Photo by jetalone from Flickr used under Creative Commons
Most of the time, spam makes me laugh. Earlier in the week, I got a spam note that is worth passing on for its epic failure.
The subject was “The book Oracle does NOT want you to read.”
OK, I’m intrigued, if only because someone thought that Oracle employees would bite on a book their employer purportedly doesn’t want them to read.
Is this reverse psychology? A honey pot from HR?
I’ve redacted some of the email body because I have no intention of advertising for these schmucks.
Let’s examine this fail.
First, it’s probably been blasted by a spambot at some list of oracle.com email addresses because of a keyword match. Second, why would people who work at the company in question need a tell-all book by an ex-insider? We work here, so we either already know or we know it’s completely bogus.
Third, why would we realistically jeopardize our employment by buying a book our employer doesn’t want us to read?
Finally, the juicy part reads like any office in any industry. If in fact, it’s true, how is this unique to Oracle?
And arid? Really? Someone failed English. Take it from me, we have plenty of water here.
Anyway, it’s always fun to watch spammers fail. Speaking of which, did you notice that we have a 419 spam comment?
I thought about submitting them to 419 Eater, but then I lost interest.
Update: Realized right after posting that I might be providing some Google keyword love by quoting their abstract, so captured an image instead.
“…as a career advancing tool”? I don't think so. Just ask [name redacted because I don't want to feed the Google keyword love either].
Actually, there is a possibility that some people in a company might buy “the book the company doesn't want you to read.” Perhaps a proposal writer will see the book and say, “Sure this doesn't happen in my department, but I bet all those people in that other department are doing all of this stuff!” In large companies, you really don't know what 90% of the people in the company are doing, so some might even regard a book like this as educational.
That stuff crosses all offices, e.g. ever been in a large company without office politics. Or any office for that matter?
Even if people were interested, the pitch is flawed. Sure, it generates curiosity, but I doubt sales would follow.