

Good Samaritan Uses Exec To Return Lost Immigration Documents - jazzychad
http://blog.iamexec.com/post/22740716712/good-samaritan-uses-exec-to-return-lost-immigration

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bentlegen
Shortly after moving to the US, I lost my passport after visiting the social
security office. I didn't even notice it was missing until a good samaritan
sent me an @mention on Twitter claiming he'd found it on the sidewalk. He
interrupted his day to hand it to me personally.

Good samaritans are everywhere. Most don't write blog posts about their good
deeds.

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eridius
The good samaritan in this case _didn't_ write a blog post. Exec did. They're
using this as a bit of publicity, and honestly, I don't see anything wrong
with that.

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tlrobinson
In general I agree, but this feels slightly staged. Why would you take a photo
of the handoff?

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eridius
Because you've already decided that this would make a great blog post, and so
you want to make sure to get some pictures. A comment below by justin (who
apparently works for Exec) seems to indicate this is the case.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3951355>

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kevinchen
I'm happy that the guy got his documents returned to him, and I don't question
the story's truth. But how is this blog post anything but a PR thing for Exec?

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Lukeas14
By definition anything on their blog is PR for Exec. But it's also a fun,
heartwarming story so I don't see the problem.

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PakG1
If it wasn't a fun, heartwarming story, would there be a problem? PR is PR, it
is what it is. There's good PR and there's bad PR, naturally.

~~~
quorn3000
It's an ill wind...

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waiwai933
As well as this story turned out, surely it's a bad idea (assuming you're not
an evil criminal) to just hand someone else's immigration documents to a
stranger to return? Sure, Exec vets its people, but it can't be perfect.
What's wrong with either 1) doing it yourself after the meeting, or 2) turning
it over to the police? Yes, the return will be delayed, but there's a
significantly lower risk of personal info being compromised.

~~~
patio11
As someone who has lost immigration documents before, I heartily approve of
whichever method you choose to get them back to me, regardless of whether that
is a) handing it over to a secretary, b) handing it over to the cops, or c)
handing it over to the first foreigner you meet on the assumption that all
foreigners probably know each other.

That last one lead to a truly surreal telephone conversation with someone who,
well, speaks Chinese a lot better than I do, but we did eventually get it
sorted out.

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ahi
I don't know about Japan, but I suspect that in most major metropolitan areas
in the US b) has roughly the same chance of success as dropping them out of an
airplane.

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waiwai933
I'd go to a smaller police station personally, but then I live in the suburbs,
where we have police officers who do have the time to do the legwork and
return it. I do agree, though, the police's reliability can get spotty at
times.

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mrmagooey
Whilst I believe that this as you present it, I think you guys need to work on
your marketing somewhat. Basically, the narrative of a spontaneous act of
goodwill that just happens to be enabled by your service is at odds with the
significant knowledge of the story and the posed photos.

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ben0x539
It kinda looks like that is standard procedure for them:
<https://iamexec.com/feed>

The possibly fairly detailed job descriptions apparently go through the
company and are then assigned to the person doing the job, so it seems fairly
plausible that someon at dispatch went "oh, that could be a good PR
opportunity" and asked for more details.

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iwinulose
Anyone else think he meant exec (3)?

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mkopinsky
I came here looking for an OS injection vulnerability in the new RFID-enabled
passports.

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mey
What is the marketplace called that Exec. operates in? Some hybrid of on
demand service, personal assistant.

Of course, not sure if such a service operates in PDX...

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achille2
This reeks of PR fabrication.

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justin
Sorry, but Andrew really is that good of a guy. The Exec who picked it up
happened to be in our office when he did, so we asked him to snap some
pictures (with the parties' permission) in case it turned out to be a story
with a happy ending. Which it did.

