Spam: No one said it had to be in English

I haven't written lately (as you can plainly see), in part from being busy, but in part from simply not feeling motivated to do so. This is a benefit of the "who cares" nature of blogging. If this were a true column, I'd feel pressure to write (and burn-out is on its way), but with a blog, no one is paying me to write these thoughts, and having read little feedback, I can't even say anyone is reading these thoughts (one day I'll have to add a hit counter).

So, what have I been up to?

Most of last week was spent making preparations for the career change Bocona wants me to try. I've earned my Accredited Claims Adjuster (ACA) designation, and have applied for my license. This means, in effect, I'm no longer allowed to offer an opinion on insurance matters, unless it is directly related to a claim I'm working. Bully. Not that I've had anything to say about insurance, so far.

But preparing for a career change isn't the same as making one. While the applications have started going out for claims adjuster positions, the resumes are continuing to fly in the PC world. I'm looking at it like a race; let's see which career will come through first.

Meanwhile, a comment on the not-unexpected feedback I got from the last posting. Remember when I offered an only-slightly disguised e-mail address to write to if you know of an IT management position available? Well, I got some replies. Unfortunately, I can't read them... they're in Arabic and Hebrew (I can tell them apart, but can't read either language). Frankly, I'm amazed. What's the sense of sending spam to someone if the recipient can't even read it, much less act on it?

Then again, who said the spammer(s) even bothered to attempt to read my blog. They simply found an easy to translate address and fired away. I wouldn't be surprised if the spammers couldn't even read English. It's not like understanding the blog is relevant to them!

A note to the spammers, potential and otherwise. My e-mail (even the job account) is plenty filtered, between gray lists, firewalls, e-mail client-based spam filtering, etc. It's not worth the effort to add me to your list, so why don't you simply pass my e-mail address over and move along?

And wouldn't we all be surprised if that request actually worked!