You know them, those scammers on the phone? No, I don’t mean the sellers of our company, the Nigerian investors or the imaginary great-nephews; I mean the modern ones fraudsters who offer themselves as mysterious assistants to users wandering in Houtinch information technology. I don’t hear anything, call me gudmrning sr, maj nejm iz Ron (for example)ajem kling j from dz mikrosoft servis centr, and we have two firsts for you. First the pain: we found out that ev pota is infected with a dangerous virus! And here’s the good news: we at the Microsoft service center know and will advise how to remove this child from your problem again; just sit down at the keyboard and send our instruction.
I don’t know, always pretend to be Microsoft, maybe the Windows user represents the shadow clientele. Their English is well-known, grammatically correct, but always phonetically catchy. The names by which callers introduce themselves are chosen geographically and culturally neutral, as they are used in a global inn corporation: that is, Ron, Dave or Jane, but never Helmuth, Sergej or Andra. There is no need to speculate about that, nor about which continent and in which garage and kitchen the given service center is located.
Of course, even a little bit of a hunter wouldn’t come across such a fool; the only reasonable reaction is to immediately hang up without a single word of answer, done. That’s the way I always went, but for some time I had a somewhat unsatisfied curiosity: what exactly are you striving for, k asa? What do you want from your naive client? Password access to tm? credit card numbers? Or do you want to inject some malware? Why did they have to die somehow so that this stupid, years-long game could be completed? But, as it was, it didn’t cost me a day and speculation, not even (especially) at that time.
And once and for all I want to say that. Another one like that serviceman he called one morning, with his usual charm. But this time, I don’t know what happened, who asked me that or how the anger got into me. It was a nice day, I had my first coffee, and I didn’t want to go to work until noon. And I thought, for the sake of it, I’ll join your fraudulent game for a few minutes and find out what you actually want from your sacrifices. Come on muggle give me a day (Citt. Znte Sudden Impactthat beautiful old movie with Clint Eastwood, Magnum .44, and it shot up his temple and: go ahead, make my day! )
And so, when Ron (let’s face it) reaches the regular point of his water hog in the sweat is attacked by a bad virus, etc., I don’t even think about it, what kind of crap is this? Let’s play a scared user: h, dzets bed, uot udaj d nau? After that, my stream broke open like a table lamp with joy at such an easy task. Dount uory, srwe are here since ajuil help j, just follow my instruction. Come on, muggle, two instructions.
(For convenience, my English lines are given in etin. Ron’s speeches will be left in the original.) Are you using a computer? Yeah, he’s here. Is he going? Yes, it is on. Hey, are you at Microsoft? What if mm see? dz uindouz k! What can it be? I hear, it seems to me, a suppressed sigh, as if thinking, what exactly today do I have to come across some illiterate demented person? You’re welcome, I answer in my mind, the ever-present techno-illiterates are your target group, aren’t they? So two dl.
Vak dreams like this: Is it a Microsoft computer? What do you think? Eh, me too, eh uindouz computer? I do not know How do I know? Sigh again, what are you talking about? Luk et jr computer. Uot dj s? Look. I can see the screen. J with uindouz? No, I can see the letters. Letrz he dz skrn? Ut letrz? Well, such a letter… c, a colon… and so on. I hope she has some fun with it (eh, andra, I want to honor, Ron) somehow.
A brief pause, I hear accelerated breathing. But don’t pick it up. Sr? Izit zonly computer j hev? Mejb jhev enadzr uan? Okay, time for a quick maneuver: Oh eat, even hev I’m going to leave, stored in the basement. What? In dz selr? What do you think? Yes, that’s right, stored in the basement. (What else is not false!) Sr? How many computers are there? And I don’t know who told me this, I’m just fantasizing: jdontnou, mejb tuenty, mejb mr I don’t know how many pots are in the basement mm. Every time the disk is full, I go to the basement and buy a new one. They told me five years ago, when I bought the first one, that I could do it this way, that I was the best protected against viruses and kept pace with technological development.
But here it seems that I am speaking into a void; communication came to a standstill. There is silence at the other end of the line, only broken by a short, inarticulate cry. Why should I worry about Andrew’s (and Ron’s?) health. I imagine him rolling his eyes in despair as a thin trickle of sweat drips down his face. Sweat makes a hoarse voice: Sr!? Huh? rj krejzy, sr?
That’s too far for me, I’ll defend myself today gouztfr: you call me, ask about this and that about my problem, and then ask me how do you imagine it? But you can’t do that with the recipient, he just gave a hoarse and slow: eat sr, jr krejzy! Crosses!! And suddenly, in a moment of sudden realization: Jr, jr h BI OF SAN!
I know, it took me a while, a few seconds, I didn’t realize how many songs Andra (sorry, Ron) got involved in trying to offend as rudely as possible. And when I finally burst into uncontrollable laughter, it just chirped in the receiver and there was silence. Moula looked up. It doesn’t matter if he’s angry or with the left: he disconnected, he gave up. Behold, my triumph: he has made my day!
Since then, no one has called from the fraudulent service center. Mm calm down. But I have to regretfully admit to myself: I don’t know what these rascals are after, when one of them succeeds. Let’s kick it. Hopefully the eighth day will come to Udlon.
