deafbiz.com

Just an observation that I’m seeing so many deaf people working for Relay Services that it just reminds me of deaf printers union.

I haven’t yet started using Twitter but I have no doubt that the deaf community will catch on to it (witness twittering during the San Diego Fires).

So I found an excellent guide of twittering etiquette.

The Big Juicy Twitter Guide

Get ready to KickStart your career! Think of Facebook with serious networking.

Already there’s one for Gallaudet , RIT, and CSUN, but not NTID.   At least not yet.

Found it at CNN’s Money section where readers submitted bulls**t jobs and I didn’t expect to see Relay Services Operator on the list.

Relay is supposed to be a service for the deaf, hard of hearing, and speech disabled where a person using the Internet, cell phone or text telephone reaches an operator, I dial a number for them and relay conversation between a text and voice user.

90 percent of the calls we get are from people who are not deaf, most of them are scam calls or prank calls, so for eight hours a day, 40 hours a week I relay bogus conversations. The benefits are good though. The turnover rate is extraordinary. A few weeks of Nigerian scam calls and teenagers with nothing else to do can take a toll on some people.

Pay: 10.00-10.50 starting with the availability of a promotion after 6 months.

Can anyone from the Relay Services verify that 90% of the calls are NOT from or to deaf people? That’s pretty high and a huge waste of taxpayer’s money.

I found this website via LifeHacker which focuses on Informercial Scams.

I see DirectBuy TV commercials all the time. I recalled a very similar high-pressure sales pitch when we first bought our house. I can’t recall the company name except it started with “C”. At the sales pitch, they told use we must join today or forever lose the opportunity to save money. Well, my B.S. antenna shot way up and I said I needed time to think. The salesperson suddenly became cold to us and we were quickly shown the door.

So I had a hutch that Direct Buy was a reincarnation of this defunct company. Sure enough, the complaints listed at Infomercial Scam described the same high pressure sales pitch.

Here’s one of the complaints that caught my eye:

4/15/2007 - Karen writes:
We are a deaf couple from Phoenix, Arizona. We called them for an appointment for showroom etc. They said we would have to bring an interpreter(sign language) The supervisor (guy) was very rude to us. We cancelled it. Thank God. Later we found this website and learned more about Directbuy scam. Please do something to shut it down ! Contact the TV media- 20/20 !!!

Good thing they walked away. Supposed they had a UbiDuo? That would’ve solved the communication issue but then would they have fallen for the sales pitch anyhow?