Rant (1) - Finding an Online Job

If you have just resigned from a 'real' job (meaning a job that you are actually paid for and interact with other people) and are now living with your parents (which is pretty normal from where I come from) and are looking for a job that gives you enough time to write stuff (stories, nonsense, daydreams, etc.) then...you must be me.



The 'in' thing in this generation of technology savvy people is the online market. By having an online job, you can work at home, minimizing expenses such as board and lodging if your workplace is not in your hometown, transportation expenses, food and other necessary paraphernalia because you are working at home with only the electricity and internet connection as capital. Online jobs have proliferated and expanded and are taking over the world! Not really. But online jobs are everywhere. You can see their advertisements on social networks, games, blogs and even some of these advertisements and websites are being maintained by people working online (duh!). Try as we might, once we turn the computer on and the internet is up, we're looking at works of art by people who work their butts off in front of an electronic smart box. (we can't call computers idiot boxes now, can we?)

Facing this rise in online hiring and the competition we, unemployed people, have is just one of the many things I would like to rant about (hence the title). There is such a huge market of software developers, programmers, people who write SEO, publish SEO, comment on SEO, develop SEO and other stuff in SEO, that I think (purely opinion based) if the world wide web were suddenly to shut down and never to connect our computers again, we'd all be incapable of living in the real world. Sounds like an end times prophecy, doesn't it? It's just a thought though. People have been relying on computers so much that they barely leave the worn out seat in front of it. Good for me, I bring my laptop everywhere so there won't be any worn out seats. But for the rest of the world, well, it's seldom that you see people around that's not holding or thinking of computers and their applications.

What if we take all these computers and put them in a box and then bury them deep deep deep down into the earth and wait. Wait for what? Wait for it to decompose? I'm sorry environmentalists, it's just that I don't think burning them or throwing them into the sea or into the atmosphere is going to be much help to our environment. I was thinking of burying them on the moon so our plants don't have to suffer from the acids and poisonous materials these equipment are made of. Deviating from the deviation that I just made from the original topic of this paragraph, when all the computers have gone, what are we, the computing generation, supposed to do? I know what I'm going to do without computers. I write. I literally write on paper and my desire to do so has never left me even when I got my laptop. But the rest of the world? Do we go back to farming? Does anyone still know how to farm? Or to read books, in the library, where real, physical, hard bound, soft bound, leather bound and smelly books are found? Does anyone still know how to learn about things without using Google? Just wondering.

Another thing about online jobs is that, well, for me, I don't get to travel! Well I do if I wanted to but it's not part of the job. It's like your office is your home. You don't get to meet a lot of people and you don't get to invite people out at night after work to eat at some cheap restaurant or go flea market shopping (do flea markets still exist?). It's all virtual! Like playing SIMS (though I've never tried that game before). We get trapped in a space where real people connect to each other in a virtual and superficial way. It's like having a boss you can scream at but won't hear you because your speakers and video cam are off and you're just chatting in a message box that doesn't update messages as fast as YM or Skype does. It's not REAL!

Actually it is real but...you get the picture.

Then, I admit that I've been writing for online stuff and, well, I don't get to choose what I want to write! I am assigned to write stuff that are not even true! Sure, there is (no) truth in advertising but to write about it in a way that people would actually end up buying your product or service, it's just, you know, it's a job. Jobs are to be done excellently and I do want to write excellently but to lie? I hope my next article is going to be a good one.

I don't have anything against assigned writing. The only thing I don't like is talking about products and the products of a service as if other people are satisfied with it even though you don't have tangible proof of their testimonies. I mean, if I have to write about the wondrous effects of a tanning cream, I at least should know one person who's used it and agrees with my article. That's a good back up to anyone who would question a product's advertising. Just saying.

Anyway, because I realized that ranting about online jobs even though I am in an online job can be fatal to your career, I am going to end by saying this last few things: online jobs are not for everyone. You can love your work or you can go find another work. Some online jobs can build you up, others can burn your brain like a toaster. In the end, it's all your choice. Work it out or-- work it out.

Happy job hunting!