My life is interesting

[jarandhel]

Got a call from Adecco this morning, they had a temporary assignment for me. It's only three days, but I'm making 10.98 an hour which is officially the highest salary I've ever drawn in my life. I'm working at the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and essentially what I'm doing is calling all the fire departments and fire fighting related organizations in and around Dallas, Texas asking for membership lists and stuff so that they can conduct a poll to gauge interest in an event they're hosting there, and make the event better. Frankly, so far, I'm not having much luck... companies do not like giving out contact information for their employees to strangers over the phone. It's also not really the "internet research" based assignment I was told it would be, though so far the internet has indeed been the richest source of actual contact information for the fire stations in Dallas county. I don't mind that too much, it just makes me wonder who comes up with the job descriptions for assignments like this. I've really been doing more cold-calling than searching on the internet. My boss at this job is also kind of weird. Her boss has told her that it's probably more effective to email or fax to obtain this kind of information, but she's resisting doing that due to fears that it will take too long to get the information that way. Again, don't really mind that so much, it means I'm employed again, if only for three days.

Comments

[per-akh.livejournal.com]

Good luck! And I miss you!

~Duo

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Thanks, bro. And I miss you too, very much. *cuddles da foxboi close* :)

[ex-casteylan314.livejournal.com]

Good luck and congrats on the job. But I wonder if it's even legal for companies to give out that kind of information on their employees. It sounds like that would be covered by some sort of data protection or privacy laws. It certainly would be completely illegal in the UK.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure without the employees direct consent it's not legal. I think that's why I've been striking out. But hey, I'm not being paid on comission but by the hour, so that really doesn't matter to me.

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

Actually, compared to the UK (hell, compared to practically *every other civilised country*) the US has some of the weakest privacy laws out there, period. Just about the only national-level equivalent we have to the Data Privacy Act is the HIPPA law, and that only applies to medical fields (and even then tends to have loopholes you could pilot a Gundam through--among other things, governments can request the info if it's "in the national interest" or if there is a declared epidemic or if you are in "danger of grave injury" otherwise).

The few privacy laws of *any* kind protecting data tend to be on the state level, or are involving government agencies involving government data (for example, the Census Bureau does have confidentiality laws it must follow, in particular in regards to the Long Form which it recently split into its own survey), but private companies, local governments, etc. literally have almost no legal restrictions on selling almost all your personal data to whomever they wish--and, very often, they do (there is a reason there is quite a business in the US for "find-a-friend" directories, "unpublished phone" lookup services, and private-eye services--much of this is actually sold to other companies for purposes of "skip tracing", background investigations, and flat out data mining).

In fact, the US Government actually got into a controversy not too long ago when it was found out that in a trial replacement of its flight screening program it was buying people's personal information from direct mailing companies, credit bureaus, and the like. (Yes, technically third parties can buy your *credit info* in the US unless you explicitly tell your credit card companies not to sell it. This and the US Postal Service selling lists of addresses is actually how most junk post gets to one's mailboxes in the US.)

You do not KNOW what most Americans would give for even a data protection law like Canada's, much less a *solid* data protection law like the Data Protection Act. :P

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

They're supposed to be doing massive hiring in my department this year if you're interested, but it may be hard to work around your school schedule.