Sunday, July 16, 2006

The Consequences of Spam

I once had a friend I regarded as very close, and we'd telephone each other about once a month, but that was expensive. Then he said he'd gotten e-mail, but he didn't sound very enthusiastic. I understand that he felt having a computer on his desk reduced him from professional to clerk, and he didn't like the fact that all his bosses could now reach him easily by e-mail and assign extra work.

I gave him my address and asked for his. The address he gave me was wrong, and (he said, the next time I phoned) that he'd written my address down incorrectly. I insisted we try again, and we finally managed to exchange e-mails. After that, I wrote weekly (and stopped phoning), and he responded about every two months:

'Thanks for the e-mails, I really enjoyed getting them. No time to write more, because I'm very busy right now, but I'll write you a long letter soon.'

His infrequent replies were always the same, obviously cut and pasted into a reply when, every couple of months, he felt guilty for not writing. I got tired of writing and not getting any response (and strongly suspected that he never bothered to read my letters) so I cut back to once a month. He replied about once a year. It's now been over a year since I wrote, and I wondered how he was, so I sent an e-mail. For once, I got an immediate response:

'Your email is rejected as spam. If this is a private e-mail account of a member of this department, you may request that it be unblocked by seeing the e-mail administrator in person in Room 203.'

So no one outside his department can write to him on his business e-mail. I don't know if he got a private e-mail over the last year, but, if he did, he didn't send it to me. And I've lost his phone number.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Random:

If you you don't mind me asking - where exactly do you find most of these people you have to contend with?

I mean - friends who don't reply to e-mails, one of the 'F's' (Farook or Fahad, I can't remember) keeping you waiting in the hallway when you're supposed to be having a meeting, people who have an appointment with you for Saturday except they're going on vacation, guys who keep trying to separate you from your lucre, an acquaintance who ashes his cigarette in your soup, another one who brings a hooker back to your bathroom, somebody who invites you for lunch and still hasn't arrived by dinner, guys who keep the Scotch whisky distilleries in business, a host of characters trying to take advantage of you, men cutting cars in half, dealers in plasma screen tv's that fall off the back of ships - to name just a few!

Is there some place you go and find these people - sort of like a car boot sale - or a mall maybe - and there you can make connections. Or is it pure serendipity?

I'm just asking because I've never encountered anybody quite like this crew.

Perhaps you find them on a web-site - like a social networking site for ne'er-do-wells - that you've run across. If so could you post its URL so that those of us who lead a more sheltered life can see what we're missing out on!

Was it always like this? Do you think you have some sort of in-built magnet for strange characters? Or was there a time when you lived a totally quiet vegetarian life and then one morning it all stared to go crazy?

In the same vein - do you ever get really angry with them and visit some terrible violence upon them?

Or are you a person, perhaps, from the Indian sub-continent who has spent many years studying with a great guru and therefore am on a far higher spiritual and moral plane than, say, somebody like me?

These are all things that go through my head as I read with great trepidation of your latest encounters with one of these dudes.

Any answers would be gratefully received -

Fibber

10:32 am  
Blogger Harsha said...

I Doubt hed like to blog about normal day to day characters, its only the strange ones that make an interesting read perhaps?

11:45 am  
Blogger adevents said...

i asked exactlly the same long a go anaon

2:11 pm  
Blogger Dubai@Random said...

Fibber: when I first got here, I was told to stay in the Western compound and avoid all Orientals (and I mean everyone from East of the Hellespont, not just East Asians). None of the people I worked with ever met anyone who was not a Westerner, except for the odd car mechanic (who asked them for a large loan, so they switched mechanics, and it only happened once, so they've forgotten it).

I tend to wander about, and to meet a few native Middle Eastern people. The one flicking ash into my soup was trying to separate Faysel from Faysel's money, and didn't appreciate my presence which, he thought (and, I hope correctly) was impeding his mission.

Faysel, as I've said, makes his money as a stereotypical used car dealer, and spends quite a bit of it on alcohol.

Farook and Ron are the only two who (lately) have been trying to separate me from my money, but they both keep trying. Farook sometimes forms a partnership with a cousin for his 'fleece the Westerner' occupation.

Being kept waiting for hours is a natural consequence of dealing with natives of the Middle East, as Naipaul reports in his travel books. Naipaul heard someone from Pakistan say that he felt like a slave when he visited the West, a slave to the clock. He was glad to return to Pakistan and freedom.

Naipaul said that, when someone asked him to 'wait for 10 minutes' he usually left, knowing it would be a minimum of several hours.

But, if you have the good sense to remain safely inside the Western compounds, you won't find any of this.

2:24 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Random and everybody:

First Random - thanks for at least some answers. And I must say Twintopaz I do believe these people are real - I mean it would take days to think up a crew like this. Then again Random can quote from Naipaul so it means he is pretty familiar with the ways of creative fiction!

I'm also very grateful that Random you didn't stay in the Western compound and not go wandering about and running into this lot. How else would we have met them?

And you're right Harsha - it's a lot more interesting than the normal day to day characters but..

There's always a but isn't there?

I suppose what intrigues me is that some of these guys do what I think a lot of reasonable people from any part of the world would consider some pretty low down things and you seem, Random, to be always remarkably sanguine about it.

How do you achieve this? Or do you get really angry with them and just not blog about it?

Let's take for example the ash-in-the-soup-flicker - whatever his REASONS for doing it, it is still a pretty unpleasant act. Just because he had a motive doesn't make it any more acceptable. I think in most cultures in the world it would be tantamount to a declaration of impending hostilities!

And what did Faysel think of this? Did he spring to at least your verbal defence? One would hope so but I must say I do not harbor any great hopes in this regard. I don't think we can excuse him on the grounds that he is a typical used car dealer. He's a human being too - well, sort of.

Do you ever think of telling the worst offendors that you deserve to be treated a little better than this and the best thing they can do is go take a walk?

Granted, this might mean a little less colorful group of acquaintances but it might also mean a somewhat calmer life.

Just a thought.

Fibber

3:55 pm  
Blogger Dubai@Random said...

Fibber, Harsha: I like this blog. Which means I put up with the people who provide the material for it.

Faysel was first, incredulous, and thought the black specs must have been pepper, but I finally convinced him the specs were cigarette ash. He was then quite angry, and, as I said, I saved him some money.

And, as you say Harsha, there's no point writing about the crowd who stay inside the Western compounds.

12:50 am  
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4:47 pm  

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