Home -> Law Blog Directory -> International Law Blogs -> Misleading Advertising Law

International Law

: Misleading Advertising Law

How You Can Solve Your Work Life Balance Problem

Stacey Shulz, at Brain, Child describes a way you fail dramatically - become a network marketer, after answering an ad online.

" Lopez, twenty-nine, lives in Springville, Utah, with her husband and two children. She's got a college education and a full-time job as a manager at a flexible-packaging manufacturing company.

In 2004, when she was a sales assistant for her company, she started to really hate the grind. She missed her kids, who were home with her mother-in-law all day, and she almost never saw her husband, who was still in school and working nights.

So she did that thing we've all done when we don't know where else to turn for help: She went online.

She found a site that asked all the right questions and offered all the right answers. Tired of working that dead end job, need extra income or want the financial freedom to stay home with your kids or take a vacation? reads one site that Lopez pointed out is similar to the one she saw four years ago. There are a million work at home opportunities ... and you need no prior experience to be successful. "

The article is unfortunately vague on how Lopez found the website; I am assuming that she wasn't googling "work life balance", or she might have found a useful website like this one describing the work life balance problem for Canadian women.

Having found out that the solution was Herbalife, I am also assuming that she didn't google "herbalife scam" to find out about the real earnings of the average Herbalife distributor - whether her goal of $1500k a month was reasonable. Well, oddly it is not a reasonable goal.

I also assume that she didn't google "FTC New Business Opportunity Rule", where she would have found a wealth of information which would have alerted her to the dubious sales pitches that she was listening to. Found out the front-loading is not legal.

So what was Lopez thinking?

The answer to readers of this blog is obvious: the commitment to the phantom dream.

Listen how Lopez explains it:

"It was a baby step, but one that led her into a sophisticated web of lies and deception. "I wanted it so bad," she says.

"I wanted to be able to help support my family and to be able to raise my kids myself and not have someone else do it."

No amount of regulation, government oversight or laws can prevent you from engaging in self deceit. But you first have to spot that you are fooling yourself.

In this particular case, the husband was still at school. Alright, that isn't going to last forever -unless he is pursuing a Phd in Philosophy on his way to becoming an attorney.

What discussions did Lopez and her husband have before having the children about work life balance?

What could have made work more interesting, satisfying or more useful?

But dreaming of having "it all" is a the classic sucker's pitch. (Do read the entire article, and comments.)

Related articles

• How to balance work and pregnancy [via Zemanta]
• Kids & Company ranks number one in Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies [via Zemanta]
• Most Canadians would accept a lower salary for the job of their dreams, Monster poll says [via Zemanta]
• The hardest part of my job is that everyone lies about parenting [via Zemanta]

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on June 25, 2008 (boomark / email).