Bone In The Throat

It was a legitimate job.

When I responded they sent me a little 15 question quiz, which to answer properly would have been at least a 15 page response. 

That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the further I went into the answers the more I realized they didn’t want just a person to do a job. What they really wanted was a manager or a lead role.

The more I thought about that, the more I remembered why I’d stepped away from management roles. Then I thought about managing people in today’s workforce and everyone’s feelings and pronouns and gender identity and racial identity, how much politics has permeated the business world, and how easily offended people are…

Still further into the quiz, my stomach knotted, the pounding in my ears grew, and after wondering why I was in such a foul mood, it dawned on me the mere thought of being in management again was triggering me.

It’s not that I can’t do lead roles or management. It’s that when I’d stepped away, people were already more interested in all the bullshit distractions than actually doing the job.

Being labeled a manager or lead had become only a title and the manager was nothing more than a fall guy when something didn’t work. But that person had no real authority to control the outcome. 

The role was a placeholder to insulate upper management whose poor decisions could potentially lead to project failure.

I can’t begin to imagine how horrifically screwed up being in one of those roles would be today.

What became crystal clear was that I not only wanted no part of that, but that physically it wouldn’t be healthy.

I made a decision. 

Much as I want and need a job. It is still as true today, as when I exited from management, I choose to be happy, healthy, and want to be able to put the day behind me without worry.

I spent too many years worrying about my job, doing the job well, dealing with problems, (project and personnel related,) missing out on vacations, time with Jerry, and in the end I did all this for very little reward or even recognition.

I sent a polite but direct “Thanks, but no thanks” email. 

I’m breathing easier, and the stress is leaving.

It might not have been the wisest decision, but it was the correct one.

I got an email yesterday. It appears to be a response to a job application.

The English is good. 

Had it showed up in my normal inbox, I’d have been giddy. But for some reason it was in my junk mail folder.

Hmmm. Why would that be?

It’s possible that the reason was that all CAPS subject line. That might have tripped the junk filter.

I’d have ignored it except that the rest of the message looks like a standard business email.

Hmmm.

Then, because I’m desperate for a job, and I have nothing better to do, I looked at the routing and header information.

That’s not exactly true, I have better things to do it’s just that those things aren’t things I actually want to do. In other words, I’m procrastinating and engaging in a bit of sophistry with myself as to the importance of determining if this is a real response.

So I looked up the originating domain. It was registered the same day as the email was sent. Well, that’s suspicious but the originating domain could just be a way for the company in question to separate recruiting email from the main corporate email.

The company is a global enterprise, as such, I could see the logic in keeping the two separate. The newness of the domain registration could have tripped the junk mail filter. It’s possible that said domain’s registration had not propagated to whitelists yet.

Inconclusive.

I looked at the originating email server’s IP address. It’s in Helsinki Finland. Weird!

Also associated with that IP are a number of complaints claiming that a lot of spam / scam email was coming from that particular email server. The most recent  complaint email was 3 years old. It’s possible that the junk mail filter was tripped by this older data and associated black list information.

Still inconclusive. 

Things happen fast in the IT world and 3 years is an eternity. 

The IP address could have been cleaned up, or reallocated, the owner might simply have misconfigured the email server and corrected the problem that was allowing SPAM mail to pass through it.

The Domain is registered in Germany. It could be that they’re using an email server in Finland. Although why not an email server in Berlin or Munich?

Still inconclusive.

This email has an X-Spam score of 12.5. Anything above a 5 is considered spam, that’s probably why the junk mail filter reacted.

However the X-Spam scoring system is based on previous behaviors, complaints, & reliability data. This is why it’s vitally important that email servers be configured properly such that unauthorized users cannot use them to send spam. It’s a pain in the behind to regain your reputation after a billion spam email have been sent through your server.

More conclusive.

The X-Spam system isn’t bad, but it can make mistakes.

Oddly, I can’t find any evidence that I’ve applied to this company. That being said, if they were using a recruiting firm I wouldn’t necessarily have a direct link. The position description in the message looks very much like something I would have applied to.

So, after all of this, it comes down to faith. Not faith in the email itself but faith that my defenses are strong enough to repel an onslaught of spam from some nefarious person or persons, attempting to rip me off.

There is one thing that caught my attention. There is IPv6 data in the email header. That makes me think the email may be legitimate. IPv6 is not something I’d expect to see coming from a spammer. Not that it’s impossible. I just wouldn’t expect to see it coming from a teenager in their mom’s basement.

Well, Hell.

I guess I’ll check my defenses, run another header analysis and respond.

I hate that I’ve been kicked enough that I’m so suspicious. But after a 5 year job search where so many scammers have wasted my time and had me jumping through hoops trying to get my personal data it just makes sense.