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Well, it was the computer store, but he was still bloody strange. I'm inspecting the networking stuff when he makes his appearance.
Mike, the giant, overweight, middle aged, pimply white dude comes over to take up my space. He does apologize for sucking up my oxygen, but explains that this is where the air conditioning blows strongest. Mike then proceeds to launch into a serious customers suck rap. Mike, it seems, is lonely.
I chat with Mike about computer stuff and help him lament the stupidity of the people who help him keep his job. He's fairly amusing and seems mostly harmless. He does mention that this is his day job and he's really an attorney, but I choose not to pursue that one.
I end up getting a couple of Linksys Switches for $20 each (yay!) and 50' of CAT5 cable for under $30. Cable is always too dear, but I wanted it now. Overall, I'm happy with my stuff. And, as we move to the check out, there's Mike.
This time, we get more into the life of Mike. He may really have been a lawyer, but he is currently working in sales to hide his assets from some ongoing litigation. He drives a beater car, but owns a couple of houses worth about a million bucks. He's a criminal defense attorney. He used to be a prosecutor, but he didn't like convicting people even when he knew they were innocent. He doesn't mind getting off people he knows are guilty, they pay him. The more he speaks the more apparent it becomes; Mike is a sleezeball.
Mike now launches into a proud retelling of how "friends" ( his quotes ) of his ripped off a chain of hardware stores by falsely returning items they'd purchased from a different store chain that was going out of business. Mike, impressed with his own cleverness, recounts the scam in detail. We hear about some social engineering, the surveying of multiple sites so they can stay under the red flag amount of $300 on the return limit. They got business cards printed, posed as contractors, even bought items from the chain to have receipt stubs and store bags to complete the facade.
I didn't have to ask how Mike felt about his crime, he was obviously proud. He didn't understand why I was uncomfortable with the idea. Why I thought it was wrong. Didn't I see the brilliance of the plan? We then managed to escape before he could confess to more nefarious behavior. And he really did want to tell more. This dude needed a priest, or a cop, or something.
Mike, the giant, overweight, middle aged, pimply white dude comes over to take up my space. He does apologize for sucking up my oxygen, but explains that this is where the air conditioning blows strongest. Mike then proceeds to launch into a serious customers suck rap. Mike, it seems, is lonely.
I chat with Mike about computer stuff and help him lament the stupidity of the people who help him keep his job. He's fairly amusing and seems mostly harmless. He does mention that this is his day job and he's really an attorney, but I choose not to pursue that one.
I end up getting a couple of Linksys Switches for $20 each (yay!) and 50' of CAT5 cable for under $30. Cable is always too dear, but I wanted it now. Overall, I'm happy with my stuff. And, as we move to the check out, there's Mike.
This time, we get more into the life of Mike. He may really have been a lawyer, but he is currently working in sales to hide his assets from some ongoing litigation. He drives a beater car, but owns a couple of houses worth about a million bucks. He's a criminal defense attorney. He used to be a prosecutor, but he didn't like convicting people even when he knew they were innocent. He doesn't mind getting off people he knows are guilty, they pay him. The more he speaks the more apparent it becomes; Mike is a sleezeball.
Mike now launches into a proud retelling of how "friends" ( his quotes ) of his ripped off a chain of hardware stores by falsely returning items they'd purchased from a different store chain that was going out of business. Mike, impressed with his own cleverness, recounts the scam in detail. We hear about some social engineering, the surveying of multiple sites so they can stay under the red flag amount of $300 on the return limit. They got business cards printed, posed as contractors, even bought items from the chain to have receipt stubs and store bags to complete the facade.
I didn't have to ask how Mike felt about his crime, he was obviously proud. He didn't understand why I was uncomfortable with the idea. Why I thought it was wrong. Didn't I see the brilliance of the plan? We then managed to escape before he could confess to more nefarious behavior. And he really did want to tell more. This dude needed a priest, or a cop, or something.