Repost from June 20, 2001
Well, it’s been another fun week at the ol’ farm – work on the EV continues nicely, and I haven’t electrocuted myself yet. On the other hand, I have recently discovered what has to set a new standerd for just plain _wrong_ in the spamming industry.
Recently, I’ve been filling out assorted surveys and when they ask for my fax number, I’ve just been typing it in without thinking about it. Apparently I typed it into one too many, because I started receiving – you guessed it – !fax spam!. At first I figured it was a isolated incident – but when the papers started piling up in the output tray, two a day, I realized I had a serious problem.
At first I figured I’d just call up the company and talk to them for a while – hence costing them more in 800 charges than I was worth. This was amusing, and I’m sure I frustrated the hell out of a couple of people (usually phone reps aren’t allowed to hang up on the customers, and this can make for very entertaining moments). But, it seemed clear that doing this wasn’t going to stop the torrents of spam piling up in my fax machine’s output tray – so I decided to try doing something truly nutty – and call the remove number.
Did so. Got a nice cheesy voicemail system.. and evil set in. The options included a number for adding a fax machine. So I added the system.
After that, the voicemail system was down for a few days. When I called back again to actually remove myself (since the faxes were still piling up), I got told that I could get redirected to the new number – for $2.95.
Okay, NOW I was mad. So I called the 800 number for the service on the spam, and talked to them for 30 minutes. Finally at the end they relented (the magic words are ‘can I talk to your supervisor?’) and removed me from the system. But I ask you, is this fair? Now they’re _charging us_ to remove us from a service that _costs us money_ every time they use it? This is just WRONG! Fax spam is technically illegal (see the california penal code segment at the bottom of sheer.org) and yet they have the unmitigated gall to _charge_ for removal.
Ashcroft, meanwhile, is too busy fighting porn to do anything about it.
In the meantime, I’ve recently had most of the mistakes and poor judgement calls of my life detailed on fuckedcompany. Oddly enough, I’m all for this – if we didn’t have free speech, life wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. I’m still a little incensed at being called a script kiddie – but hey, maybe that’s all I really am. It’s hard to tell from the inside.
What annoys me is that someone is trying to make any connection at all between my private life and the work I do. Lately this has been considered more and more acceptable – look at how many employers perform drug tests – and look at the hoops you have to go through to work for the federal government. Let me ask you a slightly pointed question – do you honestly beleive that in a honest world, George Bush could get a security clearence even adequate to sweep the _floors_ in the white house?
Back to drug tests for a second – WHY is it that my employer has any business at all knowing what chemicals I do or don’t use? One could argue that use of controlled substances indicates a lack of respect for the law – but almost any upstanding business breaks the law several hundred times a day, or at least bends it real hard. And with good reason – our laws vary from silly to stupid to unenforcable. For that matter, aren’t those who break the law in ways that don’t hurt other people the ones you want? The best, brightest, and most creative? The non-sheep?
Oh, wait. We don’t want non-sheep – because we’re trying to become America the Mediocre.