I was brain-storming with Rami few hours back. He is participating in a competition called Mindbenders in which he has to come up with a new product in the hair-care, skin-care or body-care segment. Since I have worked as a sales consultant at Oriflame Cosmetics for a year and am well aware about the products in these segments, he wanted me to help him generate options. It was a lot of fun actually and brought back memories of my Oriflame days. My mom's sis was a consultant for Oriflame and was looking for a consultant in A'bad and well, who better than me? Joining it costs very little... training is provided... and staying in a girls' hostel was the biggest advantage. I liked the work... the products are good.. damn good... they are priced higher than the rest of the brands, but they are worth every buck. I would browse through the catalog for hours and familiarise myself with each product. Apart from earning 20% commission on every product I sold, I received free gifts if I met the monthly targets. In my 3rd month, I gifted my Mom's bro a cologne worth 1000 bucks (which I got free)... It was a proud moment. Slowly and steadily, more consultants joined under me. I earned enough to pay my celphone bills. I had bought the phone from the money I earned after working at a call centre for a month. I had to pay for the orders with cash and I received the money from the customers after I had delivered the products. My biggest support in this was Bug who always loaned me money to place the orders... and he did not expect anything in return... instead, his mom and sis would also place large orders. The day I brought the products, everyone in the hostel would crowd around me and check out each item one-by-one. Everyone would gasp with delight while all the items were scrutinised and criticised. I would then deliver to the respective owners. The best part was trying to sell these products. Anyone in the vicinity was a prospective customer... be it male, female or even a kid. I spared nobody... This reminds me of another event. The environmental engg dept was celebrating World Ozone Day. We had organized quiz, poster-making and paper presentation competition in college. I was responsible for registering students. The tickets were free and I did not understand why people were not insterested... I mean; nobody was going to attend classes anyway... why not participate in the quiz? I approached everybody in college for participation... I used every tactic I knew... sweet talk, flirting, bribing, threatening... and guess what??? It worked... we had the largest turnout ever. I had even stalked some people... they would run away at the sight of me. For the poster-making, I had begged Bug to participate. Poor guy could not say "no"; even though he has nil artistic temperament. The theme was related to Environment. He had drawn stick people (people who are sticks). It is the funniest poster... ever. My Mam found it very funny and was very impressed with him. She was trying hard to flirt with him and get his attention. It took all my will-power not to scratch her eyes out. Yeah, I miss Oriflame... I think I might join it again.