Turned Down a Gig on Principle

Uncayimmy

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Oct 14, 2008
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I was contacted by someone interested in my web development and marketing services. She runs a site dealing in the metaphysical and was looking to rework and expand it.

At first blush the site seemed to center (pardon the pun) on meditation. I'm okay with meditation. However, as I explored it further, there was plenty of woo. For example, your fingerprints are formed in the womb and do not change during your lifetime. Therefore, they are much more reliable for making life decisions than other forms of palmistry.

The site also got into explaining that 40,000 years ago we had the first to attain Final Liberation - they even know the First Master's name (quite a feat, that). Apparently the person who contacted me is the newest addition to this lineage, and she provides Life Master Readings from your skin ridges at $60 per hour.

I declined to pursue it any further. While I wouldn't mind taking some money out of her pocket, I'm very good at what I do, so I know it would only serve to line her pockets even more. That didn't sit well with me.
 
Good on you. We used to run the website for a woo publisher called Hayhouse (http://www.hayhouse.co.uk/) and it seriously pained me to have to update it.

Tragically they took their business elsewhere and I was glad to be rid of it.
 
Good for you! :)

Three cheers for UncaYimmy!

One's talents should be used for good and not for evil. Too many smart and talented people are willing to use their gifts to scam and hurt others to make a dollar...Sylvia Browne's ghostwriters and journalists who write neutral/positive stories about woo come to mind.

I'd hate to have my research skills and ability to paint and draw be put to bad use.
 
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At the ripe old age of 45, I just gradated nursing school (RN). On my last care plan I included the nursing diagnoses of "Disturbed Energy Field" and did a fairly good spoof (if I do say so myself).
Several of the nurses I work with have talked about psychics, reiki, and TT.
During my psych rotation, I just missed a TT practitioner talking to substance abusers on a rehab unit (damn!).
If it didn't mean putting money into the hands of the deluded, I would love to take TT training just for the fun of having inside knowledge and demonstrating how stupid it is.
I am doing my little bit to educate my fellow nurses and to remind them what evidence based practice is.
 
Wolrab said:
If it didn't mean putting money into the hands of the deluded, I would love to take TT training just for the fun of having inside knowledge and demonstrating how stupid it is.
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Okay, here's what you do. Go to a used book store, and buy one book each featuring at least one of the following words in its title:
  • Chakra
  • Crystal
  • Energy
  • Magnet
  • Pyramid
  • Quantum
  • Secret
  • Spirit
Study each book, and write down in your own words a short summary of each chapter. Also write out a list of relevant "Buzz" words and terms.

Then go watch a few episodes of Star Trek, paying close attention to the matter-of-fact way they explain future tech - "Technobabble" it's called.

The next time some woo-woo brings up their favorite subject, broadside and strafe them with everything you've learned in this course of study. Leave out any references to causality, basic mathematics, historical facts, or the scientific method. In fact, the less sense it makes to you, the better!

Congratulations! You are now a Graduate, En Ominous Moritatum, in the Fnordic School of Spiritual Science.

Go In Peace
 
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When I was a W/A/W, I did not accept political or religious websites.

I did have some clients that were New-Agey, such as a flaky martial arts school.

The one contract I terminated which was neither political nor religious was an immigration lawyer. This turns out to be dodging a bullet, as he was indicted about a year later in some racketeering scheme.
 
Good for you!
I used to own a chain of retail stores. various groups would approach my managers on what semed a daily basis asking to put up a poster advertising whatever their interest was, local fete, circus in town, etc. My rule was always-
No religion.
No woo- (Psychic fair organisers were a regular refusal)
No commercial enterprises.

The most persistent were the jehovas with the little magazine with the smiley pictures and the blond middle easterners.

Anybody needing details of why I wouldnt have their poster up were given my mobile number. I only ever got one call by a reiki practitioner. He said I wasnt being community spirited.
I lost my signal.
 
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Good for you!

I'm currently between jobs, and I've refused to apply for at least one job because it was at a company that deals in woo, and harmful woo at that.

I'll do telemarketing before I work for a company that sells "natural supplements".
 
Fnord said:
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Okay, here's what you do. Go to a used book store, and buy one book each featuring at least one of the following words in its title:
  • Chakra
  • Crystal
  • Energy
  • Magnet
  • Pyramid
  • Quantum
  • Secret
  • Spirit
Study each book, and write down in your own words a short summary of each chapter. Also write out a list of relevant "Buzz" words and terms.

Then go watch a few episodes of Star Trek, paying close attention to the matter-of-fact way they explain future tech - "Technobabble" it's called.

The next time some woo-woo brings up their favorite subject, broadside and strafe them with everything you've learned in this course of study. Leave out any references to causality, basic mathematics, historical facts, or the scientific method. In fact, the less sense it makes to you, the better!

Congratulations! You are now a Graduate, En Ominous Moritatum, in the Fnordic School of Spiritual Science.

Go In Peace
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Perfect! Fnordic has just the right ring to it.
 
I used to volunteer for the Mitchell County Pioneer Cemetery Restoration Project and when I first started they would use long metal rods to poke into the ground where they thought a grave was to confirm it's location. Not exactly the most reliable method but at least it was something to go on. One day I show up at a site with my lawn mower and trimmer prepared for a day of pseudo-archeology when I spot dowsers walking around. I'm not one for conflict so I mowed and made an excuse to leave so I could e-mail the organizer and ask what the heck was going on. He said the dowsers were actually very accurate and they didn't need to poke graves anymore. This was my pre-JREF days and so I wasn't sure how to form a logical argument for not using dowsers (now I do, thanks JREF!) so I basically said, "Really? Dowsers?? Will you continue using them even though it's bull?" to which he said "Yes." so I said, "Then I can no longer in good conscious volunteer anymore."

Dowsing is still mentioned on their page: MCPCRP for example:

Osage Pioneer Cemetery (Original) has been located and identified. On W side of S. 7th St at the IC RR tracks. Additional probing and dowsing will be required to provide additional data as to those interred.
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Starthinker, I notice it says "probing and dowsing". Guess the dowsing isn't so accurate they need to give up probing the site too. I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
 
UncaYimmy, how did you decline the job? Did you actually tell them the real reasons?

Whenever I'm approached for a gig that I don't want to do, I usually avoid the protracted "No, that doesn't sound very interesting, and it's too many hours, and not enough pay, and it's suppose to be nice out and I want to go to the park that day, etc." (all of which may be true). Instead I just give them a nice short "No, I'm sorry, I'm already booked that day", and that's that. :)
 
UncaYimmy said:
I was contacted by someone interested in my web development and marketing services. She runs a site dealing in the metaphysical and was looking to rework and expand it.

At first blush the site seemed to center (pardon the pun) on meditation. I'm okay with meditation. However, as I explored it further, there was plenty of woo. For example, your fingerprints are formed in the womb and do not change during your lifetime. Therefore, they are much more reliable for making life decisions than other forms of palmistry.

The site also got into explaining that 40,000 years ago we had the first to attain Final Liberation - they even know the First Master's name (quite a feat, that). Apparently the person who contacted me is the newest addition to this lineage, and she provides Life Master Readings from your skin ridges at $60 per hour.

I declined to pursue it any further. While I wouldn't mind taking some money out of her pocket, I'm very good at what I do, so I know it would only serve to line her pockets even more. That didn't sit well with me.
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Personal call, I'd say. I would accept any client, except anyone engaged in clearly illegal activity.


M.
 
Wolrab said:
Perfect! Fnordic has just the right ring to it.
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The Fnordic School of Spiritual Science is not affiliated with the Church of Eris, the Illuminati, or Steve Jackson Games.

The vineyards and wineries at Chateau de Fnorde, on the other hand...

;)
 
I once "misplaced" some John Edwards and Kevin Trudeau books at the local library. Misplaced them behind the radiator, where no one would ever find it if they searched for a week. And into the trash can when no one was looking. :o

And I pulled the same thing at a bookstore and at a used book sale. :o

Come to think of it, it may not have been a good idea to make the library's books go missing. Since they will order new ones, in all likelihood.
 
Come to think of it, it may not have been a good idea to make the library's books go missing. Since they will order new ones, in all likelihood.
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Yes, most likely, they can be quite efficient.

Good not job UncaYimmy.
We are being filled with talk of the political consumer, nice to see the anti woo contractor*.


*That is the correct word, right?
 
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