Written by Frosty Rose

I read this post on Pink Truth’s discussion board, and my heart is breaking for this woman. I don’t know Agnes at all. I don’t know her story, but this is Agnes’ fictional I-Story, courtesy of the imaginings of one woman with 14 years of experience with this travesty of a corporation.

“I was the oldest child of two loving parents, born in the early stages of the Great Depression. My formative years were marked by the lean habits typical of the era. I didn’t realize we were poor at the time, but the few photos of me as a youngster show a thin child dressed in flour sack dresses hand-sewn by my mother. As the war in Europe grew more heated, my father found steady employment at a factory a few towns over and we moved to be close to his work. He was one of the first called up by the peace-time draft in 1940 when I was 10 years old.

I remember how sad my mother was. I realized later that she must have been worried about feeding her three growing children without that factory job. As more men went off to war, especially after that terrible day when Pearl Harbor was bombed, my mother did her duty as a good American woman and took up the wrench my father had laid down in favor of a rifle. I remember caring for my sisters and tending our victory garden while she was away at work. My father made it safely through the war and returned to us for good when I was 15. My mother relinquished her job and returned home with seeming good humor, but I will never forget the moment of bitterness when she confessed how disappointed she was to give up her good-paying job so a man could have it. It seemed so unfair, even to me as young as I was.

I married young, as folks did in those days, to an up-and-coming banker. He made a comfortable home for us, and by 29, we had four thriving children. I threw myself into homemaking and mothering, and I was good at it. I served on every parent-teacher committee and volunteered for every post at church that was open to a woman. There were far fewer then than there are now, of course. And I could never quite understand why I was barred from teaching anyone other than children just because of my sex.

By my late 40s, all of my children had grown and flown the nest. I was thrilled that they had become such strong, independent adults, but there was a vacuum in my life. Now that there were no PTA meetings and bake sales, no football practices and dance recitals, how would I spend my time? My husband was at the peak of his career, so traveling together as a couple was out of the question. My children were building their own lives, as they should. And I was left with a question unique to middle-aged women with grown children—what was I to do with myself now?

I’ll admit, I had fallen into a mild depression, but then Mary Kay found me. A friend invited me to a skincare class at her home one afternoon. A skin care class? Me? Why, I had never given any thought to my skincare routine. But then again, what else was I doing at 3:00 on a Thursday? When I first tried the products, my face felt amazing. I never knew it could be so soft and smooth. And the transformation with professional makeup? Even my husband noticed when he got home from work that evening. Of course, I purchased the complete package.

The consultant asked me an odd question at that time: had I ever considered doing something like she did? Well, no, I had not. In those days, Mary Kay was still fairly new—not many women had even heard of Mary Kay yet, much less thought of selling it. But she thought I would be terrific, and so gave me a copy of Mary Kay’s story. I read it all the next morning, I simply couldn’t put it down. I resonated with this woman who had raised her children alone with a husband off at war. The scrappiness that she demonstrated after he demanded a divorce and she was left to fend for herself, with nothing but her wits and determination to feed herself and her three children. I saw my mother’s disappointment in her words about being passed over for a promotion in favor of a man she had trained, felt my own frustration at the limitations placed on my entire life, simply because I am a woman.

Those first years in Mary Kay were somewhat meteoric for me. I moved quickly up the career path, well, quickly for those days. I became a Sales Director just eight months after signing my beauty consultant agreement, a record for my area. I remember the thrill of gathering orders on the last day of the month, with cash or money orders to accompany them, and driving to the nearest distribution center with my Director friends to make sure everything got submitted before the last day of the month. My, the fun we had! I knew that I was a Mary Kay lifer!”

What Agnes won’t tell you is that those early years were much easier than the subsequent ones. As the market began to saturate and competition with other consultants became fiercer. No, we mustn’t talk about the negatives. Just think positive! There are new baby girls being born every day, we’ll never run out of new customers!

She won’t tell you about the debt that her consultants began to accrue, mounting ever higher each subsequent year, especially after credit card orders became possible. Agnes won’t tell you about her 65th birthday, when instead of celebrating with her family and friends, she shut herself away and grieved the fact that she’d never make national sales director. She won’t tell you about the day when she realized that her customer base was aging as quickly as she herself was, or the day they began dying off. She recruited her daughter, and then her granddaughters into her unit. Her daughter was even a sales director for a short time. But her family orders far more than they need, simply as a way to financially support their beloved matriarch.

And now, she’s tired. Her friends and acquaintances retired from their J.O.B.s long ago and have spent the past 25 years drawing a pension and spending their time in the way they see fit. But Agnes continues to toil away, racing the clock each month to maintain her directorship. After all, if she loses that, she’ll lose what financial independence and social circle remain to her. But, at 92, with a husband long since buried, and enough life insurance and savings to see her through her last few years, she has decided to throw in the towel, to retire. And the company that she has served faithfully for 43 years “unfortunately doesn’t do anything for pioneers like her.”

She’ll get cards from her consultants, perhaps one from her national sales director. But then they’ll forget her, after all, she’s not ordering and making them money anymore, so how could she be of any further use? Her family will flee the company quickly after she resigns, secretly sighing in relief that their monthly contribution can go directly to dear Agnes, instead of filtered through MK Inc for them to take their cut of the profits. And they’ll quietly discard the boxes of unopened products in their garage so Agnes doesn’t get her feelings hurt even more.

But my feelings are hurt. I am near tears for Agnes, and for all the other Mary Kay “pioneers” who have devoted their lives to a company that does not care for them other than as a line item in their sales figures. The true believers who will find out too late that they are a means to an end, a number on a spreadsheet, not a person to love. Selfishly, I am forever grateful that I escaped in time and I am not one of them.