Should You Protect A Scammer Who Has Helped You Succeed?
I have many blogs and websites, some good, some absolute crap (I had to learn somewhere 
). When I began working on the net, I hovered for a while, reading other blogs and forums and anywhere I could find helpful (rather than crap) information, and then I dived into an adult webmaster’s forum and asked some questions.
Several people answered and one in particular gave me a fair bit of help. That help came at the price of signing up for some of his sponsors, but I reckoned that was very fair exchange and hoped I would later on be able to make this worth his while.
My ‘mentor’ wasn’t always around when he had ‘promised’ he would be, but I’m not the complaining type. I just got on and learned more how to do things myself.
After a while, I reached the stage many of us reach in a new career. I knew I was doing some things wrong (hardly any sales), so I asked for help on the forum I had gone to originally.
My mentor rushed to the rescue as if he had never disappeared, offered me very good advice, and then went on his way, with the promise to be in touch the very next day with even more help (I hadn’t asked by the way).
Of course, that ‘follow up help’ never materialised, but then I had never expected it would. I was happy enough with the help I had received and, with the extra advice and more of my own research, eventually my ‘little business’ took off.
However, I have always thought of this guy as ‘my mentor’, despite the fact I know other mentors who help people much more and actually keep their promises. I am pretty self sufficient anyway. I believe you learn more that way. And he had been there to help at the times I needed help the most.
So, as far as I am concerned, he was my mentor and I guess I will always feel that way.
I always knew this guy was a bit of a rogue. Nothing criminal, but willing to ‘bend the rules’ to suit him and his needs and definitely ‘cut throat’ when he needed to be. But then, aren’t most successful business men (and women) like that anyway?
In any case, by that time, he knew I was smart and he did appear to have some respect for me.
But then the economy took a nose dive.
And now, my ‘mentor’ is using his ‘business methods’ in an even more cut throat way. Again, nothing criminal – just not good for the unwary.
I guess he must be finding things harder now, like the rest of us – more work for only the same (or sometimes even less) reward. It’s happening all over. People find their ways to deal with it.
He has definitely found his.
If I think about this, I suppose the thing which hurts the most, is that he even tried to scam me. And what hurts is not so much the attempted scam, but the thought he could get away with it without me noticing.
Now that is an insult to my intelligence. He should have know better than that.
He knows I know. He hasn’t tried it again.
But very often now, I see ‘my mentor’ trying to scam wide-eyed, eager newbies with his schemes. To me, his tricks are blatantly obvious. But others often don’t see through them (or the wiser ones choose to ignore them). And the newbies hold him in high esteem.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to hold back and not ‘out’ him publicly for his methods.
For the newbies’ sake I should.
And my ‘broad hints’ are falling on deaf ears.
He knows I know what he is doing, but he thinks I won’t let on.
Perhaps he is right…
But I am definitely pondering this whole dilemma probably a lot more than he thinks. My only question is…
Do I really owe my mentor my silence?
No Sox related posts.
Leave a Reply