work...

I work as an IP relay operator. What I do is place phone calls for deaf people to hearing people. A deaf person can connect with our service for free and enter a phone number. Then it pops up on my screen and I dial the phone number for them. When the person answers the phone I explain what the service is and what they need to know to make the call flow smoothly. It's a really great service, and it feels good when I place a productive phone call for a deaf person. It's like a small, personal victory when a deaf person figures out what was wrong on their credit card or fixes their DSL. Don't get me wrong, the job is often boring and I suffer from sitting in a chair most the day. But it's transitory. It won't last forever, and the job has served me well.

Another crappy thing about the job is that the IP relay service is often used for international credit card fraud. Since it is free and over the internet it makes a great way for somebody in another country to place a domestic phone call. American Sign Language grammer is different from English grammer, and so occasionally a deaf person will come up with a sentence like, "I go store will tomorrow." Part of our job is to understand that and to make it flow better in English. "I will go to the store tomorrow." So we cover up and compensate for people who just speak English as a second language. We can't know if their first language is ASL or Yiddish, since the grammer errors are often very similar. You don't have to speak perfect English to place an intelligible phone call.

The vast majority of these fraud calls originate in Ghana or Nigeria. I know for a fact (and I can't go into details of exactly how I know this) that they justify the stealing as some sort of restitution. White people stole gold, diamonds, and slaves from their country. They are trying to take back what is theirs. They believe that we are all wealthy because of what "we" stole from "them".

So they abuse our system and order merchandise with stolen credit card numbers. It's bad for retail locations. It's bad for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. It's bad for my morale here at my job.

I was talking to Nikki about this and she had some really great insight. She usually does. She said, "It's true that people went to Africa and mined gold, diamonds and took slaves... it's not our fault. I don't need to tell you this, of course, but I am. It is sad, but there are better, more honest ways to earn a living... The problem is that everyone wants it all right now. You know? They want a big house, a nice car, and expensive clothes, as well as their satellite dish and huge t.v. They can't afford all that working at a gas station or Burger King. Plus that's demeaning. So they steal. Or become strippers because it pays more...."

As a quick side note, Nikki did not include that link when she mentioned Burger King. That is my doing, and I mean no disrespect to the people who help me when I ask for an order of the succulent french fries their company is responsible for. But I hate them for their enormous breakfast sandwich.

Something for nothing is pretty appealing. I have been guilty of the same thing, and when I am wanting something for free it's usually because I am under the impression that I deserve it. That somebody owes me something. But there is never a substitute for hard work. That's really the only way to get the things that I want and to feel good about myself. The something-for-nothing attitude shows up a lot in politics too. There are a lot of examples, and some of them slip dangerously close to attitudes that have lead to the rise of extreme socialism and communism.

I stumbled across this editorial from a link on Mike Savage's website. It's very well written. It just so happens that two days in a row I have referenced previous presidents of the mormon church. Whatever. They were influencial guys, and you can't deny it. Especially this one.