Sticking it to the Man

I have finally completed a project I have been working on for a couple of months now. It all started when a certain photo studio corporation for which I used to work promised me and the rest of my co-workers commission for our largest sales during the Christmas season on top of our hourly wages. Just an extra incentive to sell more stuff. We worked our butts off off only to be denied our commission thanks to a loophole that corporate conveniently set up for themselves. My co-workers and I were incredibly angry and disappointed.

To make myself feel better about the whole situation and get some risk free, completely legal revenge, I hatched a plan. You see, this photo studio chain offers online coupons all the time. One of these coupons is a free portrait collage (an 8x10 print with multiple photos in it, comes in a variety of formats. $30 value. No purchase necessary. Limit one per day per family). Can you tell I have sold these before?

It is essentially a bait and switch. You get people in the door who think they don't have to spend any money, take awesome photos of their kids, then they say, "Awwwe, well these pictures are so cute I'll just have to get a couple sheets!" Ta DA! We now have your money. BUT you actually can just get the free thing and walk away. In fact, you could theoretically go in every day and get one. Without spending anything. This is really, really annoying for the photographers whose job performance evaluations are based on how much they sell, but for the customers, this is pretty great.

I had calculated that I would have had at least $200 worth of commission coming my way had corporate not gone back on their agreement, so I decided to get about $200 worth of free collages. I would fill the collages with pictures of me doing ridiculous things in ridiculous costumes. When I talked about this with friends, they generally wanted in on the action, so some collages have other people doing ridiculous things in ridiculous costumes with me.

I have completed my goal. I feel pretty vindicated. Here is the end result:

Please note the bottom middle photo in which Becca is strangling me. Priceless.

The obligatory Harry Potter theme photoshoot. 

Yup I walked to the mall in a cape. I am a true Earlham kid.

Western theme, with a fence obviously.

50s house wives!

Pajama party!

...So I feel like I got my revenge and everything I did was completely legal! ...Except posting pictures of the collages online. Technically I can't reproduce these images because I don't own the copyrights. However, if this company tracks down this blog and calls me out on it, I will be really surprised. I imagine they have better things to do, like finding more ways to suck money out of both their customers and their employees.

Hooray!