The End

One of my goals for this year was to make a decision on whether or not to continue as a Pampered Chef consultant. After a lot of thought and some discussion with Billy, I have decided to end my time as a consultant. I still love the products and plan on buying them in the future as I need them, but the business side of it just wasn't for me.

I've been fighting that decision for the past year. In fact, I had almost decided to stop last year, but the company restructured part of its consultant network and I thought I'd give it another shot.

It was half-hearted, though. I got out of the habit of making my nightly consultant calls and it got to the point that I hated to ask people to host shows. Most of my hosts either had a connection with the seminary, which didn't lend itself to very profitable shows, or lived out of state, which took my profit to pay for gas. My lack of interest during the spring and early summer led to me losing my career sales and my 2% commission increase. A few people came to me asking to host shows, and they were good ones, but it still didn't revive the old passion I felt for the job.

One option would be to go inactive for the next six months, which would leave me the option to reactivate my status anytime during that period. I considered it, since I'd still have my consultant discount for anything I'd want to buy myself. One drawback to that is my bank charges a fee for each month my account doesn't have a direct deposit. Another drawback would be having to figure taxes next year for minimal activity.

My other option would be to send in a formal letter of resignation to the home office. My resignation would become official on the first business day of the first month after they had received my letter. If I went this route, I'd be able to close my business account with no penalties, and I would have little or no tax issues to deal with.

This morning, I mailed off my formal letter of resignation to the home office. If they get my letter in time, which they should, I will no longer be a consultant as of Monday, February 1, 2010.