A little skepticism goes a long way

Sometimes I think the smartest answer I can give is, “I don’t think so.”

The phone rings and a voice at the other end tells me I’ve won an expense paid trip to Branson, Missouri.

Answer: “I don’t think so.”

The phone rings and a different voice insists they’re calling because I’ve expressed interest in a back brace advertised on TV.

Answer: “I don’t think so.”

The phone rings and a guy — a real person this time instead of a recording — suggests that I should advertise in a magazine few people read as a way of showing my support for the police.

With all due respect to my friends in law enforcement, the answer is the same: “I don’t think so.”

The phone rings again and — after some buzzing and static — I’m talking to some fellow in the backwaters of Asia who says he’s calling because of problems with my Windows computer.

Answer: “I don’t think so.” This time it is embellished with some expletives, a suggestion that he ought to be in jail and the information that my computer is an iMac. No Windows here.

The same formula works at the office.

“There’s a call for you on line 2,” Kari will tell me. “They’re asking for ‘John.’”

Since John is my legal name but not the name I go by, both Kari and I know there’s a sales pitch of some sort on the line.

It may be a brokerage boilerhouse somewhere under the misguided impression that I’d rather entrust my 401K to someone I’ve never met instead of a local broker. 

It may be some character pitching an oil well deal in Texas under the misguided impression that I have money lying around to play with.

It may be someone with a consulting business who just happens to have one of their hard-sell pitchmen in the neighborhood next week and wonders if I have some time to spare.

Answer in all those cases: “I don’t think so.”

It works for the internet as well.

Those emails you get from a distant acquaintance where the cc list seems to be completely random and the entire message is a link to a sketchy website? Trashing them is just another way of saying, “I don’t think so.”

Spam and phishing and ransomware are real, and sometimes “I don’t think so” is your best defense. A little healthy skepticism can go a long, long way when it comes to avoiding viruses and other internet gremlins.

And then there are the ones that play on your ego.

An email out of the blue from someone you’ve never heard of that suggests you’d be a perfect candidate for some corporate board position tends to pump you up. But if you do a little research, you’ll find that the best answer is — you guessed it — “I don’t think so.”

And the beat goes on.

A few years ago, when the International Center for Journalists asked me to consider a press development project in Ethiopia, I signed up for an academic website in order to access some scholarly papers that would give me needed background.

The Ethiopian project didn’t materialize, but ever since then I’ve had an occasional email from the same outfit telling me that my name has popped up in some new academic dissertation or some book.

Trouble is, in order to find out how I was mentioned it was necessary to sign up for the “premium service” at a significant fee.

I was curious for about 30 seconds, then I remembered that one of the most prestigious experts on Japanese art is a man named Jack Ronald Hillier. It only took about two seconds after that to realize that he’s the person whose work had been cited in an academic paper.

Would the research paper cite a small town newspaper publisher in Indiana rather than an art historian of international repute?

The answer was obvious: “I don’t think so.”