Nigerian Scam Baiting

Dontcha just love all those e-mails you get from Nigeria offering to let you, since of course everyone knows what an incredibly honest person you are praise Allah, share in a windfall of millions of dollars simply for helping some Nigerian offical move money out of Nigeria? Or how about the scam wanting donations for some Nigerian church that takes care of widows and orphans? Dontcha wish there were some way to stop getting all that shit? Earthlink has a nice spamblocker that takes care of that so I don't see too much of it, but other people have actually taken action on it.

I work with a guy who loves telemarketers. I mean he really loves 'em. What's the worst thing you can do to a telemarketer? Keep him on the phone and waste his time. One neat trick is to say, "Please hold", and then put the phone down and wait until you hear the noise that says your phone is off the hook. I've done that. It is a very satisfying feeling.

That's no fun with my friend. He has characters that he uses. He tries to keep them on the phone as long as possible. The longer the better. He's related some of the ones he's used, like Jeeves the butler or the German colonel who doesn't speak English very well. The trick is to get them to hang up on him, and they always do, after, of course, wasting at least five minutes of their valuable time. I wish I could do that but I don't have the patience to mess with them. I only answer the phone if I know the person who's calling.

It turns out there are people who do much the same thing that my friend does to the telemarketers with the Nigerians. I was searching the Net for some solutions to my comment spam. Yeah, I know there's MT Blacklist, but you have to be at MT 2.6 and I'm not. If I had more time, I'd upgrade, but since I didn't do the MT install in the first place (Rachel Lucas did it for me and she's disappeared) and the MT doc sucks big time (Hey, it's free. Can't bitch about that), I'm reluctant to try the upgrade. I hear MT 3.0 is supposed to have code to address the comment spammer problem, but once again that's an upgrade. You'd think a techie like me could do that, but the doc sucks. When 3.0 goes GA, I'll look at the install doc and check it out. Maybe I'll upgrade then. Anyway, that's when I stumbled on to the Nigerian Scam Baiters.

Before I get to what I was gonna give y'all let me tell you about my day. For some strange reason, some people like to hear about TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). My sister really loves it when I write about TCIDNN.

The (No) Help (Whatsoever) Desk improved. They actually patched the users through to me who needed help and I was able to help them.

A few weeks back I wrote about our new pay package at TCIDNN. Today my manager called me into her office to discuss pay. As I said to my team lead, "How long does it take to tell me I ain't gettin' a raise?"

I walked in, I sat down, and she closed the door.

Her: I saw you running upstairs yesterday (Holy shit! I wish I could run upstairs!), was there a problem?

Is there some rule in management school that says you must make irrelevant small talk with an employee before talking about what you are supposed to be talking about? I asked my friend Cindy if she did that with her employees and she said she didn't. I guess this is just taught in Large Corporation Manager Bullshit 101.

Me: Yesterday was a problem.

Her: Why? (Showing great concern.)

Me: The (No) Help (Whatsoever) Desk.

Her: What was wrong?

Me: They're idiots! (Hey! She asked.)

Her: This is the first day. There will be a learning curve. This is a bump in the road. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Blah. Blah. Blah.

A few minutes of interaction of what the (No) Help (Whatsover) Desk should have done. Then we get to the meat of the matter. I just love to watch managers squirm when they're trying to give you bad news and put it in a good light.

Her: You're being paid at 98% of market value. (Holy shit! The market has really gone to pot! Three years ago I was at 55% of market value for my job and my salary has gone up 3% since then.) Ummmm. So.... You're not getting a raise. (Tell me sumpin' I don't know.)

Me: OK

Her: Like I said. You're at 98% of market value and you received a performance bonus of ...

Me: Yeah. I know. OK. No problem. I make good money. I'm OK with that. (Like I'm gonna get any raises between now and the time I retire. It doesn't really bother me since I'm semi-retired now.)

She: (Somewhat astonished) Uh. Uh.

Me: Anything else?

She. Uh. Do you want this paper? (It's the bullshit that shows how much you made last year and your bonus and usually says sumpin' about how your compensation is not just money but benefits and all sorts of other corporate bullshit.)

Me: Nope.

So I left and went back to my office. Now many of you may think I hate my job. Au contraire. I actually love my job. Since my CDSM® (Clueless Dipshit Manager) was promoted, things have improved. My new manager is not as fucked up (yet) as he was. Granted he is her boss and might take her over to the dark side, but so far so good. My team lead realizes that I'm not gonna bust my ass, but I do a good job on all the projects he assigns me. He also realizes that I have some valuable skills that our group needs. He's already overworked. If I left, he would be even more overworked. I'm not gonna say I'm overpaid. I'm not paid for what I do, but for what I know.

Hey GOC! What about the Nigerians?

Hold your horses. I'm almost there.

I took my cat Scooter to the vet a few weeks ago and got a stern lecture about him being overweight. So, I have cut back on his food, which also means that Ashley, who is even more overweight than Scooter, is also on a diet.

What does this have to do with Nigerians?

People are starving in Nigeria. OK?

I always give the cats canned food when I eat well. Tonight, I grilled some chicken, and since my cholesterol levels are up (Had lab tests two weeks ago.) instead of fettucine al Fredo, I just had fettucine with some olvie oil and parmesan cheese. I gave the cats canned food. Scooter inhaled it. Unfortunately, he spent the next twenty minutes exhaling it. Did he do it in the kitchen? No. He did it in the great room where I have a white carpet. And, of course, he had to keep moving around to make more stains. Just great!

OK Finally! Here it comes. Fun with Nigerians. This is some really good reading. Sit back and relax and read about the Church of Bread and Wine.

That was enjoyable wasn't it? Here is sumpin' even better. This guy actually got a Nigerian to send him money! Granted, it was only $20, but this guy is good. He got the scammer to hold up a sign that said, "I take it up the arse." I stand in awe.

That's all for tonight. Gotta go clean up some cat puke.

Posted by denny at May 4, 2004 09:32 PM