I have a story of temptation and pressure---not as good as Jacques's but maybe interesting anyway. I was leaving grad school (not for tech) and getting back int

I have a story of temptation and pressure---not as good as Jacques's but maybe interesting anyway. I was leaving grad school (not for tech) and getting back into programming. I had two new kids, and I was really ready to stop living on $21k/yr (my student stipend), but I didn't have a lot of work yet, and I wasn't sure how my 5-year hiatus would look. I had done a few projects for a small agency, and the owner was having me spec & quote work for potential new customers. One of these customers wanted us to build a "dashboard" to control a fleet of machines that would generate fake reviews for sites like Yelp or Amazon. I'm not even sure if that is illegal, but it didn't seem good. I told him it didn't sound like work we could do. If he had been just my customer, it would have been easy, but it raised my anxiety to say it to my customer's customer. I think Jacques's conclusion about "a bad beginning" is very wise, and I'm glad he had to foresight to see all that. I hope his story helps keep other people out of trouble. His writing it up is really a gift to them.