There is certainly nothing new about getting SPAM (defined here as unwanted advertisements sent via email) in your email.  However, there has been a recent shift that I have seen in the content of the spam I am getting, and it deserves to be remarked on.

Everyone knows that our US national job market is trashed, and most intelligent people either know or suspect that the government has been fudging the numbers for years.  I know I have never been counted, because when I left the workforce, I was not eligible for unemployment, and though not old enough to retire I have not worked in about 7 years.  I’m just a part of the unofficial statistic the government prefers to pretend doesn’t exist.  The government pretends that if you are not currently drawing unemployment compensation, you are employed.

Mind you, I have NEVER been qualified for any job that payed better than $20k/yr (my last job’s official compensation rate).  Since I didn’t work that last job for a full year, I can honestly say that I have never actually earned more than $10k in a single tax year, though I nearly did the year I made PFC in the US Army.

Yet, for some silly reason I have suddenly (just in the last few weeks) started getting email “notices” that I have been selected to work at a who’s-who of Fortune 500 companies (including Sony, Ford, Google, and IBM) at salaries ranging from $5k/wk to $87,000/wk.

It shouldn’t take a genius to instantly recognize that all such ads are (at best) SPAM.  They may even be illegal PHISHING emails.  If you get something like that (especially from a company you have not recently applied to work for), there is only one correct thing to do with it – hit the “DELETE” button!