Lollipop Moments

Two former employees of LuLaRoe's home office reached out to me yesterday to deliver a very strong message- We are not trying to frustrate you. We are not trying to give you the run around. We are all just as unhappy as you are. I spoke to both of them at great length this morning and afternoon, and what was shared with me is both upsetting and heartbreaking. The first former employee I interviewed was a gentleman by the name of Phillip Navarro. Philip, age 42, describes himself as someone who used to not be such a good person. He made mistakes in life. Having lost his license over 10 years ago for a DUI, to cheating on, and subsequently losing a relationship of 14 years because of who and how he was- he felt he needed to change. Initially, when Phil was hired by LuLaRoe over a year and a half ago, he adopted the "culture". He felt that this was his opportunity to "bless lives" and "help people". He learned that he really did care about people and enjoyed making their experiences with LuLaRoe better. In turn, he felt that helping them helped him become a better person- so he adopted the culture even further. I would later interview a second person, one who wished to stay anonymous who verified that Phil was moved by Deanne from a motivational speaking perspective. Often sharing videos of her in a leadership speaking role, Phil was "in love" with what she stood for- says this unnamed source. Phil explained to me that he had really loved his job. So much so, that he justified making less than half of his previous hourly rate with Wells Fargo as- "Ok, because I felt fulfilled and better as a person." Phil represents the pay was not good at all, but the reward for helping the scores of women that called in for answers was well worth it to him. His supervisor at LuLaRoe even promised him that LuLaRoe would help him go get his license back. They cared for him. Were invested in him. PROUD of him. That is, until everything changed at home office.

Phil reports that he started to notice a change in the caliber of people LuLaRoe was hiring. They went from truly caring individuals to young and cocky people that he often heard bragging about the way they treated people that called in. He said they hire uncaring people. "If you're a person that doesn't care about people, they like you. Before, it was different. Now, it's just all greed." "These kids will just hang up on you. Tell them (callers) that 'it is what it is', is there anyone higher than you I can speak to? No. Then just hang up on them." One of his former co workers had even bragged to him about his skill in deflecting the issues that would come in to the call center- quoting him as saying- "If I stepped on a baby's head and had to explain myself to the mother, I could sell that to her." Meaning that this person was so good at delivering bad news, he was able to with ease. What a horrible analogy. Phil went on- "They don't want people like me now, people who care. I want the truth to be known. I feel betrayed." Betrayed, Phil explains, because he asked to be transferred out of the call center last week. The influx of angry consultants calling in was beginning to be too much. He was developing anxiety- often going home shaking from the interactions he was having at the office. During hurricanes Harvey and Irma, he said, many consultants were calling very alarmed. Stating that they had needed the money owed to them to be expedited. They needed the money to leave Texas and Florida. Then afterward, they were asking because they just needed money! Some had lost everything, this refund was all they had. Adding to the mounting tensions coming in from callers, LuLaRoe upped security in the building. He told me that retailers had started to show up at home office demanding their money. One was really angry, and had gone through retail services. "They were afraid someone would just walk in and shoot the place up," he said. "People were showing up thinking they could just demand their refund. They were really, really mad." Most of his callers were women. They were often emotional, upset, they needed to vent. He said he would let them vent to him. He would assure them that he "had their back". He would make them forget why they were mad to begin with, because he truly cared and would do his very best to get their needs met. When the refund policy abruptly changed, he felt caught off guard. The calls he was getting were no longer pleasant. Women were calling in, asking for him by name because his commitment to them was shared all over social media. They would tell him that they knew he would get things done and they only wanted to deal with him. He felt like he was under enormous amounts of pressure- and would escalate what seemed to be almost every call that was coming in. He was often taking the calls right to Michael Brady himself- expecting these women to have answers. He needed more help to help these people, he said. It was becoming too much for him to do- with no real answers provided to the call center, he felt they were being forced to give people the run around. He had to speak up. So last week, Phil went to Martha, his supervisor. Martha, he describes as "the mom" figure. She was supposed to embody the thought process that Deanne would have. What would Deanne do? Ask Martha. Phil felt like he could trust her, talk to her. He felt that she really cared about him as he was often told his performance was excellent- having moved from ground level at the switchboard to a person in escalations relatively quickly, and having been extremely "LuLaRoe Cultured"- even having gone to the last two conventions himself- clearly the company would know where his heart was and would acquiesce his request to transfer out of the call center. Sadly, that isn't what happened to him at all. Yesterday was just like any other day- until his friend and colleague who he had taken under his wing was terminated for reporting having anxiety from working in the same call center. He remembers that- "When he was hired, Jordan Brady told me to help him out. He was a 'blue', please take care of him, Phil." He told me. What Phil didn't know was 30 minutes later, he'd be following his friend out the doors forever. Martha called him into the office, and that's when he saw the envelope. After a year and six months of what he felt was LuLaRoe taking precedent in his life- the culture becoming his culture- he was handed an envelope and given the explanation that- "This isn't the right fit for you." Countless calls. Countless women crying to him for help- women he wanted nothing more than to help more than he actually could, women that were pleading with him for their money back- to pay bills, to care for their sick children, to keep them from getting into more financial trouble- women he felt responsible for... and this wasn't the company for him? All because he asked to be transferred out of an environment that would later be explained to me by my next interviewee as- "Toxic" He feels betrayed. He said it's all a game of greed. LuLaRoe isn't what he thought it was- from the outside looking in, it's all empowerment and love. This isn't how it is inside. It's a game- a game in which he felt like a pawn. I presented him with the million dollar question- "If I publish this article, and LuLaRoe calls you and invites you back, apologizes... will you go back to work there?" "No." I asked him why not. "Because it's a lie. Camille gave me a hug right before I went to Martha's office. I didn't know why. Then I found out. Later, I went to Buffalo Wild Wings and Art was there with Michael Brady and some others- they just stared at me. I was out." He could see, he said, why people refer to it as a cult. "Once I started speaking up for these retailers a couple months ago, they stopped liking me. No one wanted to sit by me at the meetings. For the last 2 months, everyone that loved me before did a total 180." After I wrapped up with Phil, I spoke with another person who as I stated earlier, wanted to remain anonymous for fear of LuLaRoe retaliating against him. He asked me if I knew of any entities that would help him with legal advice on a wrongful termination suit. I directed him to the EEOC. This interview was even more emotional than the interview with Phil. He's been with LuLaRoe for a year. He feels like he poured his heart and soul into his job. Much like Phil, above, he took this job very personally. "They made me think and feel deeply. Deep in the culture." As he told his story, he explained that he started his journey with LuLaRoe in the warehouse and interviewed for the call center one day. He said that right off the bat, he realized that everyone was indoctrinated into the culture- all speaking it in the office, all the time. But he didn't feel any of them really lived what they were speaking. "What they put on in the outside- that isn't what's inside." He complained. He felt that if they were truly about empowerment and blessing, they wouldn't do things like change policies overnight- especially without letting those whose jobs are to help those affected by the policy changes know about them and how to proceed with the calls as they came in. He says that before, when the 100% buyback policy was in place, they literally took almost anything back. He would respond to a resignation and request for labels almost immediately, and would advise them that they could expect their labels within 10 business days. Now, he says- all those people they told were getting a 100% refund IN WRITING are now "screwed". He said the call center is now being forced to tell people that were already promised the 100%- some having resigned and using the sentence- "...and I wish to claim the 100% refund on my merchandise"- that...wait for it... were accepted with a canned response that their resignation had been accepted- are now as he puts it, "S.O.L." He explained that he can't understand how it can be legal if they accepted resignations that stated that they wanted 100% refunded for them not to honor the 100%. He felt like accepting the resignations at all was implying acceptance of the resigning retailer's terms set within. "It just seems like we should honor those. I feel so bad for them. Instead of helping them, we were kind of told to give them the runaround. No one had any answers. We weren't trying to mislead them, necessarily- but we were there, trying to answer questions- with no answers, trying to guess where to send them as we went through the calls." "Even if something had happened when labels were issued for retailers that met the requirements for the 100% refund, and say- maybe their labels had been issued but expired... We had to tell them they were shit out of luck. They were no longer qualified to get the 100% back. It didn't seem fair." He points out one particular caller that resonated with him- "They called for their refund. I told her it wasn't going to happen, and she said something about wanting to kill herself. People are getting desperate for their money." He said that they were instructed to revert to the canned response. "We offered the 100% for a limited time only. The actual policy has never changed." In fact, he was very surprised to learn that MommyGyver had been provided screen shots of the actual home office announcement- referring to the policy as a policy- and citing that there was no end date. He was shocked.

"I was told we never expressed that in writing officially." He replied to me. Here it is, friend. Just to put your mind at ease. This stunned former employee responded to this information by saying- "I'll just add that to my list. I have a list of reasons LuLaRoe is going to fail." He went on to explain the sales tax debacle that landed LuLaRoe in court this year was at the top of his list. Millions of dollars in sales tax were charged to people that should not have been charged. Instead of geo tagging the zipcode of the person an item was being shipped to, it just immediately charged tax regardless of location, he elaborated. His next point was the change in bonus structure. Once that changed, he noted mentors calling in panicking that they were not making their rank, demanding to speak to someone at an escalated level. Mentors were not making the money they had been, he said... and this is why he feels that LuLaRoe abruptly changed the buyback policy. Next, he felt that LuLaRoe offers employees extremely poor communication. He recalls Deanne coming in and asking if retailers could switch sponsors. His department head responded in awe- "No, that's against policy." He laughed- "Shouldn't Deanne know that?" He also explained that because there was no communication to support prior to changes being made, he felt that the call center was forced to give people the runaround. Often grasping for straws to get answers for them, he knows that they gave retailers that were frantic and demanding- the wrong information. Not out of spite, he said- "We were guessing. We had literally ZERO direction." Instead of getting direction, they got reprimanded. "How can they tell us, who were just trying to help, that we should say we don't have any answers- then get mad at us and take it out on us for saying it???" Next, the new return system was a failure. He said for over two months, his department was giving people the wrong directions to resign. "We were told to tell them to submit a ticket. All those people getting the runaround, bounced from one department to another- all of them are screwed now." The next point on his list? Disney. According to him, Mark and Deanne had a date in mind for the Disney release. "Instead of sticking to that, they released Disney on a whim at 8 p.m. on a Friday night. There was no support staff there to help. There was no one in accounting. Every single one of those orders glitched," he told me. "So they had to wait until Monday to call in, wait for hours to talk to someone. They were all angry- wanting to know if they would get their orders. It's like that with every launch. We get no information. None. Our managers don't have any information either." He goes on to his next point- Employee pay. "We are all starting to get mad. We're supposed to get raises every 90 days. Raises have been frozen for 6 or 8 months now- but they walk in and brag about being a billion dollar company but won't support their employees!" "I just don't understand it. I was taught that I should be blessing these people's lives by helping them. I work hard to help them, but who cares about me? I was fired for having anxiety." Another employee fired because he took his job personally and was affected by the level of stress inside. "People wait 4-5 hours to talk to you. Just so you can give them bad news. And Mark and Deanne are like mascots. That's it. Faces for the company. They have a bunch of dumb executives walking around with dumb leads- all trying to control you. They treat you like crap. It's really a poor working environment." And when it all boiled over, he had asked to talk to his supervisor- just to share what he was feeling because she said they cared about him. He went to her, and broke down and cried, he told me. "After I cried to them, asking for advice- they fired me and said they were doing it because they were worried about my health." His health, he laughed. "They don't care about that. Do you know, girls are supposed to wear 2-3 pieces of LuLaRoe a day? Leggings on Fridays. They will send you home if you aren't dressed "properly". They give you a free piece of clothing every two weeks- and they open up the employee store to buy clothing at wholesale. They care if you wear their clothes and are anal about that. Mark doesn't even wear it! They are anal about using their words. Living the culture. They don't care about how I feel." "You know, the culture. What is your why? What was your Lollipop Moment?" What is a Lollipop Moment? I asked him. "You know- something that changed your views. Impacts you." I asked- "Was being fired your Lollipop Moment?" "Yes. I was starting to hate my life. I wasn't suicidal, but I was close. I feel like I'm rejuvenated now. Like I ESCAPED. It was hell. Every day was negative. All the calls were only angry retailers that waited and waited to talk to someone. There are only 20-30 of us in the call center. Sometimes the queue for the call center was 500-700 calls deep. 2 weeks ago, the wait was over 6 hours long. But they are always making cutbacks. This doesn't feel like a billion dollar company should." I asked for a final thought for those that are reading. He said this: "You retailers want to quit??? WE want to quit too. Oh, and in a couple months, they are launching a new item. The "Dominion". A man's button up shirt."

The definition of the name says more than enough to me: Dominion [duh-min-yuh n]

1.the power or right of governing and controlling; sovereign authority.

2.rule; control; domination. Sure to be the next "game changer".