10% deposits and never delivering the product) - although very few of them made any money. I'm not sure if they were legally allowed to bring such threats as they did (although they were all cleverly worded into the contract - still, a few people I showed it to with legal experience agreed that I would probably win if I brought it to court), but I was so burned out by the end of the summer that the last thing I wanted to deal with was a lengthy legal battle with a company that had been doing this for over 30 years.
As for the jaw, it was an "extrapyramidal side effect" of haloperidol, and the extreme reaction was an adverse reaction to such a high dose. Those sorts of symptoms are quite common with 1st generation antipsychotics, and apparently far worse occurs for patients who have been on them for a long time.
Still, I would think that any court would see that you shouldn't be punished for not doing a job that's forcing you to stab pins through your leg. That's pretty intense. Good to hear you're out of it...
haha wow if your a total lazy bitch then yes college pro is Not for you. i have had many good experiances with CPP and am in my 3rd year as franchise manager with about 50k in the bank. work hard and be motivated and its a great company. if you dont want to work hard and better at book work then stick to that...i dont get on here and bitch about doing math because its tooooooo hard.
Yeah...College Pro is a great company if you're lucky enough to get a decent area, which is a significant minority. I knew far more managers who failed than were successful - and I knew every manager in my city, as does every franchise manager. The vast majority were still touted by the company as "profitable" (since you can view everyone's revenue's on CPOWER), including me. In my entire city (of around 30 managers), 4 made money, and all were in incredibly rich neighborhoods. So maybe you were lucky enough to get a good area, but whatever - you still got screwed. You would've made mounds more doing the exact same work if you hadn't been with the College Pro. Even if you lay that "but it let me learn business" argument on me, tell me, why the hell are you still with them after 3 years? Why didn't you leave after the first year after you knew how to do everything? And don't tell me it's because you're honest, because I know franchise managers enough to know that you're not.
Where do I attack it for being toooooo hard? My criticism is that it is essentially a scam, inches away from being a multi-level marketing company. It's not like I have anything against business - I've run a couple of successful small businesses since, and I'd run another before. My attack is on their exorbitant royalties, deceptive contracts, cult-like business training, and nasty little fines for piddling non-offenses - which is borderline illegal (IE: "Your estimate ran long so you had to call us 5 minutes late? Too bad, $80 fine.").
Either way, it pisses me off that you'd read my description and get "lazy" out of it. Honestly, if you want to try to insult my actions that summer, why not something like "disorganized" or "stupid"? OK, maybe it was stupid to trust my "friend" without checking into it, and maybe it was idiotic to take an area without doing more research, those would be reasonable things to level at me. But lazy? Did you even fucking read it? Like what, I should have worked 7 straight days wired on stimulants without sleeping or taking any breaks rather than 6? Fuck you.
I've heard this exact rhetoric dozens of times from the company anyway.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I was researching College Pro online when your post came up, and I'm so glad it did. Like you, I was interested as an inexperienced college student, though I'd had no experience running a business of any kind. I had an informational meeting set up today, and I called to cancel after reading your story. I cited the contract and the hours you worked, though I didn't get into the rest of the details. The woman on the phone very aggressively tried to convince me that you were wrong, which I thought was weird that she'd get so defensive over a meeting that wasn't even an interview or anything important. If the company could sell itself, it would, right?
I'm happy for you, congratulations on your thesis and your engagement! I'm glad you made it through this terrible experience and are better in spite of it.
As for "kilaboy86" - really, you're just proving the point made in this post by saying what you did in your comment. Thank you for solidifying my resolve to not work for this company. I don't want to end up like you.
I'm glad I could help you out :D
hey darktremor,
hopefully you're still around on this site, can you offer any advise on getting out of the contract? this is such a scam.
thanks
There's nothing you can really do, sadly. Mine was forcibly terminated when I was hospitalized. Perhaps try talking to your area's general manager, and see if there's anything you can work out. It's probably going to be very expensive, but I'm not sure how much they can enforce their fines. If you have a lawyer in the family, talking to them and showing them the contract might help. It would be really expensive to see a lawyer otherwise, to the point that it wouldn't be worth the money you would save in getting out of the contract without paying the fines.
Sorry to be on the other side. I did College Pro 3 years in a row. I made $20,000 each summer. It was hard work sure but it's pretty simple. You hire some young hardworking students, hire an experiences painter to train them then go out and find jobs. I had crews who spent the whole summer on the same street because they did such a good job. This is a summary of my summer...got up at 6am, did my paperwork, had my 5 crews phone in before 7 with their orders. I called those into my paint store and picked them up at 8. I spent from 9-12 visiting my crew sites and inspecting my jobs. had a nice lunch with a different crew each day. in the afternoon I either moved a crew, did some cold calling where we were painting, or went home and took a nap. At 3pm, I went to the driving range, later I had dinner with my girlfriend. At 6:30pm I did estimates and picked up checks. There were days when things went to hell, I have some stories that would curl your hair. but generally, everything was awesome, both of my brothers did College Pro and at the end of my first summer I paid my tuition, my rent and bought myself a little used BMer. While I was there, 3 of 30 or so managers failed. Not everyone can run a business. Don't blame the world on your problems.
It depends on your area and your manager. If you get a large, poor area far from your house with a previously fraudulent manager (as I got, and as is fairly common), you're fucked. However, if you get a small, rich area near your home in which the residents have had previous positive experiences with College Pro, you're in good shape. Every successful manager I met fit the latter category. I've talked to a lot of people who have failed, and some who succeeded. Note that the former category was more common, although it wouldn't appear so due to how the CPower application works - IE I'm currently officially listed as a success story, as are a number of others I spoke to that lost money. Where you are in North America seems to really matter: I've met people from cities where almost everyone did fairly well, and people from cities where no one succeeded. Circumstance, the economy, the weather (it rained, on average, every other day in my area), and the whims and practices of your area's management play a large role in your success and failure. I should also note that you're considerably earning less than you would if you simply ran your own painting company, thanks to the absurd royalty rates.
To be honest, I couldn't care less about the whole thing anymore. I've left it a little wiser, both with business, and with avoiding poor contracts. It's just an absurd experience from my past that has faded to the point of personal irrelevance.
I've run 1 successful business since, and am currently involved in a tech start-up that is already going fairly well. I thought that might be worth mentioning, since you're suggest my lack of business skills was entirely responsible for my loss of money. Admittedly, it played a role - it was my first business - but given better circumstances, I would have succeeded (I think $80,000 in revenues speaks for itself).
That said, I'm glad you had a better experience with the company.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with CP, one of the most amazing things I've read. I just want to congratulate you for surviving and kudos for ditching the drugs.
Thanks, I'm glad you liked reading about it.
As for ditching the drugs - in the end I didn't - I just found a regimen that worked for what turned out to be a real illness (not depression, but bipolar disorder). I know bipolar disorder is the diagnosis du jour, but I really did have serious problems in my life, and had since I was a little kid. IE: I was hated by all, including the teachers, and beaten up every day from the age of 8 to 14. I had 4 suicide attempts, arguably more, I would sometimes think I had superpowers, or was the smartest person alive, and I would frequently stay awake for days at a time for no reason, working obsessively on some strange (though often useful) project (a lot of the lists I posted here are examples of this). Sometimes I was miserable for months at a time, but this would be followed by several months in which I thought life was perfect, and was continuously happy, if erratic, severely hyperactive, and prone to rage. It would eventually switch into several days spent in a semi-suicidal episode when it switched to depression, but the energy of mania remained.
The meds don't cause me real problems. They just allow me to live, not a normal life (I wouldn't want that), but a reasonable one in which I get to do the things I want to without being burdened by and afraid of my intense and erratic moods, which were seemingly disconnected from reality. My attitude has changed to such that I wouldn't suggest that anyone ditch psychiatric drugs if they're helped, and not significantly burdened by them. Although I would suggest going on and off them wisely.
Just logged in after ages, and just want to say, it felt good to read this (the most recent bits). Hope you're good. Which all places did you visit in India? Congratulations on getting engaged!
Thanks for the congratulations :D
I'm glad you enjoyed reading this. :-)
As for India, I visited New Delhi, Rishikesh, Menali, Amritsar, Srinigar, Jammu, Dharmsala, Agra, McLeod Ganj, and Haridwar. I visited a border town in Pakistan, Khatmandu in Nepal, and several unnamed villages in Tibet, mid-Himalayas (around the Langtang Pass). Great trip, I'd recommend it to anyone.
Dude, sorry to hear about the hard times, but let's be realistic, you would have failed at whatever you took on at that point in your life. When yiu need to be admitted to a hospital for mental problems, that's you, that's not cpp. In reality you had a great area, I won't say which one for confidentiality, but it's done well in sales always. You booked 80k, did decent estimates, and I guess you didn't even fail, you just didn't get thru your summer.
You had big time problems with organization and leadership, as well as some extreme narcissitic tendancies, and that's cool, you're human, but you're not cut out to run a business as you've seen. I personally watched you first hand that year, and I can say with no hesitation that you're the last person who shouldnhave been given a franchise. I don't mean that as an insult, but this job is not for you.
Whoever hired you made a mistake, but it's understandable. You're a presentable charming guy, and well spoken. I'm just trying to say that it wasn't your fault, you shouldnhave never been hired in the first place, as being a boss is obviously not for you.
Since, as you've written extensivley about it, you were mentally incapicitated at the time, I'd like to set the reocrd straight on a few things:
-5 interviews? Yeah, you bet dude. Cpp recruits the best possible people from 1000s of applicants and they chose the best ppp they can find. As you lost money, SO did cpp... They survive on their managers sucess, not on failure.
- everybody who fails is stupid lazy and unmotivated... But you didn't fail dude. If you lost money it's not from cpp, it's from not training painters, screwing up on paint, doing poor estimates. I'd say it sounds like your leadership of your painters held you back a lot.
-you get taken thru the contract at least 3 times line by line, in plain English. Ans for the record, I have personally broken that contract, and there are consequences, but nothing as dramatic as a fraud charge, or 20k in fines.
- training sessions. Yeah, there's a bunch. Of course there are, that's cpps job to train you how to run a business for Peres sakes. And I can personally say 100% there has never been a chant or anything like that. I would have punched the presenter in the face an walked out.
-on your allotted tile for things, I've ran a 275k business and I have never worked 130hrs in a week, 7 20 hr days? No way. I've worked around 80 and crawled into bed at night, but I never missed a meal, a movie or anything else I wanted to do.
- the way you describe interacting with your general manager is very skewed. I've personally worked with him for years, and I've never heard him talk the way you say he has, and in my very first year, I didn't do as well as you.
-fines, I've never been fined for anything, ever. And I've done a lot worse than you.
-130-140 hr weeks. Looking back in some summers, it feels like I never stopped working, but I personally remember calling you on a Thursday night to see if you needed help the following day and your mom told me you went to your cottage with your gf.
-taking pills during the summer is probably one reason you were so all over the place. I think that could happen taking hard stimulants.
- the way you talk about your painters is just wrong man. I don't know how you personally saw them, but my take is that the manager is in place to male sure their painters make money. Not the other way around. Your complete lack of empathy for putting your guys out of work for 6 days is just painful to hear. The way your guys went about it is very poor, but still dude, you cost them 500bucks.
-I've never seen a power washer set on fire and I've had 10+... the way you immediately felt that your painters were out to get you is disturbing and I'd say that's your paranoia coming thru.
All in all, I was personally disapointed by your take on the company. It's very entitled and completely lacking of any empathy for your customers, painters, or the company you were chosen to represent.
In closing, I'm not personally employed by college pro painters. I've never been a member of the full time team. I've been a manager, qjobber, production manager a painter and just about everything else. I've run a poor business (50k) and a great business (275k). I've worked my brains out, and faced tons of stress for sure, but I like that. I've never missed a party I wanted to go to, a meal, a family event or anything that was important to me. I've had enough time to train lifting weghts during the summer and I'm a multiple time Canadian power lifting champion. I've made 45k in a summer and during my worst summers I still made 5-10k, and that was back when I didn't put in much effort. I've had great relationships with my coaches, and poor relationships, where I blamed my coach and others for my faults and was to insecure to hear what I needed to improve on.
I started with cpp at 20 and grew into adulthood working for and with them... I was never very smart in school, and never knew what I wanted to do with my life. Now, Ive been offered ridiculous jobs, extremely high paying with cool perks, or I could easily start my own business and start making 100k a year within the year, as it's not that hard to figure out anymore. I stay with cpp, as I'm only just glimpsing what's possible.
I've put ppl thru univeristy, and kept food on others tables, I've let painters down and tried my best with them and still failed. Now I let them go early so they can find more suitable
jobs and feel great about it, as I know they'll be happier. I've never stiffed a painter on money or a budegt. EVER. I've never walked away from a job until the customer was totally happy, and at times I had to really bendover.
If you wanna work a cash, or sell jeans, work in a lab, play it safe and rack up a huge debt from school, get a safe steady job, rack up even more debt and get a nice car and a house, then find a partner have some kids, get fat and watch 4 hours of tv a night, cool. And if that's what you want go get it and don't let anyone tell you that you're wrong. ME? That's not what I want. I don't want to play it safe, I don't like dependng on someone else to pit money in my pocket, I like being in control of my life, I like making my own schedule, I like being my own boss, and having my employees look to me to lead them to what they want and need. I'm going to take chances, and I'm going to fall on my face and I'm going to skin my knees, but it's hard to stop a guy like me cause I just keep coming. I wanna look back on my life and say that only a select few lived the way I did, I lived life my free of compromise and did something BIG.
Play it safe if you want, but college pro isn't safe, it's not for everybody, it's the ultimate challenge and a rush, it's what lifes all about if we've got the balls to live it.
In closing, glad to hear you sound happy these days. Good luck with the future.
Lol, douche.
Whatever. It's been more than 3 years, and I posted this 3 years ago.
You certainly have no understanding of what neuroscience, and science in general is like. Working in a lab 9-5? Really? Try travelling the world to go to fascinating conferences with interesting people, working long hours on things no one else has ever done or even considered doing before, doing research collaborations with some of the smartest people currently alive, running businesses based on scientific discoveries, developing inventions, giving talks on things you're completely passionate about to huge crowds, pushing the boundaries of humanity's knowledge, and generally making the world a better place. To me, that sounds infinitely more fascinating than painting houses. I bet you can list at least 10 famous scientists. How many famous painters can you name? As if I'm not living my life free of compromise or doing something big. I'm currently co-running a company that is developing a portable EEG device for the purpose of medical diagnostics, working with 23 engineers in Ottawa, and 82 in China. Is that not big? Bigger than running a small painting company IMO. I am in control of my life. I for the most part do make my own schedule, and I certainly make my own schedule far more than I did in College Pro.
Also, I'm not in any debt. In fact, I have savings. My school is entirely paid for by scholarships and research grants, and in fact, I turn a profit on them. My life is anything but safe and risk-free. On top of my business, research, and graduate school, I adventure travel, play multiple extreme sports, collaboratively write short fiction, go to raves, play guitar, DJ, and tutor. I don't even watch TV. So honestly, screw off, you know nothing about me or my life. All you've got is a small amount of contact with me, 3 years ago, during the most non-functional period of my life (medically termed a "mixed manic episode"). I'm glad you're happy with your lifestyle, but I think it's unreasonable for you to attack mine and make such insulting assumptions about it. It's not as if I attacked the way you live: I simply stated my own experience, the way I saw it.
As for chanting, it's not as if the speaker said "time to chant everyone!" - it was the speaker asking the room questions, and everyone answering in unison, as some way of drilling their points home. That's definitely chanting, I don't see any other way you can describe that.
Also, I never stiffed anyone out of money. Those painters on that particular house were way, way, way overpaid. They were well over double on their hours. 2 other painters I put on that job repeatedly reported that they were not working on the job. I inevitably fired them.
As for the cut cord, how is that paranoia? The cord was cut and shorted out. Simple as that. Plain as day. It's not like I hallucinated a cut cord. "Never had a power washer explode" - yeah, because your power washer cord was never cut.
And sure, it was fault on my part to 1) Hire those people, 2) Not fire them earlier, and 3) Not manage them properly, but it's not as if everyone was terrible. Out of everyone I hired (about 14), 4 I knew to fire right away, and 6 were fantastic. That's 4 slips, which is not bad for a first company. I'm in fact still friends with 4 of my ex-painters to this day.
BTW, I generated more revenue in that area than was made there for several years previous - as you know, and can easily go check on CPOWER.
As for working 130 hours per week, I probably shouldn't count time in which I would pull over and pass out for a few hours. I did. That's a bit unfair. I did take some breaks on certain weekend days. At the very end, however, I had been awake for several straight days.
And I had a 94% customer satisfaction rate. That's pretty good, I'd say.
I'm exceedingly offended that you think I was "the last person who should have been given a franchise." There were a large number of other franchisees that did considerably worse than I did. Shouldn't whoever was at the bottom be considered "the last person who should have been given a franchise?"
As for failing anything I did at that point, I managed to maintain straight As during that period, get a scholarship, maintain a long-term relationship, and get a lucrative laboratory job shortly after exiting the company. You seriously have no idea what you're talking about.
My memory of that period is so blurry, and my personality so utterly different from what it was then (meds and therapies, and wild life experiences), that it's not possible for me to talk about it accurately, so I can't respond to everything you've said. I don't even really remember much of what I wrote above. I would have to re-read it to respond to you properly, and I don't feel like dredging that period back up again. I've moved on.
Also, I have no idea who you are, or when I had contact with you, or how it's even possible that you were observing me that whole summer.
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Again, super late, and not sure if you'll read this -- great, I live in western parts of india, and if you ever make a repeat trip, would be awesome to bump into you. Also, are you on any other social media forum ? Not facebook. Twitter?