But Wait! There's More! Part 1
Be careful what you ask for...
Bennie Clump took a deep breath, sucking in the blessed silence around him, and slumped down in his chair. Everyone in the office was gone for the weekend; most of them had cut out early, and none of them had done a lick of any work after lunch. Bennie was different; he’d worked right up to five o’clock and was still working when Mr. Sampson walked by. Mr. Sampson gave him an approving nod on the way out.
Now they were gone. Nobody to interrupt him for hours and hours but the cleaning lady, and she wouldn’t be around until seven at least and would be gone by ten.
No one to bother him. No one to make fun of him.
No Gibson stealing his chair, no Washburn constantly dropping by his cubicle to point out how lousy he was at absolutely everything he did, how Bennie had to stay late every weekend to get caught up, how much better everyone else was…and how his job hung by a thread.
Bennie’s head jerked sideways, as if to fling away an annoying gnat, trying to dispel that image. He couldn’t lose this job; he’d do anything it took to hang onto it.
Until he found something better, of course.
But what if Washburn was right? What if he was as useless as they kept telling him he was? Had Mr. Sampson given him a kind of weird look when he went by?
Bennie drove that thought away by taking a sip of the harsh tepid coffee—the last dregs drained from both the pots that sat bubbling on their burners in the break room all day—and made a face. Too much sugar, but the horrible mixture would help him stay awake while he surfed.
He just had to find some way of making money, and everyone said there was money to be made on the Net. It took some time and research and luck; that’s what he’d heard. And that was the problem. Luck was something he’d never had much of, not in his whole life. But this time it was going to be different, he just knew.
“Email first,” he muttered, and the echoes that tried to race away were instead absorbed by the rows of cubicle walls.
Bennie didn’t dare check his email during the day, of course. Not on company time. But now that he’d convinced Mr. Sampson that he didn’t mind staying late to work on various projects, he had free rein on the company’s system. Good thing, too; he had to cancel his own service—well, it had been canceled for him when he couldn’t pay the bill.
He clicked on one of his free email names—Braniac99—and scrolled down the long list, clicking ‘delete’ on the male enhancement ads and offers of cheap software. The reply to yesterday’s email; would it be there? Would it, or was it just another scam?
Yes! There it was.
Re: ‘But wait! There’s more! read the subject line. Bennie sucked in a big breath and clicked to open the email. He could feel his heart pounding as his eyes raced down the screen:
Congratulations, Brainiac99! You’ve just taken your first step to financial freedom! We have received and processed the list of twenty-five emails you provided us and have sent $10 for each name to your PayBuddy account. Click here to view your updated account.
Bennie held his breath as he clicked on the link and entered his password. The retained breath exited in a gush of amazement. Wow. The email hadn’t lied. His PayBuddy account, sitting at a screaming buck seventy-five yesterday, now showed $251.75.
“Rich! I’m gonna be rich!” he whooped.
And he was, too. After all, right here at his fingertips, right here in the office system, he had access to an astronomical number of emails. If this wasn’t a scam, of course—and even if it was, it didn’t matter, as long as he got his. Who cared how many other people got ripped off, as long as his account kept going up up up uppity up?
Bennie closed the PayBuddy window to finish the email and see what he had to do next.
‘Now that you’ve begun your march to financial freedom,’ the email continued, ‘here’s your next step. Hit ‘reply’ and send us, in the body of the email, one hundred email addresses. Once we receive them, we will deposit $15—yes, that’s fifteen dollars!—for each name—you read that right: each name!—in your PayBuddy account. Thanks…and welcome to prosperity!
Sincerely,
Bud Connors, BLZ Corporation
“God bless BLZ and Bud,” Bennie murmured as he opened a company file and grabbed the first hundred emails he found. He pasted them into the reply and hit ‘send’.
Then he went to his next free email account, StudDog 89, and scrolled down, hitting delete, delete, delete—hey. Wait a minute. Was it?
It was.
Subject: But wait! There’s more!
Dear StudDog89: Do you need money? Well, who doesn’t, right? And are you tired of all the endless scams offering to make you rich? Well, who isn’t, am I right? Forget about them, all of them! Here’s a legitimate offer at last. Send us twenty-five emails, and we’ll pay you ten dollars—not in total, but ten dollars for each and every email you send. We’ll deposit it right into the account of your choice. PayBuddy recommended.
Don’t wait! Grab prosperity by the horns today!
Sincerely,
Bud Connors, BLZ Corporation
To be continued…