Tupperware ladies are still out there!
(I actually started this post last Tuesday. It's a week late. I had some trouble finishing it.)
Last night I was invited to, and attended, what I consider a cultural event far-removed from my usual cultural outings: I attended the regional Tupperware Ladies’ meeting. They have a meeting every Monday, but this week it was special because they were presenting the new catalogue, hence new Tupperware stuff. I went there with Charlie, a friend of mine who’s recently joined the legions of Tupperware enthusiasts, Vida, a new recruit she hooked in a mall, and Matilda, Vida’s daughter. My friend, a natural social butterfly, has become mesmerized by the whole shebang while remaining completely lucid of the retro and kitsch effect being a Tupperware Lady has. She brushes all that off with a giggle, and her friends can’t help brushing it off also, realizing that it’s quite in her nature to do such a thing, and then accept to host a party for her. Charlie has that affect on people, which explains my presence last night at the T’Ladies’ regional meeting.
We arrived there at 7 PM, right on time. We bought our on-special $10.00 cake carrier, were given the program devoid of a program and seated ourselves in our designated-by-manager seats. Seeing that the meeting didn’t seem to be starting, I wandered around. There was a table lounging the right-side wall displaying liquidation items. The stage was arranged to look like a kitchen with many cupboards, a fridge and a functional stove. There were two pantries, which Charlie pointed out to me. One was a “before” filled with boxes and cans placed whichever which way, some powdery substance spilled on a shelf and generally looking like your basic food cabinet. The other was an “after.” It was filled with Tupperware containers of various shapes and sizes, all labeled and arranged for easy retrieval. My friend oohhed and aahhed as she showed me, pointing out the marvelous-ness of being orderly. I reminded her on our way back my already excessive orderliness and my personal efforts to accepting more mess in my life, recounting how an ex of mine once opened the food cupboard in front of me and started misplacing all the cans with the hopes of curing me. As for the rest of the stage, it was arranged like a normal kitchen that served to display the various uses of the various Tupperware products.
Forty-five minutes after our arrival, the presentation began. A lady with short hair and who spoke with a perpetual smile was our MC. She stood up front, next to a podium, and proceeded with what would become an extremely long and confusing presentation of the best Tupperware sales ladies, meaning those with the highest sales. She presented the highest sales of all the reps, then the highest sales per team, then the manager with the highest sales, then the highest sales in Canada and the ranking of the reps of this region who made that list, then the teams of the region that made the national list, and so on. (There were other classifications, but I was eventually quite confused with their distinctions and only clearly remember those listed above.) To make the presentation more dynamic, our MC invited each honoured rep to come forward so that we may see her and dutifully applaud her success. At one point I leaned over and asked Charlie if there’s any jalousie and competition between the Tupperware ladies. She assured me that no, they were all actually happy for the winners and encouraged their success. “How convivial,” I thought.
When our MC was done with this presentation, she proceeded with handing out bonuses. Once again, bonuses were attributed to the reps with the highest sales, then reps per region with the highest sales, then managers and then manager per region with highest sales. Once again, all recipients were invited to come forward to be recognized and applauded by all.
When the bonuses were handed out, it came time to honour the people at the meeting who had been the hostess of a Tupperware party. All hostesses of the month of November were invited to come to the front of the room (there were almost 30 in total). The MC then counted upward by $100.00 chunks. If a hostess had sold within a bracket, she was to raise her hand. The MC, who, poor thing, had trouble with any name that wasn’t French-Canadian, would ask the hostesses with raised hands how much money her party made for her rep. The monetary value stated, we would applaud her, after which she could return to her seat. Gifts were given to the hostesses who made the top-10 list (so the ten women who had earned their reps the most revenue). The “best hostess” was a young woman, who is surely about my age because we have the same name, it being one of the most popular names to give to baby girls in Quebec in the late seventies. Julie’s party sold more than $2000.00 worth of Tupperware gear. She apparently had transformed her basement into a mini-auditorium were 30 people assembled to listen to her rep.
When this was done, our MC came to the main event of the evening: the new Tupperware products that are included in the new Tupperware catalogue. These products were displayed on a table next to the podium. They had been hidden all evening with a sort of paper veil. Drum roll. The veil was removed. Heads peeped up to get a good glance at all the new stuff that can be sold. Our MC, all smiles, made a point of showing off each new product, stating its price and how it may improve any woman’s kitchen. She also explained the new exclusive offers for hostesses. “If you host one party, you get a thank you gift of the ‘Rock’N Serve Large Shallow’ Tupperware of a value of $29.00 for free! If you host a second party or more, you get another ‘Rock’N Serve Large Shallow’ Tupperware for free! So just by hosting two parties you get these two gifts, of a value of $58.00. That plus your 15% discount if you sell between $500.00-$1000.00, it’s like making $100.00 worth of cash!”
Meanwhile, one of the managers was kind enough bake a Christmas cake. She used one of the baking trays from the new catalogue, plus the angled measuring cup (which I admit is a great idea), the silicon spatula (which I eventually bought from the liquidation display, being aware of the virtues of silicon), the Quick Chef chopping container, and so on. The cake, made with a store bought mix and store bought icing, costs only $16.00 to make, quite a save for a Christmas cake! Apparently it was good. Unfortunately it didn’t feed the whole of us assembled and Tupperware ladies are quite voracious when it comes to cake. Then again, I’m sure Charlie wasn’t the only one to have made her way to the meeting without having had any supper, expecting it to last the regular 45 minutes rather than 3 hours. This would also explain why ladies started trickling out after an hour and a half.
After the cake was served, the meeting was coming to an end. Our MC conducted a raffle, which Charlie won. Then gifts were raffled to those in the room who had signed up to be hostesses. I won a thermos. Then gifts were given to those in the room who had signed up to be Tupperware ladies. I received 2 plastic glasses that these ladies are quite crazy about. And finally, it was over. I had arrived their a skeptic and left the meeting with a bag full of plastic stuff, a cake container so big I have no place to store it, a Tupperware party planned for the 7th of January and my name on Montreal’s list of Tupperware ladies.
Please don’t be fooled. My enrollment is due to the same reason that made me accept Charlie’s invitation: to please my enthusiastic friend. Yes, I admit, I did toy with the idea of being a rep for a party or two, just for the fun of it… “Maybe MP would be a good candidate… It could be fun, for a laugh.” But my aspirations soon waned. What I take away from that evening is rather a roomful of smiling-clapping ladies who go there to encourage and be encouraged. Seemingly secluded for various reasons, Tupperware offers them a social setting. What more, the ever-present dollar seems to reign over their ambitions. These ladies who become frenetic over stuff, over all the stuff they can buy at a rebate so it’s like saving money even if they are actually just spending it. And this stuff is to be used in the kitchen, or to receive guests and host parties, secluded in a home that can be an awfully lonely place when stuck their alone. Theirs is the cult of money, and the cult of what lasts forever. Boxes that bind and hold, made of material that’s freezer-safe, microwave-safe and resilient to wear and tear. Order. Everlasting.
I don’t mean to denigrate the product — which is quite good even if rather expensive and why oh why would somebody want that much plastic in their home! — or the positive aspects it brings to their employees. I’m sure many Tupperware ladies are very good sales persons who deserve their bonuses like any other sales persons. But the fact that the vast majority of Montreal’s regional Tupperware ladies are overweight and don’t appear as very stylish is hard to overlook. It is hard to imagine some of these ladies as sales reps for a more mainstream product, and harder to imagine them as part of the corporate world. One advantage to the trade heralded by some of these ladies is that they chose their own schedule and make more money than they did in their old jobs. Considering that a successful Tupperware lady makes about $1500.00 a month, after (Quebec and Canadian) taxes that roughly amounts to an annual salary of $25 000.00. Now why is it that these ladies, these good sales persons, can’t earn more than 25K/year in a “real job”? And why is it that they need an environment that claims to be so family-like? No, I take away from that evening an image of a roomful of smiling-clapping women whose smiles and encouragements seem filled with something empty, something rather sad. Indeed, there’s something problematic with this whole Tupperware affair.
Last night I was invited to, and attended, what I consider a cultural event far-removed from my usual cultural outings: I attended the regional Tupperware Ladies’ meeting. They have a meeting every Monday, but this week it was special because they were presenting the new catalogue, hence new Tupperware stuff. I went there with Charlie, a friend of mine who’s recently joined the legions of Tupperware enthusiasts, Vida, a new recruit she hooked in a mall, and Matilda, Vida’s daughter. My friend, a natural social butterfly, has become mesmerized by the whole shebang while remaining completely lucid of the retro and kitsch effect being a Tupperware Lady has. She brushes all that off with a giggle, and her friends can’t help brushing it off also, realizing that it’s quite in her nature to do such a thing, and then accept to host a party for her. Charlie has that affect on people, which explains my presence last night at the T’Ladies’ regional meeting.
We arrived there at 7 PM, right on time. We bought our on-special $10.00 cake carrier, were given the program devoid of a program and seated ourselves in our designated-by-manager seats. Seeing that the meeting didn’t seem to be starting, I wandered around. There was a table lounging the right-side wall displaying liquidation items. The stage was arranged to look like a kitchen with many cupboards, a fridge and a functional stove. There were two pantries, which Charlie pointed out to me. One was a “before” filled with boxes and cans placed whichever which way, some powdery substance spilled on a shelf and generally looking like your basic food cabinet. The other was an “after.” It was filled with Tupperware containers of various shapes and sizes, all labeled and arranged for easy retrieval. My friend oohhed and aahhed as she showed me, pointing out the marvelous-ness of being orderly. I reminded her on our way back my already excessive orderliness and my personal efforts to accepting more mess in my life, recounting how an ex of mine once opened the food cupboard in front of me and started misplacing all the cans with the hopes of curing me. As for the rest of the stage, it was arranged like a normal kitchen that served to display the various uses of the various Tupperware products.
Forty-five minutes after our arrival, the presentation began. A lady with short hair and who spoke with a perpetual smile was our MC. She stood up front, next to a podium, and proceeded with what would become an extremely long and confusing presentation of the best Tupperware sales ladies, meaning those with the highest sales. She presented the highest sales of all the reps, then the highest sales per team, then the manager with the highest sales, then the highest sales in Canada and the ranking of the reps of this region who made that list, then the teams of the region that made the national list, and so on. (There were other classifications, but I was eventually quite confused with their distinctions and only clearly remember those listed above.) To make the presentation more dynamic, our MC invited each honoured rep to come forward so that we may see her and dutifully applaud her success. At one point I leaned over and asked Charlie if there’s any jalousie and competition between the Tupperware ladies. She assured me that no, they were all actually happy for the winners and encouraged their success. “How convivial,” I thought.
When our MC was done with this presentation, she proceeded with handing out bonuses. Once again, bonuses were attributed to the reps with the highest sales, then reps per region with the highest sales, then managers and then manager per region with highest sales. Once again, all recipients were invited to come forward to be recognized and applauded by all.
When the bonuses were handed out, it came time to honour the people at the meeting who had been the hostess of a Tupperware party. All hostesses of the month of November were invited to come to the front of the room (there were almost 30 in total). The MC then counted upward by $100.00 chunks. If a hostess had sold within a bracket, she was to raise her hand. The MC, who, poor thing, had trouble with any name that wasn’t French-Canadian, would ask the hostesses with raised hands how much money her party made for her rep. The monetary value stated, we would applaud her, after which she could return to her seat. Gifts were given to the hostesses who made the top-10 list (so the ten women who had earned their reps the most revenue). The “best hostess” was a young woman, who is surely about my age because we have the same name, it being one of the most popular names to give to baby girls in Quebec in the late seventies. Julie’s party sold more than $2000.00 worth of Tupperware gear. She apparently had transformed her basement into a mini-auditorium were 30 people assembled to listen to her rep.
When this was done, our MC came to the main event of the evening: the new Tupperware products that are included in the new Tupperware catalogue. These products were displayed on a table next to the podium. They had been hidden all evening with a sort of paper veil. Drum roll. The veil was removed. Heads peeped up to get a good glance at all the new stuff that can be sold. Our MC, all smiles, made a point of showing off each new product, stating its price and how it may improve any woman’s kitchen. She also explained the new exclusive offers for hostesses. “If you host one party, you get a thank you gift of the ‘Rock’N Serve Large Shallow’ Tupperware of a value of $29.00 for free! If you host a second party or more, you get another ‘Rock’N Serve Large Shallow’ Tupperware for free! So just by hosting two parties you get these two gifts, of a value of $58.00. That plus your 15% discount if you sell between $500.00-$1000.00, it’s like making $100.00 worth of cash!”
Meanwhile, one of the managers was kind enough bake a Christmas cake. She used one of the baking trays from the new catalogue, plus the angled measuring cup (which I admit is a great idea), the silicon spatula (which I eventually bought from the liquidation display, being aware of the virtues of silicon), the Quick Chef chopping container, and so on. The cake, made with a store bought mix and store bought icing, costs only $16.00 to make, quite a save for a Christmas cake! Apparently it was good. Unfortunately it didn’t feed the whole of us assembled and Tupperware ladies are quite voracious when it comes to cake. Then again, I’m sure Charlie wasn’t the only one to have made her way to the meeting without having had any supper, expecting it to last the regular 45 minutes rather than 3 hours. This would also explain why ladies started trickling out after an hour and a half.
After the cake was served, the meeting was coming to an end. Our MC conducted a raffle, which Charlie won. Then gifts were raffled to those in the room who had signed up to be hostesses. I won a thermos. Then gifts were given to those in the room who had signed up to be Tupperware ladies. I received 2 plastic glasses that these ladies are quite crazy about. And finally, it was over. I had arrived their a skeptic and left the meeting with a bag full of plastic stuff, a cake container so big I have no place to store it, a Tupperware party planned for the 7th of January and my name on Montreal’s list of Tupperware ladies.
Please don’t be fooled. My enrollment is due to the same reason that made me accept Charlie’s invitation: to please my enthusiastic friend. Yes, I admit, I did toy with the idea of being a rep for a party or two, just for the fun of it… “Maybe MP would be a good candidate… It could be fun, for a laugh.” But my aspirations soon waned. What I take away from that evening is rather a roomful of smiling-clapping ladies who go there to encourage and be encouraged. Seemingly secluded for various reasons, Tupperware offers them a social setting. What more, the ever-present dollar seems to reign over their ambitions. These ladies who become frenetic over stuff, over all the stuff they can buy at a rebate so it’s like saving money even if they are actually just spending it. And this stuff is to be used in the kitchen, or to receive guests and host parties, secluded in a home that can be an awfully lonely place when stuck their alone. Theirs is the cult of money, and the cult of what lasts forever. Boxes that bind and hold, made of material that’s freezer-safe, microwave-safe and resilient to wear and tear. Order. Everlasting.
I don’t mean to denigrate the product — which is quite good even if rather expensive and why oh why would somebody want that much plastic in their home! — or the positive aspects it brings to their employees. I’m sure many Tupperware ladies are very good sales persons who deserve their bonuses like any other sales persons. But the fact that the vast majority of Montreal’s regional Tupperware ladies are overweight and don’t appear as very stylish is hard to overlook. It is hard to imagine some of these ladies as sales reps for a more mainstream product, and harder to imagine them as part of the corporate world. One advantage to the trade heralded by some of these ladies is that they chose their own schedule and make more money than they did in their old jobs. Considering that a successful Tupperware lady makes about $1500.00 a month, after (Quebec and Canadian) taxes that roughly amounts to an annual salary of $25 000.00. Now why is it that these ladies, these good sales persons, can’t earn more than 25K/year in a “real job”? And why is it that they need an environment that claims to be so family-like? No, I take away from that evening an image of a roomful of smiling-clapping women whose smiles and encouragements seem filled with something empty, something rather sad. Indeed, there’s something problematic with this whole Tupperware affair.
posted by julie at
11:39 a.m.
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