I do know the other side of this and of course I will share it. First of all this was on 20/20 and I got a weird feeling about it when I saw it then. If you dig and dig you will probably find dirt on the best of the best but that doesn't mean it's 100% accurate and gives all the facts when there's Millions of Dollars involved. Here's what I heard about that lawsuit which began to unfold at least 5-6 years ago and we heard about it at Leadership about 3-4 years ago. Leadership is a Director training, and of course WE wanted the details because it concerned us and we needed to know the facts so we could reply to things like this and it was so awesome that MK shared about it with us.
The gist of the story is that this gal received that "form letter" and then a few other letters from Corporate, some about Directorship and others about her car, and they did not receive a reply/response about her intentions at that time. When they did find out and after sometime they decided they could reduce her qualifications and not take her Directorship completeley away. I was read the entire last and final letter that was sent to her stating that they were aware of the situation and that her Unit was "suffering" and she could "lose" Directorship due to that, but that they would maintain her Director status and that she could return at any time. In a nutshell she would lose her unit due to it just falling apart overtime but they would maintain her status and how I took it, give her time to come back to resume her position without having to go through DIQ again. She would obviously have to rebuild but would be a Director and I've never see that before.
I'm also sure there were some issues with whom would maintain/train her people in the interim. Her car was picked up at some point and I believe it was that event that did it for her and prompted her to seek legal action.
I do remember leaning over to another Director after hearing this and saying, "Why does the media only show the WORST side of things and not both. Why weren't these letters shown. Why did they mention the first letter that is a "form letter" (which Laura has referred to quite often) and not the many more that followed?"
I knew there had to be 2 sides to this. I don't discredit her cancer but the whole thing seemed a litte odd to me when I saw it on T.V. especially for a company who puts so much into their Charitable Foundation. I too did research a few months back just to see if anything had ever happened with Mary Kay legally besides that incident and that's the only thing I could find and for 41 years, I think that's pretty good. Mary Kay lost in court because a glitch was found regarding our status as being independent vs. employed and what benefits can be received if it's proved we are employed.
If this was found and won in court but is unprecedented then what did Mary Kay do wrong? Let's ponder this for a moment...so Mary Kay reduces qualifications at the drop of a hat for this gal, now we have Suzie Q. who is struggling with a pregnancy and Jenny O. who has liver cancer who are now saying, "well we have had these illnesses for 6 mos...what about us!" and now there's another lawsuit. That whole thing would start a ripple affect. This was unprecedented and therefore, you cannot LEGALLY as a Corporation just change guidelines on a whim...especially with over 800,000 Beauty Consultants!!! Use your logic in this one. I'm sure there are MANY things MK Legal had to do to make reducing her production happen.
Something like this happened for the first time ever in MK history and MK lost. And after all their years of operation, I'm sure we will live to see more things. I don't think that this should make MK look bad. I see it as a gal who was having some very difficult times who was dropping in her production and car requirements and wanted MK to change things for her at a snap but she didn't give them enough of a heads up to do that! I'm sure the second she started struggling she didn't call MK immediately to warn them she would miss production...she would have given it some time before going to those measures and production takes many months before it dwindles down that bad. I bet she got much sympathy from Corporate but what can be done? There are the "legal" things they need to follow. How many more people would they have to do that with? How much more trouble would they be in if they did change it in a snap and didn't for someone else immedately.
I feel bad the lady had cancer but even in those hard times, that I've had FAR TOO MANY OF, I still know that I need to maintain my business to keep it flourishing and frankly it makes me feel better to have this to focus on when I'm recovering.
P.S. It was quite ironic but after that appeared on 20/20, I had about 6 customers of mine call me and they wanted to show their support of MK because they said they just knew MK was not a company that was like that. I was so proud that people knew better then to just see the one side. Frankly, I'm glad she won because she may have needed that money and I know MK can afford it. I hope it goes to good use and her family is taken care of in case things get worse or come back. Last I heard she was cancer free. ~Wendy
WendyTurnidge - 03 Jan 2004
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Revision r1.2 - 03 Jan 2004 - 19:16 by EliMantel
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