The year 1988 was a horrible year (Annus horribilis). Eric Arturo Del Valle, the constitutional President of Panama, was ousted by General Manuel Antonio Noriega, a.k.a. The Man. Del Valle decided to remove Noriega from the Panama Armed Forces, but instead, Noriega bounced back and got rid of him. Del Valle sought diplomatic asylum in the former Panama Canal Zone and traveled to the United States where he fought Noriega’s regime until his end on December 1989 with a U.S. invasion.
During that time, I was working at Compañía Colonial de Seguros, S.A. as a Comptroller making a decent salary. I was part of the Middle-Middle class of the country, with my car, nice home and all the perks of a Comptroller in an important insurance company.
Since the economic conditions in Panama were dire, as a result of the political disruption created by the separation of the constitutional president, my contract was terminated and I joined the long lines of unemployed workers in the country. The psychological blow was so hard, I had a stress attack and ended up in the hospital. I couldn’t accept the fact that I was jobless and that there was not the slightest possibility of getting a job to put food on the table. Through a good friend of my wife, I was recruited to become an Amway Distributor. They said so many nice things about the self-employed program, that I easily swallowed the pill and really thought I could become an Amway millionaire.
We worked hard to build a network marketing business. Even though the country was in dire straits, we were able to build a network of over 104 distributors selling Amway products through the organization. I remember working between 15 and 18 hours a day. I was responsible for making the sales pitch of the Amway system to recruit distributors, and my wife was responsible for moving Amway products. We were very good at what we did. I never thought I had the skills of a sales rep, but “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do”.
In a year’s time, we broke Direct Distributor and Ruby Direct Distributor in the same month, plus all the different sales levels down the ladder. We had fire in our belly and our enthusiasm to become a millionaire had become an obsession. After a year we were making about $1,800 per month, which was about half of what I earned at the insurance company. It was enough to pay the bills and eat three times a day. We thanked God for what we had. I will never forget those Amway times when we had to sweat our days to earn a living.
Fortunately, in 1989 Noriega was gone and Panama recovered its breath. We went back to Democracy, and under the leadership of President Guillermo Endara Galimany, the country licked its wounds and started a slow economic recovery. Guillermo “Billy” Ford gave me a job as Chief Internal Auditor at the Ministry of Economics and Planning with a salary of $2,000 per month. Sanity had returned to our home; the “good all days” were back, and the rest is history.
Below are my Amway awards and the official certificates of Amway Direct Distributor and the prestigious Amway Ruby Direct Distributor. Both were earned the hard way. We learned so much during those calamitous years. We learned how to survive no matter what. Even in tragedy there is light at the end of the tunnel, dim as it was in our case.
Snapshot of one of Amway’s awards when we reached the three percent level. It was the first step in a very tall ladder towards success. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.
Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.
Snapshot of Amway’s Direct Distributor Certificate. The was a very important level in Amway’s network marketing organization. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.
Snapshot of Amway’s Direct Distributor pin. It means so much to us, as well as the Amway Ruby Direct Distributor pin. It reminds us of the importance of hope, persistence, and determination. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.
Snapshot of the prestigious Amway Ruby Direct Distributor certificate. It had red ribbons on the bottom. We were over the moon when we received it in front of about 3,000 people at Atlapa Convention Center. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.
Snapshot of Amway’s Ruby Direct Distributor pin. It has a small ruby to distinguish it from the DD pin. This is the highest level we reached with our Amway business. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.
Hope and persistence are two good words to keep under your pillow. They will float you high above choppy waters and bring you safely ashore. Good Day.
Wow, Amway. I had not thought about them in years. We also, did the Amway thing but I was working at the time and we never got very far with it. I was traveling, fixing airplane problems for a company so wasn’t around for weeks sometimes.
My most vivid memory was giving the “draw the circles” presentation to some folks and right in the middle of the spiel, the lady in the front row decides to breast feed her newborn. Now, this was ~1975, in midwestern America and although it is fairly commonplace now, then it was a show stopper! And we are not talking discreetly feeding the kid under a blanket.
Well, trooper that I am, with my “boss” watching, I just kept talking and drawing those circles. I have NO clear memory of what I said after that.
My face colors even now describing it.
jim and nena
fort worth, tx
Hello Jim and Nena:
Yep, I remember those circles. I must have drawn thousands of them when I was giving my sales pitches. I had a small white board with a telescopic tripod and multicolored pilots. By the second month I was an “expert” in network marketing.
I was so excited with the presentations, I forgot to eat. My wife had to press me to stop and take a bite.
Breast feeding for us is quite common. Women do it all the time, usually covered with a small cloth to “hide” the breast from curious eyes. I can imagine your perplexity at the site.
Good ole memories, my dear friend.
Best Regards,
Omar.-
Ah, the multi-level marketers. I vaguely remember the Amway craze here – some of my mother’s friends must have been involved, because the products occasionally popped up in the house. I’ve heard that it actually is one of the better businesses of the sort, but like all of them, it depends not so much on sale of product as bringing in more and more people.
In any event, I’m glad it was there as an option for you. I suspect most of us have done things just to “keep afloat” that we didn’t really even judge as good or bad. They paid the bills, and that was the point.
Those are pretty classy certificates, though! Memories, memories….
I never considered myself a sales rep. I had been a number man or “bean counter” all my life. During the economic crisis of 1988-1989 I had to survive and Amway was the only option available to put food on the table.
At the end of the day, the doors opened up and our economic situation improved and here we are learning English, learning photography and how to blog. Yep, life is full of unexpected twists and turns.
Have a great day in lone star state of Texas,
Omar.-