800ml (Part 1)
My Relationship with the Plasma Donation Industry: Love, Frustration (Anger), and Financial Empowerment
Welcome to Part 1 - Which is mostly my positives with the plasma industry
Skip to Part 2
Skip to Part 3
Skip to Part 4
Since I want people in the plasma industry to read this blog, I made a domain for it. http://www.800-ml.com —
It will lead to this substack blog. I urge you to subscribe to see what a rational thinking ex-manager thinks of customer service today. I love the hard working employees of the Grifols at 805 S. Main, and thank them for all the hard work they have given towards me and the donors. This is in honor of your hard work that will not go uncelebrated by me!
This is something I have wanted to write for a few weeks now. It’s funny. I was so conflicted about including it with this blog, because it is an inherently personal thing, but I am in a position with 40,000 followers on social media, a successful podcast, and a person who helps people financially on a daily basis as part of my project that I must talk about it. I’ve been upset and trying to figure out how to battle a certain issue.
That being said, I am a HUMONGOUS FAN of the Plasma Donation Process! I got some bones to pick though. If you have 20 minutes or so, I recommend this read.
800ml refers to the amount of plasma that is taken out of my body with each donation.
(This is a file photo, not my own photo)
I: My First Plasma Donating Experience
April 2003.
I am 19 years old, soon to be 20. I am a slacker. I graduated high school two years prior, and was doing that early adult “finding myself” bullshit that we all do over here in the SW. It’s bullshit because it is fake. I was lazy. I didn’t want to go to college. I didn’t want to get a job. I had a successful eBay retail business selling movie scripts. (Seriously)
I used to go to the local print shop, pay .05 a page for 80 pages, and that $4 would be $79 instantly when I would sell it on eBay. Easy money. It sustained me for years, until the market dried up, likely due to oversaturation.
During the beginning of the month, I get an invite from my cousin Ramon T to go with him to Las Cruces, NM which is 149 miles away from my hometown of Socorro, NM for a job training. He was going to be a maintenance man for a rest area through a company called Tresco. They learned CPR and other health things because their partners had special needs. It was a cool gig for a lot of years for my family.
Except for the shit-stirring part. It’s a long story, but you literally have to stir a tank full of shit out there in the middle of the desert to smooth it out like you are a witch with a cauldron. It was so gross. I’m surprised they didn’t get some sort of long term illness doing that.
Anyway, he’s a year older than me, but also not really in tune with the outside world, so he asked me to tag along with him. We were basically brothers growing up. I would get to stay in his hotel room for free, and I would be able to cruise around town, go shopping, and explore a town which would eventually be my home.
First day of the 2 week stay, I was bored off my ass. I went everywhere there is to go in Cruces on the first day! It sucked. Not saying there’s nothing to do in this town, but I didn’t know anyone, and I wasn’t internet savvy to look for other shit to do off the grid, so to speak.
Sitting in the hotel room on day two, fresh off a trip to the gas station for some snacks, I started reading the free weekly newspaper here, “What’s Up?”
It’s like every other free weekly, discussing the events in your area, movie listing, phone sex line directory and coupons from establishments that you wouldn’t normally see in a regular newspaper.
One caught my eye. $75 bonus after 3 donations of plasma at Las Cruces Biologicals, a facility on S. Main here in town. It is now run by Grifols who inspired this blog. I was pumped. I didn’t need the money so much, because of my script selling business, but I wanted to buy myself one thing for my birthday.
Pierced Nipples. I shit you not. I wanted to pierce my nipples, but it was “expensive” to do… at least in my eyes.
The money off the bonus would be enough to do them, and the rest of the money from donating 3x would be $55, which could allow me some facial piercings as well. What? Yea.
I fancied myself a metalhead back then, and I thought it would look cool, and the nipples thing was more for the ladies to ooh and ahh at.. Ladies that didn’t exist for this portly young man at the time. Ha. But I was down to go try it.
So, I go into the center. It’s a lot different looking then it is now. Back then, it looked like a waiting area at a bus terminal.
Now, it’s a lot sleeker. This first trip to donate plasma was one filled with nerves, because I didn’t know what to expect. I am helped by a middle aged guy who asks me some questions, plus asks me for my ID and SSN and proof of residency. I had all of it ready.
He then tells me to give him a minute. I sit down next to a mom and her kids. I can’t believe they let kids in there back in the day. It was so fucking loud.
“Mr. Baca.” The man summoned me.
“We have a problem. You are from Socorro, NM, and unfortunately it is out of the radius to be allowed to donate at this center. The radius is 150 miles, and according to this (gestures), it’s 152 miles away. I can’t let you donate.”
So, by 2 miles, I can’t do it? That’s bullshit. What he was gesturing at a paper taped to the wall that had mileages from Cruces to cities around the area, because apparently it has come up before!
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier. I lived 149 miles from Cruces and the center. Exit 3 in Las Cruces on I-25 is where you get off to get to the center, and it was 2 miles into town. Socorro was on exit 147. Exits 3 to 147 is 144 miles!
I lived 3 miles from that exit at the edge of town. 144+3+2 = 149 miles. 149 is not 150. I contest. He shows me the mileage on that sign again. Is that sign REALLY from this spot or is it from some other Las Cruces business that may be a mile or two away? I was mad. It was so irrational to be mad, but I was in the right.
This was pre-smartphone, and I didn’t even have a cell phone then, so I urged the man to go on mapquest (FUCKING MAPQUEST STILL EXISTS), plug in my address in Socorro, and the address at the center for driving directions. 149.4 miles! I shit you not.
P.S. No one I know lives at the house in Socorro anymore. Bank of America sold my mom a subprime mortgage in 2000 and she lost the house during the financial crisis. The following 3 people who owned it, including a girl I dated who owned it with her husband and they all lost the home to foreclosure. I am convinced the house is built on an Ancient Native Burial Ground. It’s cursed… or maybe banks just suck.
The dude relented and allowed me to donate. I had to submit to a urine sample before I can go back there. They don’t do urine anymore, thank goodness. The hallway leading to the donor floor I remember as the pee hallway.
The one thing they used to make you do is WEIGH YOURSELF at the front desk in front of everyone, and the front desk person had to call out the weight! It led to some really embarrassed donors who might have a little extra baggage. Me? I was 260 and chubby back then.
I lay on the bed, get my legs elevated, and they walked me through the process. They mention the needle stick may hurt. It didn’t. They told me it would take 2 hours. I was cool with it. I got nothing else to do. They had one TV in the donor floor, because flat TVs were still expensive back in the day. They were playing DVDs. The first time I donated, I watched “The Wash” starring Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. It was a good movie, and good experience.
The people who helped me back then were cool as hell. I got my $75 bonus and my 3 donation fees over the course of 10 days, and on May 5, 2003, I got my nipples pierced (most painful thing ever, btw.. They say it is a 9/10 in pain…women a 3/10), and I got my eyebrows pierced. I had to remove one before I worked at BofA, and the other was ripped off my face in a mosh pit at the Sevendust concert. Seriously.
CHECK OUT THE CHUBBINESS, THE HAIR (!!!) AND THE ACNE (!!!) I can’t believe that’s me. I don’t have a chubby James nipples pierced picture, so I will not post it here. 19 Year old Notorious Banker before he was a banker, notorious, or known.
Still have the nips. We will be throwing a 20th birthday party this may for them just after I celebrate my 40th birthday. HOLY FUCK I AM GOING TO BE 40!
That memorable trip, the “Easy” money, and the fun time I had with my cousin learning a new town spurred me to eventually move to this town, which I did a few years later. I am a slow, plodding person, but I got it done.
Learning about donating plasma reinforced my decision to move despite my fear of not being able to pay the bills, because I was a part-time banker, still going to school, and living with roommates where half of them were flaky as hell.
I trusted the process, and I trusted they heard the one complaint I had in 2003 when I first started. Plasma would end up being an important part of my move in 2008, donating 2x a week for 2 years until I got a full-time managerial job at the bank in 2010, and didn’t have time to do so. My story didn’t end there with donating.
II: Being a Rah-Rah Person For Donating - But Do They Actually Care?
During my time as a bank manager, I got to meet so many people in this impoverished town who needed financial help. Whether it was something my company did to them, or someone begging me and the bank for a personal loan (we don’t do personal loans) because they have a bill or something they need money for and they see that their world will eventually crash due to lack of money but not immediately.
It’s a bummer to know you can’t pay your responsibilities eventually, but the money won’t run out for weeks, so you just sit there and think about the end. People would bawl in my office. They were at the end of their rope.
I feared not having money. Being in my late 20s with a serious GF who lived far away, and eventually wanting to marry her, I thought about money all the time. I did stocks and was successful until I wasn’t. Fuck you, Kodak, by the way.
I lost $5,000 in 30 minutes with Kodak because I was stuck in a bus in Vegas traffic.
I would have donated plasma 2x a week from 2010-2018, but there was simply no time, and I was burnt out every day from the high-volume sales goals of the company.
I thought about money money money because of where I worked. But I was that person at the other end of the desk crying and fearing a world where the bills would not be paid. That is when I would tell them the story of me being broke and part-time when I moved here in 2008, and one thing kept me afloat financially and that was donating plasma.
Some people didn’t even know what that meant. I explain it to them. While some were scared, a lot of them said, “And they give you money?” like they were stunned that was a possibility.
After reassuring them, I would point out where Las Cruces Biologicals, then BPL, now Grifols was at. Not even a mile from the bank, and I told them, if they ask who sent you, give them my name and date of birth. Maybe there was a referral bonus for me. There was, but I never got any call or anything indicating my referrals.
I will tell you that I probably had that “you should donate plasma for short term money” conversation with about 300-500 people from 2010-2018. Minimum. I dealt with the poor on a daily basis. It was not a rich bank. It felt like once a week at the very least.
The crazy thing is let’s say 300 people donated 20 times total over those years, that’s 6,000 donations. I don’t know how much the centers sell the plasma for to other companies, but a frequently mentioned number is $500.
If that is correct, that $500 is the going rate for the plasma, then from my fucking uncomfortable office chair at Bank of America, I am responsible for $3,000,000 in revenue off of people’s bodily fluid. Crazy. That’s just in Las Cruces! I talked to so many college kids over the years about this.
How many possibly donated in another city when they moved out, or at the very least considered it? I guarantee you that my positive endorsement of plasma donating has led to millions in revenue for various companies. My advice was genuine and not uncaring. I wanted to help these people down on their luck, a creed I still carry on to this day with my food drives.
I am a salesman by nature. Bank of America told me how to sell effectively. Yeah, they taught me to be underhanded at a lot of shit too, but sales skills are what I have. I don’t need to fake how much I believe in plasma donating, it has saved me from financial ruin, especially when I left banking in 2018, donating about 450 times since.
That’s the thing with people who run plasma centers. They have sales quotas like a bank does. I don’t know about Grifols, but the old company used to have to cold call people to encourage them to donate. I hate cold calls, but in an environment with a goal, and what I believe about the product, I would hit my goals all day every day. Which is why when I write this, I want people who run donation centers to think long and hard about decisions being made that impacts your sales goals.
After I left banking, I started The Notorious Banker, and what became of my frustration in the banking industry? A consumer advocacy project that has tens of thousands of followers and growing on my social media platform, 2.5 million views of my content a month, and I am a “financial expert” appearing on national news programs and discussing consumer issues with reporters on a daily basis. Bet you didn’t think that of me in my Roman Reigns T-Shirt as I donated, right? Ha.
I made a living trying to convince people how to manage their money with a bank, and now I make a living showing people how to effectively manage their money without a grimy salesperson at a bank taking advantage of you. I am a self made businessperson.
People listen to me. That’s why I have had sponsors and people who donate to see my content. I know what I am talking about with consumers.
The craziest thing? I had a conversation about a sponsorship opportunity with BPL Plasma in 2020. The people at the center knew about my work, and of course, sales always come up in every business, and they wanted a chance to see how much I WOULD CHARGE to do ad-reads on my podcast, sponsorship posts on Twitter and TikTok, and so much more. I was going to be in business with a plasma donating company, because I will be honest. No one can sell donating plasma quite like me. I promise you. I would have been the best thing to hyping plasma, because I BELIEVE IN IT!
I pay for my mortgage with proceeds from donating, and I live in a nice house!
Before that, I used to pay for vacations before I left banking!
Before that, I used to pay the electric and gas bills!
Before that, I used it to get pierced up.
That shows you how I’ve matured over the years. I had goals and I hit them all the time, but the goalposts moved to bigger things. I am now paying for the office inside of my house where I am typing this, simply because of donating plasma. When I left banking, I was scared for 2 seconds about losing my home because of lack of income, but I made up for it with The Notorious Banker and donating plasma. While it’s not near what I made in banking, it works for me at this time.
I even wrote a book about pandemic relief in 2021 called, “Please Try Your Call Again Later” where I dedicated a chapter to plasma donating and how it kept me afloat as I fought battles for pandemic relief for myself and others. It meant a lot to celebrate this place that bailed me out from having to work a job I didn’t want to work in order to pay the bills. I am actually able to work while donating as well! It’s cool.
While the pandemic put some people in their lowest spot, I used my book to highlight a tool that worked for me, and a tool that gets scrutiny because there are some that try to highlight the plasma donation industry as being predatory, a claim I outright disagree with. You are being paid for your time when donating. So while yes, these companies (CSL, Grifols) make billions and pay a donor $40-$100 a donation, they are still paying you. Whether you agree with the payment or not is on you.
So, I carry water for this industry, a place where I was thisclose to being a person who read ads for the industry a couple years ago, and then I spend the last year dealing with something that has upset me, made me angry at times, and has led me to fight a battle that has no winners but a lot of losers. That’s the truth of it. I want to tell you this bizarre story in full.
Never seeing a penny of referral money? That’s fine. I did a good deed by showing people that life isn’t hopeless and that money can really help them. Never realizing that my 20-year relationship with donating plasma is in jeopardy, as well as my endorsement over something so silly, that I can’t believe I have to write a part 2 to this blog. (Sorry about the Part 2, I ran long on this) Never understanding that if I complain about something that it is not just about me, because I follow the rule I created to a T.
Is complaining about something going to benefit others as well, or is it all about you and you alone?
Like I said, I can’t stand people who complain only for something they want. I complain for things that will help me AND others by using rational ex-managerial logic to determine whether I am the crazy one, or a bad process is likely to eliminate a lot of potential donors, keeping them from making the money they need to survive in these tough economic times, while a company like Grifols is a billion dollar company with those concerned donors being a huge part of that revenue.
But I think management beyond the four walls of the plasma center I go to, don’t actually care about the people who frequent their establishment in order to have money to survive, which in turn, allows them to hit their goals, which allows them to make a lot of money. “This paycheck is brought to you by our customers.” For as much dumb shit that BofA used to do, I took that shit to heart. I wouldn’t have survived if not for my clients. The people up top at Grifols (Plus CSL and the other ones) need to realize that too. I am a huge ally of this industry if you want one.
According to Glassdoor, a Regional Manager at Grifols makes from $65,000-$122,000. That is about 10-20x more than what a donor who donates 8x a month will make in a year. Crazy. Again, I feel the donors are paid fairly compared to what they used to be paid 15 years ago ($40 a week I believe $15/$25 2nd in 2008) and I am sure the work SUCKS at times, but it is still a huge amount of money, so that person can’t possibly understand the psyche of a person who is about to get a needle stuck in their arm so they can pay their fucking car insurance.
I make a fraction of that money, and I am happy, but I also know the allure of wanting to make a lot of money, and I was always aware of the responsibility that came with my jobs. I hope they understand that too.
So, I am going to wrap up part 1 here. Part 2 is going to be about my complaint with Grifols and how my physique and lifestyle choices to make me healthy actually have reversed body-shamed and impacted me financially in the last year, including a battle I still am fighting today. That part is crazy complicated and need a lot of words to explain it.
A lot of you wanted me to explain the process as well, because you might be reading this and not know what I am talking about, so I promise I will do that.
I will not discourage you from visiting Grifols, CSL, or any lesser plasma donation centers, especially if you need the money. I am sharing my story in the hopes it doesn’t happen to you. But we are going to have a frank discussion in part 2 as to why I am mad, and why with every time my concerns are ignored, I am one step closer to having to miss paying a bill on time.
Wish life could be as simple as it was 20 years ago when my only debate was “rings or barbells” for my nipple piercings. I’ve had both.
James
That was part 1. Which is mostly my positives with the plasma industry