Just another job?

I tend to have odd jobs, or at least jobs with odd aspects. I’ve been a fireworks guard, tried to get Samoans to play half-court, had my own lawn mowing business, worked at a Blimpie’s in a gas station, onion research assistant, confused intern in Brazil, legit loan shark and collector, worked for the company that first came up with sub-prime mortgages, and now I work in the admissions office at Brandeis.

The job is awesome! I really enjoy it. The people I work with are great. However, there is a major weirdness factor to my job. One of my main duties is to answer emails from potential students. The vast majority of our emails come from foreign countries, close to 90%. I enjoy some of the emails immensely. For instance, I am convinced that instead of saying I have a problem, I’m going to say, a problem arose right unexpectedly. There have been many more. Emails from the prospectives is just part of the fun.

I also delete a ton of grammatically incorrect spam mail. Some of the email phrasings are pretty classic and sometimes a little bit disturbing. Most are for ladies, so I won’t write those, but I think if you want to try to make an email message romantic Google translate might not be the best option. A lot are petitions asking for funds usually to free some political prisoner or some other worthy cause. I wonder how many times those things actually work.