Translated this from LinkedIn Speak to English:
I guilt-tripped my dad into buying a $1,000 knife set from my high school pyramid scheme back in 2005.
He let them rot in a drawer for two decades because he obviously didn’t want them. Now I’ve inherited them in Florida, which is the only way I was ever going to get any value out of that scam.
I was 17 and predatory enough to close a pity sale on my own father for Vector Marketing. To everyone who correctly points out that Cutco is a joke: the knives actually haven’t fallen apart yet, which is more than I can say for my dignity at the time.
Your first shitty sales job was probably a humiliating waste of time, but if you wait twenty years, you can try to spin it into a deep life lesson for engagement.
I was a Rainbow Vacuum salesman until my sleazy manager said he would accompany me to ensure that I closed my first sale, to my grandmother. My internal filter suddenly flicked off and I found myself spewing, “You are the most disgusting human being I’ve ever met, and every part of you that isn’t scum makes you seem dangerously aggressive. I can’t let you meet my grandmother, she’d never be able to look me in the eye again. In fact, I don’t even know why I’m here. My grandmother would be so disappointed in me if she knew I were associated with you. Good luck scamming someone else, I quit.” And then I walked out.
Dude didn’t even seem phased by all this. He looked like people told him this shit every day.
Then the manager clapped
The life lesson I learned in two years of inside sales in my 20’s was that I would never ever do sales ever again.
A lot of crap products are at least decent enough to not have a half life.
So what is the lesson exactly? Start your career by scamming/guilt-tripping your parents out of money? Not really sure what else I should take away from this.
that is unironically Andrew Tate’s business advice to those who pay $500/month or whatever it is to subscribe to his private Signal or Telegram channel. Make your 14 year old cousin mow lawns for you and pocket the cash.
If you can scam your parents, you can scam anyone. That’s how you know you’re cut out for sales.
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Wow, 20 years of no use and still going strong!
20 years of no use but at least they look elegant (except that they look like shit)
The unergonomic handle design on every single knife seems like something I would actively avoid using if at all possible
The handles aren’t too bad, they’re not uncomfortable. They do feel how they look though. They’re all serrated. 100% serrated edges. I had a buddy that was all about them. Cheap knives, not horrible, but no straight edges lol.
Coincidentally, has anyone noticed how MLM and evangelicals go together?
Serrated knives are GREAT if you don’t know how to care for knives because they cut better longer.
I hate serrated knives because while I’m not great at caring for my knives, I’m good enough to keep them in decent shape. :)
Holy shit, I never noticed that but you are right. Idk though many are calvinists, idk if they are all evangelical, but they are pretty much the same really.
I just commented how I know a ultra religious wacko maga lady who adores these knives.
Its just amazing how the pieces fit so clearly and they dont see it. The religious are the easiest target for grift. Zero critical thought.
Let me get it straight. Guy is bragging that he has sold his father set of knives for $1k that his dad didnt want or needed. The set stood there unused for 20 years. And now he brags how good it is still? Weird flex but okay…
Any knife bought today can be good 20 years later if it was unused. Even cheapo shit for $1 will be sharp 20 years later if it was laying around unopened. This would be much more impressive if his father did eventually use this set and it would be still good 20 years later. Other than that, this is cringeposting
This fucker bragging about making a sale to his dad. I wonder if he even had to pull that silver spoon out of his mouth to close.
he could replace it with one of this knife!
Probably not. These babies’ll rust up on you quicker than— close the sale, Gil, close the sale!
My dad bought a set of these on a pity sale from a friend around the same time. Christ, they’re awful. They were dull as fuck, so I bought them a Lanski sharpener thinking it was the only way they’d get fixed. Even sharpened them for him.
The Lansky sat in a drawer for years and collected dust. He said, “they have a lifetime sharpening service for free.” Which he never used, of course.
Vector is a pyramid scheme. What kind of, uh, person, gets suckered into this “interview” like I did, and pays them to sell their overpriced bullshit?
I went to a vector sales seminar. After the first day the lead guy was so impressed with me i was one of 5 people he met with afterwards telling me to 10x a list of people i knew, he asked everyone else for 100 names. I knew the next day we would have to buy a $150 knife kit and likely be coerced into contacting that list to pester those people into buying knives so i slept in and skipped it. I woke up to an annoyed phone call from the chief lackey complaining that i should have attended.
I’m glad i skipped out.
Vector sent me a letter offering a $15/hr job. When I got there it turned out to be $15 per sales pitch, with driving time, lead generation time, training, and everything else unpaid. There were many other signs it was a scam. When I came back for the second day of training, I presented my evidence, but I wasn’t able to convince anyone else to leave.
least you tried, I did not show up for day two.
I almost did because I was 16 and wanted a job. The voicemail I left was so atrocious. “I’m Uhh calling about the Uhh…” looks at mass mailed letter trying to figure out the job “Uhh job.” The I hit # to redo the message but that didn’t work so it just had a button press noise on the recording. They never called back.
The one I went to some late 20 year old rich kid did a presentation in an empty office, just chairs and like a table, for maybe a dozen or so of us, showed the knife cutting a penny in half, like that’s an impressive thing, they are zinc now and only copper coated, and both metals are softer than steel.
I pointed out it was a federal crime to destroy money.
Privileged kids. I had a college roommate who did this and he was most definitely bankrolled by his parents. We’re talking the lazy fake draw, and calling everything he didn’t like “gay”. These are the people that will be running this country in a few years cause of nepotism.
The fake kind that doesn’t exist. It’s trivial to generate nonsense post likes this with genAI to the point where doing it with humans makes no financial sense.
At first, I thought this might have been a heartwarming post. But no, it’s sociopathic MLM nonsense.
It’s fucked up, Cutco knives are actually pretty good. I have a set myself, along with some other stuff on theirs, but the MLM sales scheme is just such dogshit. It’s a weird case where it’s a good product that I absolutely would not suggest to a friend.
It’s pretty hard to fuck up a knife
There are way to many bad knives for that to be true
The knives that have never been used are still going strong … hmm.
Exactly. I used to participate on BIFL on that other /r/ site. It had a difficult time of it, and I have no idea where it stands now, but it devolved into “lookit this older item I pulled out of my parents’ garage that maybe got used once a year for the last 40 years if ever and it’s still working great!!”
A well cared for knife set will last a lifetime even with normal use as long as it’s halfway decent to begin with.
i learned something fun: goodwill sells kitchen knives for a dollar a pop. they’re gonna be scuffed. if you get a reversible coarse/fine whetstone, you can practice sharpening your knife. if you do a good job of sharpening your knife, it will be sharp. if you fuck it up, it was a dollar.
hope this helps.
Here’s my cutco success story I walked the fuck out of their recruitment session when I realized it wasn’t a normal ass job interview
I’m embarrassed to admit I accepted the “job” (while continuing to work my retail one) when I was young. 🤦♂️ In the “interview”, I said I would work hard, creatively find leads, interact on social media, etc, but I wouldn’t hit up my friends/family for sales. They agreed, but guess what they later wanted me to do?
Anyway, I completed the training, got my sample kit, then did exactly one demo for a relative, and asked her for contact info from her extensive network of acquaintances, as we were trained to do. They laughed and told me no. Afterwards, I felt so ashamed of myself for trying to use family for leads that I didn’t even submit the demo for payment. But I still attended a couple more of the meetings at the Cutco office. Even then, my breaking point wasn’t until they made us gather on a Saturday for an “All-Day Call Day”, where I was again pressured to cold-call family members. After that was when I finally turned in my demo set, breathed a sigh of relief, and moved on. 1 demo, zero sales, $0 earned, countless wasted hours. But at least I can always look back and cringe at myself if I ever get too big of an ego!
Demo set? When they tried to hire me (2003 maybe?), you had to start by buying a set.
Ouch, that’s shady as hell! Maybe they got slapped down in court for doing that or something? Or maybe the laws in my state are different. The demo set was very bare-bones, but it was brand-new. It included the steak knife, trimmer knife, table knife, and shears:
Edit: corrected
If I’m being honest I only handled it the way I did because I fell for another cruddy marketing scenario when I was younger
Same. They’ll literally hire anyone because the whole thing is s pyramid scheme.
What a fucking loser.
You mean the actually aluminum knives rather than the stainless steel they claim to be?
I have a few cutco knives that were gifted to me, and there is absolutely no doubt that they are real stainless steel. They do go dull and need to be sharpened, but the same is true for any other knives I own, including reputable Japanese knives. They’re much better than typical cheap knives and pretty decent, but obviously much more expensive, and there are other brands that would be better at their price range. I wouldn’t own them if they hadn’t been a gift, but I wouldn’t say they are necessarily bad quality knives, just overpriced for what they are.
Do you have a source for them being aluminum? I tried searching and found literally nothing like that and no allegations that the knives are aluminum. It doesn’t really make any sense that they could be, because it would be too obvious and easy to prove that they are fake. People do complain that they are stamped instead of forged and not the best quality stainless steel, but they’re definitely stainless steel. Maybe this is a joke that went over my head…
The cutco handle shape is pretty divisive, but I do really like the shape now that I am used to it. I can understand why people think the handles are slick or not an ideal shape, because that was my first impression too. Now I have gotten very comfortable using it and the handle shape has become my preference.
The MLM scheme sucks though.
Damn, I must be the only one then lol. I think I saw it from either an Illuminaughty video or a Hugbees video. Eitherway, flase memory exists, and I have no evidence for them being aluminium.
I do really appreciate the charitableness of your argument though.
The knives get a lot of hate, but I think most of it is exaggerated and should really just be directed at the MLM aspect and over-marketing rather than the knife itself. They’re not the perfect knife or the best out there, like they’re marketed, but they aren’t crap either.
I inherited a set and I agree, they’re perfectly decent knives that hold a good edge, but the handle takes getting used to. I use their paring knives and bone knife but use my second hand Spanish steel Henkels for mostly everything else, because I can practice home sharpening and make them look as ugly as I want without guilt. The biggest difference I noticed is that the simple wood handles offer way more options for holding the knife in different ways comfortably. There’s clearly a “correct” intended hold with the Cutco. They also feel heavy, which can sometimes be limiting.
Even though I enjoy using mine I still wouldn’t recommend them, just based on how inexpensive a nice second hand set from other brands can be on the used market.
This is parody, I can’t believe it isn’t
