The Spam Heard Around the World

A while back I posted a bit of junk email regarding the UK Lotteries International Prize, an obvious scam which I thought was at least novel and a bit amusing. Turns out this has become the most popular search leading into my blog since I posted it.

As my long-time readers know I tend to keep tabs on who's visiting by regularly checking on my site-meter (or spy-meter as I like to call it). Well turns out a whole lot of other curious souls out there got this email and were interested on finding out more. I've gotten hits from 4 separate Nordic nations (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) several of the United States, France and "Serbia and Montenegro" (sic). Most of the searches involved the phone number, some of them the name of the contest. I too Googled a bunch of the information from this particular e-mail, not because I thought it was legit (okay, maybe I hoped it was just for a few seconds) but mostly to see if anyone had reported it as a scam. What a bizarre world we live in where someone can send you a piece of junk mail and you can post it, only to have people from all over the world visit you to see what you've written about it.

Also from the spy-meter files, another topic of interest lately has been a picture of a donkey that I used as an illustration for a piece I wrote in January of 2006. For some reason this picture came up in four separate searches from Spain, South Africa and the U.K. within a couple of days of each other—having never been, as far as I know, queried before. How weird is that?

Finally someone from Toronto today searched "Steve Demmings Idiot" and came across a letter I wrote condemning Mr. Demmings editorial in the Free Press last year that bemoaned Manitoba's missing the boat with respect to becoming a world-class call-shop haven. He or she wrote a lengthy comment on Mr. Demmings who has since become a consultant for the city of Thunder Bay. Since I doubt anyone will ever happen across that letter by accident I will publish the comment below. (Here's the link if you want to refresh your memory about what I wrote.)

After 'poisoning the well' in Manitoba in his Winnipeg Free Press puff-piece entitled: Manitoba's lack of motion Province missing boat attracting high-tech jobs, in which he was highly critical of the Manitoba government, Steve Demmings has been hired as Founding CEO by the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC). His solution to the ailing Thunder Bay Economy: Low-Paying Call Centre Jobs.

In a recent edition of ExportWise published by Export Development Canada, Steve Demmings was quoted as advocating low-paying call centre jobs in replacement of high-paying resource-based jobs such as those until recently plentifully available in Thunder Bay’s forestry and pulp and paper sectors.

The article entitled ‘Call Centres: Ringing in Profits’ reads as follows:

According to Site Selection Canada [Demmings’ personal consulting firm], in the last three years 166 call centres were established in Canada, creating about 50,000 jobs. Of these, 60 per cent were smaller call centres located in tier two and tier three cities, with up to 300 employees. This would indicate an emerging opportunity in the smaller centres such as Thunder Bay, Sault Saint Marie, Bathurst and Sydney.

"We have a strong infrastructure and a growing reputation for delivering quality service at an affordable price. The next step is to focus on education and training, especially in those resource-based communities where industries are dying. This is a great opportunity to build our skill level and give people meaningful jobs at decent salaries of $40,000 to $60,000 a year," says Demmings.

I don’t know what I find more reprehensible, the fact that Mr. Demmings clearly doesn’t understand the fact that call centres only pay their employee operators between $8.00/hr and $11.00/hr (i.e. $16,640 and $22,880 per year respectively based on a 40-hour work week), or the fact that notwithstanding Mr. Demmings’ palpable lack of understanding of the economic development needs of the City of Thunder Bay, that the CEDC has nonetheless hired Mr. Demmings to lead Thunder Bay out of economic decline. From 'Call Centre Salesman' to 'Chief Economic Development Officer', this bubble-blower's product is still the same old snake oil.

SOURCE: http://www.edc.ca/english/publications_10819.htm

Seems that someone out there has a bit of a bone to pick with Mr. Demmings. All I can say is that I'm glad he's someone else's problem now. Good riddance!