QotD: Bad Job
Posted May 18th, 2004 @ 04:01pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Question: If you could make $10,000/month working for a company that sent spam (as their primary role), would you?
My Answer: I'm not sure. For $4,000/month, no. $10,000/month is a lot of money… I think I'd accept after considering it for about 24 hours. Especially if my role wasn't directly related (i.e. IT support for the staff, managing the company's intranet site, etc. Yes, they're closely related, but not directly). And people know how much I despise spam, that's for sure. A search on my blog will tell ya that much about me.
You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.
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Posted 18 May 2004 at 4:17pm #
A company that primarily sent spam? Nope. Not unless I was about to face being homeless or something horrible. And even then I'd have to seriously think about it.
Posted 18 May 2004 at 5:07pm #
Absolutely I would. And I'm not afraid to admit it.
Look, I'm as annoyed by spam as the next guy, but I don't see it as the scourge that some others seem to. I use a .Mac account and Mail, which means I'm automatically except from most spam. Every few hours, a piece will slip through the various filters. When it does, I just click the "junk" button and forget about it.
If somebody wanted to pay me $X a month to send spam, I'd be all over it... if the value of X were great enough. Not sure what that number would be, but $10,000 a month is well beyond my threshold.
Posted 18 May 2004 at 8:08pm #
No. Especially not if by "spam" you mean the emails with forged headers.
Posted 18 May 2004 at 8:50pm #
10000 is a lot of money.. but I am not sure I could do it even if it was in an IT role... I would just feel dirty every time I came home.
Posted 18 May 2004 at 9:17pm #
If it was a scam outfit, advertising scam products or services, definitely not.
Spamming for genuine charities? *Maybe*, if the headers were legit and I was allowed to really remove people who asked to be removed.
I'd also have to be able to make sure I didn't email any one address more than once every few months.
Posted 19 May 2004 at 12:05am #
Urr. Jon said something that makes me want to go back and revise my comment.
If there were something actually illegal involved, like fraud, then I wouldn't be so quick to jump on board. I won't lie and say that I'd turn 'em down flat; I don't have that kind of moral fortitude. But if there were fraud involved, I'd have to think about it real hard.
Posted 19 May 2004 at 2:14am #
10,000/m = 120,000/year, assuming you meant US that'd be like, 80 trillion / year canadian (well, probably more like 150-180-ish), which is a hell of a lot more than I make now.
I could say that I'd do it for a year or a couple of months to get myself into a better position and then quit and go and get a "real" (lower paying) job, or use the money to fight spam, or fight spam from the inside while picking up some cash, or something like that.... but I'm a whore, and 120,000 a year is a lot of money. I don't come cheap but I think that'd pay for me 🙂
Posted 19 May 2004 at 10:02am #
Sadly, yes. $120K/yr is a significant sum. As long as there was no fraud going on (i.e. the products being advertised were real, and the people who responded weren't being scammed) $120k would probably override my conscience.
Posted 19 May 2004 at 10:20am #
but I'm a whore, and 120,000 a year is a lot of money
Him: "Madam, would you sleep with me for one million pounds?"
Her: "Why, sir, I think I just might."
Him: "All right, then, how about for ten pounds?"
Her: "What kind of lady do you think I am??"
Him: "We've established that, madam. Now we're just haggling over the price."
Posted 20 May 2004 at 1:08am #
Sign me up for the "whore" list... $120,000 a year would definitely meet my price. Again, with the same specification that others have been making (i.e. nothing totally illegal). On the other hand, I don't think I would ever bother submitting an application cause if you can't trust the product, can you trust the company to actually *pay* you? I might be cheap and easy, but if I'm not definitely getting anything out of it, then I'm not risking myself. I'm not a gambling man.