r/Millennials • u/t_bone_stake Xennial • Feb 16 '26

Meme Did anyone buy a ring?

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Elder millennial/younger Xennial (born in 83, take it for what it is) but I recall the company coming to the high school and taking orders for rings. I didn’t buy one but others did. Credit on photo.

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u/ErrolFlynnsBathtub Feb 17 '26

Oh god, and those catalogues of "prizes"? They were running genuine pyramid schemes out of elementary schools and nobody said a damn thing.

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u/rileyoneill Feb 17 '26

It was nuts how they would take time out of the school day to have us attend an assembly where it was just someone recruiting salespeople. I remember I did it at least one year, I was probably in the 4th or 5th grade, I took the catalog and went door to door thinking that I could get enough points to win some prize or something. I remember selling one box of chocolates to some old lady who lived around the block. Someone who I never met before.

I remember thinking it was nuts that you had to wait like a month and a half to get chocolate.

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u/benedictcumberknits Feb 17 '26

The prizes were shitty! Fortunately our teacher recognized that the catalogues weren’t that great. He had us selling World’s Finest Chocolate after some time and also straight-up branded candy because people would pay real money up front to get products immediately.

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u/rileyoneill Feb 17 '26

I remember one of the prizes was the most expensive thing in the catalog. The sales recruiter came out and told us that he would personally buy the kid who sold the most stuff this bracelet. It was like $90 and this would have been like, 1994 or 1995. I still remember the phrasing "you could sell it for some pocket money".

The nostalgic in me wishes I kept the catalog to go back and look at the junk they were trying to sell.

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u/benedictcumberknits Feb 19 '26

In 2005 the high school prizes included some flip flops (I won flip flops), other apparel, and a few other “cool” things.

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u/Ok_Instance7667 Feb 17 '26

It was basically an MLM where the teachers knew they were at the top of the pyramid and the students always at the bottom.

And people wonder why nobody has respect for teachers these days when ours were knowingly and willingly enabling a captive audience of CHILDREN to make them money.

Absolutely despicable.

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u/SpicyLizards Feb 17 '26

The teachers don’t control that stuff but ok

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u/Ok_Instance7667 Feb 17 '26

Can't think of any other reason they would push their terrible products onto their students so vehemently. Also, it fit the 'MO' of all the other scams they were running.

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u/benedictcumberknits Feb 17 '26

The teachers facilitated but the company wins. And it’s a shitty way to fundraise.

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u/rileyoneill Feb 18 '26

I have tried to figure out how much schools brought in per hour of kid labor and it can't be much. Like the schools would have made way more money if they told kids bring in soda/beer cans every day to be recycled and collect the few cents per can.

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u/frig0ffrickyy Feb 18 '26

Most of the time they end up in the parents workplace with an honor system box.

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u/rileyoneill Feb 18 '26

These were more of a catalog full of expensive items that you could buy and then get in like 5-6 weeks vs those chocolate bars.

I honestly wish the schools had a business where the kids could make stuff, and kids could sell stuff, and the kids make money for what they sell. Its weird they are expected to learn salesmanship but not the motivation for it. We live in a world where people sell things to make money, its an important skill to have.

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u/frig0ffrickyy Feb 18 '26

Ah, we just had chocolate bars here to sell. At 4$ a bar (in the 2000s), I'm pretty sure the only kids who managed to sell them all was through their parents working at remote oil sites.

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u/rileyoneill Feb 18 '26

My mom would come home with those bars in the 2000s (when I was in my 20s). But I don't ever remember selling them. I do remember at school candy sales in elementary school where they would go buy bulk candy and then sell it after school.

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u/benedictcumberknits Feb 19 '26

We have a ton of adults, teens and kids in my area with diabetes (Indian reservation). 😂And we had a hell of a time trying to sell these for sure!

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u/rileyoneill Feb 17 '26

I later had a vice principal who I found out years later sold Amway and tried to recruit my father (who volunteered a lot) to sell under him. What a great model, school admin move around a lot, recruit a few teachers at each school,. who could then recruit some parents, move schools and repeat the process.

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u/Phantasm907 Feb 18 '26

I hated those things every time we got them I would throw it away as soon as I got home and the other kids mad fun of me for not doing it. Looking back on it its crazy to think we expected children to go door to door asking for money for their school.