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rynlingFor reasons that I promise are unrelated to doing crime, I spent a lot of time on the FBI website last night.
I'm writing a review of a recently published Japanese book titled 或るバイトを募集しています, which is a collection of found footage horror stories about strange part-time jobs. If I had to guess, I'd say these stories are partially inspired by all the public discourse in 2024 surrounding "yami baito." I'm not sure how to translate this term, but maybe "shady temp job" works.
Basically, someone will offer a seemingly simple job on an aboveground platform like Fiverr that will be like: I'm really sick this weekend, and I need someone to deliver a birthday gift to my beloved uncle the next prefecture over. And it will be drug running. I've also read that there's been a recent surge of "no Japanese language ability required" jobs for stripping copper wiring from abandoned houses (which is illegal).
Aside from a short BBC podcast episode (here) and some hearsay on Reddit, I couldn't find any information on yami baito in English that I could link to in my review. I therefore started looking for whether organized crime uses job recruitment sites in the United States.
I couldn't find anything resembling yami baito, but I did find a ton of reports about localized job recruitment scams posted by regional FBI bureaus. Like, a scammer will go through a lot of trouble to set up a seemingly legit job posting; and then, once they "hire" someone, they will steal all the personal information from the "onboarding" process (including voice recordings from interviews) and sell it elsewhere. Apparently, these sort of recruitment scams have become increasingly common on LinkedIn and Facebook since the pandemic.
I mean sure, everyone loves crime. Steal from the rich and give to the poor, and all that. But stealing from broke-ass college students just trying to find a job? And from working-class retirees who can't make ends meet with their social security checks? What the fuck??
Like don't get me wrong. Nobody has to hand it to the FBI, and I don't actually want to join an evil organization that assassinates people. But listen. Scammers target the vulnerable, and I hate them. If I had the power and authority to find them and shut them down, I would have so much fun.
I happen to be very good at internet-stalking people, and it gives me incredible pleasure to go through the process of doing so. I don't do it because it's an invasion of people's privacy. Obviously. I also think it's psychologically unhealthy to take receipts like that. Also I have a job and a life.
But damn if I didn't entertain a fantasy of working for the FBI during my morning jog lmao.
Anyway, if my recent search history has put me on some sort of watchlist, I encourage the agent reading this to leave kudos on my fic on AO3, thanks.
I'm writing a review of a recently published Japanese book titled 或るバイトを募集しています, which is a collection of found footage horror stories about strange part-time jobs. If I had to guess, I'd say these stories are partially inspired by all the public discourse in 2024 surrounding "yami baito." I'm not sure how to translate this term, but maybe "shady temp job" works.
Basically, someone will offer a seemingly simple job on an aboveground platform like Fiverr that will be like: I'm really sick this weekend, and I need someone to deliver a birthday gift to my beloved uncle the next prefecture over. And it will be drug running. I've also read that there's been a recent surge of "no Japanese language ability required" jobs for stripping copper wiring from abandoned houses (which is illegal).
Aside from a short BBC podcast episode (here) and some hearsay on Reddit, I couldn't find any information on yami baito in English that I could link to in my review. I therefore started looking for whether organized crime uses job recruitment sites in the United States.
I couldn't find anything resembling yami baito, but I did find a ton of reports about localized job recruitment scams posted by regional FBI bureaus. Like, a scammer will go through a lot of trouble to set up a seemingly legit job posting; and then, once they "hire" someone, they will steal all the personal information from the "onboarding" process (including voice recordings from interviews) and sell it elsewhere. Apparently, these sort of recruitment scams have become increasingly common on LinkedIn and Facebook since the pandemic.
I mean sure, everyone loves crime. Steal from the rich and give to the poor, and all that. But stealing from broke-ass college students just trying to find a job? And from working-class retirees who can't make ends meet with their social security checks? What the fuck??
Like don't get me wrong. Nobody has to hand it to the FBI, and I don't actually want to join an evil organization that assassinates people. But listen. Scammers target the vulnerable, and I hate them. If I had the power and authority to find them and shut them down, I would have so much fun.
I happen to be very good at internet-stalking people, and it gives me incredible pleasure to go through the process of doing so. I don't do it because it's an invasion of people's privacy. Obviously. I also think it's psychologically unhealthy to take receipts like that. Also I have a job and a life.
But damn if I didn't entertain a fantasy of working for the FBI during my morning jog lmao.
Anyway, if my recent search history has put me on some sort of watchlist, I encourage the agent reading this to leave kudos on my fic on AO3, thanks.
